Garage Door Opener Range.

[Jim Thompson]

This new, very well-insulated, foil-backed, house has one drawback... the garage door opener range with the garage door closed is only about

20'

Any ideas on how I could extend that range? ...Jim Thompson

[John Larkin]

You need an engineer!

[Jim Thompson]

Always have to go out of your way to be a turd, don't you... sad specimen you are. ...Jim Thompson

[John Larkin]

Geez, you have an antenna inside a metal box, and you need advice?

[Cursitor Doom]

Gentlemen, gentlemen! Really! The best forum for questions like this is uk.d-i-y (anything concerned with house building and home improvement in fact). I've added it. Let's hope for some positive contributions...

[Brian Gaff]

What? I've often wondered how a lot of radio controlled devices work when they seem to have aerials concealed in their cases. I was always taught that they should be resonant at the frequency needed and putting hands and buildeings close by detunes them even before you think about the screening effects. How do Mobile phones ever work, one wonders.. grin. Brian

[Jeff Liebermann]

The often metal case has a plastic window to let the RF in and out. The windows needs to be only slightly larger than the antenna in order to function. This arrangement also has the advantage in cell phones at directing the RF away from the users head, thus reducing the SAR (specific absorption rate).

Antennas do NOT need to be resonant at the operating frequency. Certainly it helps, but it's not required. For example, the metal frame around the Apple iPhone 4 and iPhone 5, which acts as two antennas, is not resonant.

The users hand will detune any antenna in close proximity or by touching the antenna. I ran a crude test of that when it became an issue with the iPhone 4. The "difference" column shows the decrease in signal strength between a two finger grip and a stranglehold. While there is a substantial decrease in signal (6-12dB) for most phones, it's not catastrophic, except on the iPhone 4 (20-25dB).

Because RF is magic, but more likely, because users have learned to tolerate dropouts, dead zones, garbled audio, marginal hardware, limited quality, overpriced plans, billing errors, etc.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Cursitor Doom brought next idea :

The only thing you are allowed to improve, is the receiver. Have you looked at the receiver's (in the garage) antenna?

[Jabba]

Cursitor Doom scribbled...

As garage door openers are used to set off IEDs, I see no reason for anyone to be giving info on how to increase their range.

[John Fields]

[John Larkin]

Cell phones are used for that, too.

Luckily, some fraction of bomb builders blow themselves to bits before they are finished.

[John Williamson]

Don't assume that just because someone is a terrorist/ freedom fighter (Delete to taste) that they are stupid.

The information is readily available with a simple google search, the bad guys also have computers, and are quite often *very* competent in their use.

[Jabba]

John Williamson scribbled...

Should you start searching for such info, you'll soon be getting unexpected visitors

[John Williamson]

Not if I search for "How do I increase the range of my garage opener". Maybe you were daft enough to search for "How do I trigger a bomb by using a garage opener"? (Hint:- a relay is involved for the simple method).

Anyway,in the OP's case, it's simple. Move the aerial to the outside of the screened metal box he's just put it in, or use the foil on the door as the aerial.

[GMM]

As I understand it, the cell phone is also the device of choice for long range garage door openers. I know someone who has a system that lets him dial in through his house phone, which then activates a motor and it's open by the time he gets there. So far as I know, his garage door hasn't exploded yet.

[krw]

Huh? Anyone using a GDO to set of an IED is nuts! A cell phone is a much better trigger.

[krw]

My garage door came with a box to plug into my router and an app to trigger it over the Internet. Never installed the box so I don't know how well it works. I don't see the point in opening the garage door unless I'm close enough to see it.

;-)

[krw]

"how to increase range of garage door opener" gets 34,300 hits on the search engine I use.

[Jasen Betts]

Suppose you're out of town and a trusted friend calls you and asks to borrow something that's accessible via your garage,

[Gazz]

probably the only good thing to come out of those annoying auto dialer recorded message PPI claim calls you get then :)