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What's the frequency, um, Kenneth?

  • Artikel

Last night, I pulled into my driveway and pressed my garage door clicker...nothing. Clicked again, as my next door neighbor watched from his driveway, appearing a little too amused at my frustration. Click, click, click...nada. Stepped out of the car and clicked again until my neighbor told me that it's not gonna work. His doesn't work and neither does the neighbors' across the street.

Get this...apparently, military bases have taken over the transmission frequency of some garage door openers. My neighbors saw Robert Mak (our local citizen-advocate-news-dude) on TV a while back explaining the problem. Here's an explanation via CBS news. My questions is how many frequencies are available? Could they have picked another frequency? Ooops, channeling Chandler there, sorry.

Any guesses how much new garage door openers are going to be going for? I know, I can pay to get my frequency changed, but many people will take this opportunity to replace the GDO instead of putting more money into an older one. And I probably need to replace my garage door anyway. It's going to cost me how much? And I didn't even have the pleasure of breaking it myself. Sheesh!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    http://auto.howstuffworks.com/remote-entry1.htm

    Here found this for you, picture on this page showing the dip switches, however it does state like I said the older ones used dip switches, most of the new ones use a chip. Still I would think this would be a fairly cheap fix.
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    I kind of hope it starts launching missles. That would make your remote worth a lot of $$$.
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    Jeff-thanks for the info...I'm not too technical, but Dip Switches makes me giggle wildly. Why is that? Anyway, I'll check out the link. I've been known to geek out over DIY stuff so I guess it's possible I could fix it myself. I'll tell ya, there's a great business there for someone!

    Mattwar-if I end up on some kind of government list because you said that, you are in big trouble (hee!). For the record, my garage remote is not for sale ; )
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    Well I could guess why "Dip" switches make you giggle. However, aren't you surrounded by literally thousands of geeks like me. You could also ask one of them for a hand. Us geeks are known to work for a good home cooked meal or per one of our previous conversations a Cheeseburger Pizza, of course you would have to eat it too. http://blogs.msdn.com/heatherleigh/archive/2005/04/13/408005.aspx

    There would be Drawback to having a geek fix your garage door.
    1) We would figure out a way to make it nuclear powered. (It has to be really fast)
    2) We would set up wireless antenna to see if we could pick up the military signal (Its your house not ours, we just need a relay point)
    3) We would leave it with a .net logo or pocket pc logo or maybe even a Halo 2 logo painted on your garage door
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    Jeff-no, I just see the tech folks (I still feel uncomfortable calling people geeks...it’s just me) in the cafeteria (which I probably eat in about once every 3 months). I’m surrounded by HR/recruiting/training people. But I’ve been located in buildings in the past full of “geeks”. It’s definitely a bit of a different sub-culture. Guess I am just geeky in a different way. Honestly, I have to say that I don’t know one well enough to invite them to my actual home ; ) Afterward, I’d probably have to do an algorithm to get the door open. ; )
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2005
    Well, I am a geek and proud of it. Most of us know we are geeks, but like the old movie revenge of the nerds everyone is one in their own way. While I agree however we definitely are a different culture. Where I work our floor is split in half all the corporate IT and all the corporate HR/Recruiters. I am proud to say I have been to ever one of their houses for a home cooked meal, that’s my price anyway and me putting some time in on their techy needs. I even get invited to the HR parties or group get togethers. So to me it is nothing for me to think of someone in the office asking me for tech help. However they say I am dangerous to go out partying with. Oh the stories I can tell about our HR people when they get some alcohol in them.
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2005
    Before leaping to conclusions about the military, there are other sources of garage door opener "jamming" worth considering. I have first-hand experience with a car that had a malfunctioning distributor. While the car was running, neighbors several houses down were unable to use their garage doors or use key fobs to disable car alarms.

    A simple (but expensive) repair to the car solved the problem.
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2005
    Barry-don't you think that the fact that it was on the local news makes it a little different than "leaping to conclusions"? I mean when someone credible tells you something is going to happen and then it happens, isn't it reasonable to assume that it happened for the reason they said it would? Or should I call the closest military base to check? Yeah, like they want to have a chat with me about my garage door. Right ; )
  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2005
    ...wow...what worries me is your use of a three letter acronym (TLA) to describe the garage door opener (GDO)...stop the insanity...LOL (laughing out loud)...john
  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2005
    Glad you caught that, John...it's nice to know that someone gets me ; )

    Seriously, a strategy to make people linger over your posts a bit longer as they figure out your TLAs? Not bad, huh?
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2005
    Mortz-good shopping advice if I end up having to replace mine ; )