Garage Door Opener suggestion

[Steve W8TOW]

OK fellers, what Garage Door Opener currently on the market is
least susceptible to RFI???
My 160/40m ant is about 40 feet above the garage and I only wanna
do this once...moving the antenna or moving the garage is not
an option!
73
steve
8tow

[WB6NVH]

Something else to consider is RFI not from you but from the military now that many bases are installing new trunked 2-way systems on +/- 385 MHz, the same slot that many openers use.

For example,

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/garage-door-remote-not-working-could-be-a-matter-of-national-security.html

[WQ9E]

Steve,

I have Chamberlain (3 to 5 years old depending upon garage) installed in both garages.  One garage is at the anchor point for one corner of my 80 meter horizontal loop and the other garage is in between the Rohn 55G tower with my 4 element triband quad and a Hy Gain 18HT.  No problem with any of them (both garages have multiple doors and openers installed).  

With the code technology I cannot imagine any undesired opening or closing and my wife has come and gone when I have been contesting and using the vintage gear and never a problem with loss of sensitivity.  When I installed them I wondered whether the long leads going to the optical reverse/stop safety sensors would be a problem with RF pickup and I thought I might have to install chokes but that has not been an issue.

Unless it has changed, Sears Craftsmen were made by Chamberlain.  One of the old ones I replaced was a Sears branded Chamberlain unit.

[Steve W8TOW]

Very cool guys...I am looking at a Craftsman AssureLink version and
they specify their product is designed to reject RFI...I think if they
are bold enough to admit that RFI can be a problem but they
are working with a design to prevent trouble from RFI that is a pretty
good indicator!

And I did find out this Craftsman is made by Chamberlain, too!

73
Steve

[WA1GFZ]

I hear man-ual steel handle type is fool proof.

[KE6DF]

When I was a 20 something engineer working in Silicon Valley, I thought it would be kind of cool to build a 100 watt transmitter for garage door freqencies that would sequentially run through all the opener codes.

Then go on top of a hill and open all the garage doors in the valley at the same time.

See how long it took to get on the news.

Never did it, however.

BTW, some guy in California was arrested for having a home-brew traffic light changer that worked like the ones the fire department has.

But, charges were dropped when it was discovered that there was no law on the books against having or using such a device.

[W1RKW]

I have 2 digital coded openers.  When first installed about 9 years ago it would open intermittently for no reason. Imagine hearing your opener open at 2AM for no reason or come home from work to a wide open garage.  The other opener worked OK fine.  So I swapped them. The swapped one then started opening intermittently for no reason as well.  To make a long story short.  The microwave oven, which was closest to the offending garage bay, due to random noise and to many garage door transmitter codes stored in it was causing it to false trigger.  How I came to this conclusion was 6 or 7 months of "trial and error" testing and hoping that when I come home from work that I didn't find the door wide open.  Reset the opener and only stored 2 transmitter codes rather than 6 and all worked OK fine ever since.  Openers are Craftsman openers.  I have never had RFI issues caused by the station.

[WD5JKO]

 When first installed about 9 years ago it would open intermittently for no reason. Imagine hearing your opener open at 2AM for no reason or come home from work to a wide open garage.  

     That happened to me several times with a similar vintage Craftsman GD opener. I had to throw the safety override latch whenever we were out of town. Then one day during a Thunderstorm when I was in the garage, the dam thing went up! So much for safety with digital encoding. Then, just once when I was trying to load an antenna nearby with high SWR, it went up again.

    The solution was easy. I added several .01 uf ceramic disc capacitors at the GD opener from each incoming wire, and outgoing wire to chassis ground. The idea was to bypass the I/O lines to the opener switch, and optical sensors to shunt RF to the GD opener chassis.

    Later after moving my QTH I have two Genie GD openers. These have never opened on there own, but one of them emitted RFI that blanketed 80m. I did the same .01 uf cap trick on each wire, and the RFI went way down. Then a clamp on ferrite bead on the power cord took care of what was left.

Jim
WD5JKO

[Steve W8TOW]

OK, new Craftsman opener installed. Fired up in  both 75m and 160m AM with
no issues...yet...wait & see time...
thanks es 73
Steve

[W1RKW]

 When first installed about 9 years ago it would open intermittently for no reason. Imagine hearing your opener open at 2AM for no reason or come home from work to a wide open garage.  

     That happened to me several times with a similar vintage Craftsman GD opener. I had to throw the safety override latch whenever we were out of town. Then one day during a Thunderstorm when I was in the garage, the dam thing went up! So much for safety with digital encoding. Then, just once when I was trying to load an antenna nearby with high SWR, it went up again.

    The solution was easy. I added several .01 uf ceramic disc capacitors at the GD opener from each incoming wire, and outgoing wire to chassis ground. The idea was to bypass the I/O lines to the opener switch, and optical sensors to shunt RF to the GD opener chassis.

    Later after moving my QTH I have two Genie GD openers. These have never opened on there own, but one of them emitted RFI that blanketed 80m. I did the same .01 uf cap trick on each wire, and the RFI went way down. Then a clamp on ferrite bead on the power cord took care of what was left.

Jim
WD5JKO

I tried .01uf caps. Even tried coiling wires and beads to the optical sensors and switches but no luck. Originally, we had 4 transmitters in action. I set the openers up to use just about any combo to open the openers. Eventually determined that the microwave oven clock was noisy and getting into the front-end and caused the nearest opener to trigger. Surmised that having all those codes was enough to provide a trigger.  It was purely accidental. So reprogramming using just 2 digital transmitter codes seemed to do the trick. After 9 years, no issues even with "obscene power" (Irbism) on 75m through 10m. 

I wonder how those folks who live near military bases are faring?  Why do their openers trigger? Is it high power or the right combination of digital codes or old type openers?

[KD0HUX]

 

I hear man-ual steel handle type is fool proof.

[WB6NVH]

My friends in Orange County with the military interference had problems with the door not opening rather than opening on its own. The opener receiver was desensed by the military radio system.  You could still get the door to open if you were right on top of it but it would not open from out in the street.

Liftmaster and Genie doors had this issue as they operated on 390 MHz.  As I recall, Genie (and the others by mow) sells or supplies a mod kit to move the opener to 315 MHz, which in the California case, solved the problem.

More info here:

http://www.aaaremotes.com/frfldoingrwi.html

[W1RKW]

Steve,

I have Chamberlain (3 to 5 years old depending upon garage) installed in both garages.  One garage is at the anchor point for one corner of my 80 meter horizontal loop and the other garage is in between the Rohn 55G tower with my 4 element triband quad and a Hy Gain 18HT.  No problem with any of them (both garages have multiple doors and openers installed).  

With the code technology I cannot imagine any undesired opening or closing and my wife has come and gone when I have been contesting and using the vintage gear and never a problem with loss of sensitivity.  When I installed them I wondered whether the long leads going to the optical reverse/stop safety sensors would be a problem with RF pickup and I thought I might have to install chokes but that has not been an issue.

Unless it has changed, Sears Craftsmen were made by Chamberlain.  One of the old ones I replaced was a Sears branded Chamberlain unit.

My Craftsman openers are Chamberlain units. They're 10 years old.