Increased Garage Door opener range

[QWK SVT]

I live in a colder climate (Toronto, Canada). As such, my garage door is insulated, to allow for better heat retention. In fact, it works great! Even on a cold night, just the heat that comes off the engine of a parked car can easily keep the garage well above freezing. This is really nice, when you have leather seats, and don't want to freeze your butt off, getting into the car.

Unfortunately, there's a down side... The garage door actually blocks the signal getting through, for the garage door opener. It's not bad with the original transmitters, but other ones just don't have as much range. Opening the door with the car's homelink can literally take me 5-minutes, rolling up and down the driveway, pressing the button repeatedly, in hopes of finding the sweet spot (which is not a constant). But, how can I fix this...

A friend of the family works for the local TelCo, as part of their rolling fleet. He gave me a roll of telephone wire (the type that goes in the walls, not from jack-to-phone), when I moved to the new house, so that I could wire up the phones the way I wanted. Now I have a couple hundred feet left over, and a bright idea!
I connected the Garage Door opener antenna to one of the four wires within the telephone line, and ran it up to the garage ceiling, as seen below.

Next, I ran the wire along to the front of the garage, an looped it along the entire front wall, just above the garage door (you can see the white wire, just above the door, here).

The end result is great! The Homelink button works easily from about 15 - 20 feet away, first try. The original transmitters now have about 40 feet of range, which was a nice side benefit. For a "quick'n'easy fix" this one is a keeper!

[jgc61sr2002]

I live in a colder climate (Toronto, Canada). As such, my garage door is insulated, to allow for better heat retention. In fact, it works great! Even on a cold night, just the heat that comes off the engine of a parked car can easily keep the garage well above freezing. This is really nice, when you have leather seats, and don't want to freeze your butt off, getting into the car.

Unfortunately, there's a down side... The garage door actually blocks the signal getting through, for the garage door opener. It's not bad with the original transmitters, but other ones just don't have as much range. Opening the door with the car's homelink can literally take me 5-minutes, rolling up and down the driveway, pressing the button repeatedly, in hopes of finding the sweet spot (which is not a constant). But, how can I fix this...

A friend of the family works for the local TelCo, as part of their rolling fleet. He gave me a roll of telephone wire (the type that goes in the walls, not from jack-to-phone), when I moved to the new house, so that I could wire up the phones the way I wanted. Now I have a couple hundred feet left over, and a bright idea!
I connected the Garage Door opener antenna to one of the four wires within the telephone line, and ran it up to the garage ceiling, as seen below.

Next, I ran the wire along to the front of the garage, an looped it along the entire front wall, just above the garage door (you can see the white wire, just above the door, here).

The end result is great! The Homelink button works easily from about 15 - 20 feet away, first try. The original transmitters now have about 40 feet of range, which was a nice side benefit. For a "quick'n'easy fix" this one is a keeper!

Nice job. I would recommend insulation above the garage door.

[ckadiddle]

Damn, I am impressed. You guys even figure out how to hot-rod a garage door opener! I am not worthy.

[QWK SVT]

Nice job. I would recommend insulation above the garage door.

Yep! That's on the plan, for next weekend... I wanted to try this out, first

Even without it, I'm amazed how warm the insulated door keeps everything. If it's -10C (about 15F) outside over night, the inside is always around +7C (about 45F). That's a pretty big difference!

[fastblackmerc]

Yep! That's on the plan, for next weekend... I wanted to try this out, first

Even without it, I'm amazed how warm the insulated door keeps everything. If it's -10C (about 15F) outside over night, the inside is always around +7C (about 45F). That's a pretty big difference!

Cold seats??? I just hit the button and in about 3 minutes you got toasty buns!!!!

[Mike Poore]

[QUOTE=QWK SVT] A friend of the family works for the local TelCo, as part of their rolling fleet. He gave me a roll of telephone wire (the type that goes in the walls, not from jack-to-phone), when I moved to the new house, so that I could wire up the phones the way I wanted. Now I have a couple hundred feet left over, and a bright idea! QUOTE]

You've constructed an ,,,,,antenna!!! Good for you! If you want to get fancy, look at your garage door booklet, and you can construct an antenna for that frequency, and locate it anywhere you want.

The big feature of your story is that wonderfully wide doorway. Charlie/Gordon/Mark(s), do you see that? I could put my MM in that one sideways and never hit a thing! What a concept!

[FiveO]

I've got a full insulated, finished garage and my opener has no problems at all from 30-40+ feet away opening the door.

I didn't even have to extend the stock antennae.

Maybe its the type of insulation.

Wierd.

Glad it worked out for you though!

[metroplex]

I've gotten as far as 70' away to open the door.

[duhtroll]

I have insulated doors also - coldest my garage ever got was 32 F exactly. That was like when it was -50 or something like that.

I have always been able to open my garage door when coming down the street perpendicular to the house about 60-80 feet away. I get irritated when on rare occasions I have to pull into the driveway and stop and wait for it to open, so I guess I'm spoiled. Normally it's in the drive and garage in one fluid motion.

Now, what I need are FASTER doors. Anyone hot rod their openers?

-A

[Rider90]

Now, what I need are FASTER doors. Anyone hot rod their openers?

-A

LOL...ours is about 1/2 HP...how about a 18HP V-TWIN BRIGGS?? The door would launch up and not stop until it hit the back of the garage wall

[cyclone03]

Now, what I need are FASTER doors. Anyone hot rod their openers?

-A

I have a Gennie "Excelerator" and it does whip that door open quick.

As for range,2-3 houses down door open and I whip er right in.

[wchain]

I have a Gennie "Excelerator" and it does whip that door open quick.

As for range,2-3 houses down door open and I whip er right in.

I have the "Insulation Delete" Mod on my garage door.............

[Rider90]

I have the "Insulation Delete" Mod on my garage door.............

ah, weight reduction...smart man folks...

[QWK SVT]

You've constructed an ,,,,,antenna!!! Good for you! If you want to get fancy, look at your garage door booklet, and you can construct an antenna for that frequency, and locate it anywhere you want.

Perhaps you could spread some light on how I could do that


metroplex / FiveO / duhtroll - You guys getting long range opening, are you able to do that with the Homelink, or is just with the originally supplied remote?
My remotes work from about 40 feet away (so not too far away from the start of my driveway). I just can't see replacing a perfectly good opener, because the remote doesn't work well

[JACook]

Perhaps you could spread some light on how I could do that

If I may-

The optimum length of an antenna will be exactly equal to the length of one radio wave. The length of a
radio wave is determined by a simple ratio of speed to frequency.

So, first, you need to know what frequency your transmitters use. As an example, my Genie opener transmits
at 390MHz. From there, it's a mathematical relationship to determine the wavelength. The length of any wave
is equal to the speed at which it travels, divided by it's frequency. Electromagnetic waves, like radio, travel
at (or near) the speed of light. So, if we take the accepted speed of light, 299,792,458 meters/sec and divide
that by the frequency, 390,000,000, we get a wavelength of ~0.7687 meters.

Now, as you might imagine, at longer wavelengths, antenna lengths can quickly get to be a problem.
Who (apart from ham radio operators) would want a ~3 meter antenna on their automobile to receive FM?
Fortunately, you can get acceptable results using 1/2 or 1/4 wavelength antennae.

The reason I point this out is, it just happens that a typical 1/4-wave automotive radio antenna is pretty
darn close to being an optimum length full-wave garage door opener antenna...