Rent, rent, rent…

Garage door opener remote control distances and range may vary depending on what part of town you are in, for example, an opener in Point Loma or La Jolla (coastal) will not come anywhere near as close as an opener. I would expect to have in Santee or Lakeside (Inland) just based on what floats in the air. There are a multitude of frequencies constantly floating around, from radio signals to military operations, and that’s what determines how well your remote will work.

I live in Santee (Inland) and normally find the range to be good, it varies from day to day between 80 and 100 feet and like most of you I look for the maximum range so when I noticed the range on my door going down slowly ..going down..going down I waited until it got to the point where I needed to be right in front to open then I started on the antenna as it’s exposed to the weather I took it down and replaced it with an old TV antenna I had and now my range is about 300-400ft… problem solved!

The need for better reception

Now that doesn’t mean you can do the same thing because my antenna cable for my gate is a coaxial cable…their antenna is just a cable but the various opener manufacturers have recognized the need for better reception on the coast and its surroundings. areas and lately they have been producing garage door openers that work with dual frequencies, which means that the transmitter or remote will emit two frequencies at the same time and the receiver built into the opener will pick up the strongest signal making it at least twice as good as before, if not nearly perfect.

What you need to realize is that the frequencies that our gate openers run on are a frequency owned by the military and when they exercise their right to jam those frequencies, there is nothing you or I can do about it… ANY! We just have to be patient and wait, and I guess after more of these single-frequency machines start to be replaced by newer models, these problems will slowly go away. There are a few things you can do right now to “help” increase your rank, but none are guaranteed to work and they are all quite expensive. You can have an external antenna installed outside with coaxial cable but I have tried this in the past with limited success and by the time all is said and done you are a few bucks short of buying a new machine with the dual frequency receiver . already built into it.

The Liftmaster rep told me last month that they tested the dual frequency machines near a military base in Florida and they worked perfectly and the Genie system is basically the same so to summarize this article I would say you now have two options logical when you live on the coast…#1- Replace the opener you currently have, no matter how old it is, with one of the newer dual frequency machines, or #2- Wait until the manufacturers introduce this dual frequency into an external receiver that you can plug into your existing machine, though keep in mind that it’s impractical to spend $90 on parts plus labor for a new receiver and two new remotes if your current system is more than 10 years old.

So if you’re in that group of people who constantly have range issues with their garage door opener…solutions to your frustrations are on the horizon.