Both my Genie opener remotes only activate the operator when they are very close (10' or less) to the unit. Both my cars with factory installed garage door buttons also only activate the operator when the vehicle is inside the garage. This all happened overnight. I imagine changing batteries in the hand held remotes might be a possible solution for these units, but the fact that both cars buttons are now distance sensitive tells me something else is going on. Any suggestions? Radio interference? Gremlins? Sunspots? I already try slightly repositioning the antenna wire, to no avail. Any/all suggestions welcomed. David
It is odd that they both failed over night. Water leakage? Sudden large temperature change? Bad ground leading to noise on the power? Did somebody monkey with the code settings? Are the transmitters tuned to the receiver frequencies?
The remotes in the car may have its own battery. Most batteries loose energy when cold. I'll bet it just got cold around you area. Try new batteries first. Next check the antennas, make sure they are connected and not bundled up. It is possible that cold temps can cause a bad solder joint to open up and if that was the antenna, then that could cause what you are observing. However it is not likely two units would have the same problem.
Yes, the weather did get cold last night & today, but I never had the problem last winter.
No water leakage, no recent rain. Don't know about the bad ground possibilty. No settings have been tinkered with. All transmitters work when in close proximity, so the codes must be right.
I guess I can open the unit up & check the connection of the antenna, but I wouldn't know how to recognize a bad solder joint.
Verizon is in the neighborhood, beginning digging about 300 feet away for new optical phone line installation along the street at the top of my driveway. Workers have been in the area marking utility locations the last couple days, maybe they used some kind of radio wave sensors to locate the buried wires??
That is one possibility or could be a TV satellite dish, ham radio, police scanner, TV cable not grounded properly, cell phone tower, or another garage door opener (would need to be fairly close like in same garage or multi-family type buildings). The other possibility is that something in the receiver is defective & no longer sending a very strong signal.
How old is the unit? If parts are still under warranty you may want to change the receiver first. Or to rule out any interference from inside your home turn off all breakers except for the one that powers the garage door opener to see if the problem goes away.
Outside interference is constantly becoming a problem & sometimes it will also simply disappear in a couple of days & sometimes it becomes permanent. There have been many installations where we have had to install an external receiver on a different frequency to get proper distance. However those may not be compatible w/ your built-in car remotes.
We have some whole sub-divisions in our area where the range has been severely limited for years. The more radio waves that are in the air the greater the chance of interference becomes. Doordoc
This is certainly true. Once in awhile, one or both of my garage doors will start going up and down all by itself. I cure it by unplugging the power to the motor unit for a few minutes. But it's not clear whether that reset the receiver or the an interference source just left the neighborhood.
First possibility about all OPs problem that comes to mind is that the common unit; the receiver that operates the door opener has developed a fault. This could be due to a multitude of reasons, a power hit, lightning, age of some component such as a capacitor etc. etc.
But reading this and other news groups over the last few years it is becomingly increasing clear that there is more and more RFI, Radio Interference; such as the post above by William Plummer.
Consumer electronic products, including garage door openers, are built to a price. I guess they use something better for critical locations such as the doors of an Ambulance/Rescue unit? With not very selective consumer electronics, some of the interference is due to 'legitimate' licensed/approved products/services, for example cell phones, those FRS (Family Radio Service) and of course CB (Citizens Band); but these causes are usually transient short lived or easily recognizable from were and when they happen. There was a story, years ago about a delivery driver trying to locate an address who called his office on his van CB. As he did several garage door openers on that street operated! In one garage a scantily clad housewife was putting clothes in the washer at the time .... oops! Today's garage openers have become more sophisticated and digitally 'coded' as result of this kind of interference and their previous tendency to interfere with each other!
However the presence of persistent/continuous radio signals can desensitize a simple radio receiver, such as that used in a garage door opener! By desensitize is meant a signal so strong that even though it's not on your frequency it overpowers the signal you want to receive from your hand held/pocket garage door transmitters! It's rather the same as telling a 40 pound child to push down their end of a see-saw (teeter-totter) with a 250 lb adult sitting permanently on the other end!
So, in the absence of a fault it might be a good idea to find if any of the following has occurred;
1) A new FM radio station in your area. (New AM stations unlikely?)
2) Has the power company started to send data signals over its power lines? These can be deadly at many frequencies.
3) A new cell-phone tower in your neighbourhood.
4) A new electrical item installed in your or neighbours house, of the sort that might be on permanently or for long periods. There are more radio buzzes and whistles around my house wiring that I can track down; some come from our three computers I know. I don't use dimmer switches because they cause radio interference (especially the cheap one that I would tend to buy!) I had a fluorescent light one time that was transmitting a radio signal (and even once, for brief period, a light bulb with a slight break in the filament!) but lights are not usually on for long periods. Even the UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) for this computer is suspect!
5) Maybe one of those outside security lights which electronically sense something approaching, or darkness!
The possible interference sources are many.
Which leads to a final point.
IMHO the FCC and equivalent agencies in other countries are not controlling the technical requirements of the increasing amount of sometimes cheap electrical products that are available to us as innocent consumers! And some ARE hazardous. How often do you see the sign "Warning to Heart Pacer users. Microwave in use in this area"?
And gee: I must test that el-cheapo screw in fluorescent bulb in my desk lamp; which I tend to leave on! It may use less electricity but ................ if that's what has been interfering recently with my PBS TV signal!
Just because something electrical has the ULL (Insurance Underwriters Laboratory) label it merely means that it is supposedly safe for customer electrical use; not that it doesn't have other undesirable characteristics. Anyway thanks for the rant; but it may just be that the posted information is symptomatic of an approaching level of electronic pollution that could cause a sort of communication traffic gridlock?
replacement parts promptly, sometimes for free. However, I recently had to replace the remote transmitter because it had stopped working. All I got was the address of a local representative about 20 miles away. It turned out to be an elderly woman who had a supply of parts in her basement. I was able to purchase the replacement but it doesn't work reliably.
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