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Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 12:48 am
by DCIV
Thinking of wiring an extender to the garage door antenna. Because of the angle of the driveway the remotes don’t work from the top of the driveway and you have to wait till your farther down and thus the door isn’t all the way open when your ready to pull in. From reading and videos online, a simple wire extended to the door makes a huge difference.

Anyone done anything like that?


Coop

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 12:21 pm
by mjannusch
Do you have external wire antennas? Are they pointing down and perpendicular to the angle of the driveway? I'm not an antenna expert by any means, but I thought the length of the antenna had a lot to do with what frequencies it will receive best, so you need the right length - not just a long wire.

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:10 pm
by DCIV
Some people deff talked about the length and what not but at the end of the day they said it’s not for talking or broadcasting on and just a simple signal so longer may be better. I looked at it this morning and it’s not strait down. I might try that first. Some tapped a straw onto the antenna to keep it strait. Lol.


Coop

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:12 pm
by DCIV
Okay. I did the straw, I didn’t get a baseline before the straw but it was closer without the straw. Still only about half way down the driveway. I want it when we turn. My parents house which is a good ways past mine the remote works at the top of the driveway so it’s not the distance. It’s where the house sits and place of the antenna.

So now I will try and extend it to the wall the garage door is on, and if that doesn’t work, poke it out at the top of the door.


Coop

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:16 pm
by mjannusch
Seems like you should go straight to the side from the opener across the ceiling to get the maximum surface area facing where you are transmitting from.

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:21 pm
by DCIV
[quote=""mjannusch""]Seems like you should go straight to the side from the opener across the ceiling to get the maximum surface area facing where you are transmitting from.[/quote]

So front far corner of the garage. I like it.


Coop

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:18 pm
by Chris GTO TT
Warning tangent post incoming...

This post reminded me I want one of the these... https://www.liftmaster.com/liftmaster-8 ... er/p/8500W

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:01 pm
by mjannusch
Yeah, those seem to be nice. I was thinking about changing my back garage doors into high-lift doors for more clearance for the 4-post lift so I'd have more flexibility on positioning it, and those openers are supposed to be especially good for that.

Re: Garage door

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:35 pm
by DCIV
I have a battery back up in my garage door and my WiFi sucks so much I’m not gonna tie it down with a garage door as well.

The wire seemed to do the trick. Opened the door the first try at the top. We will see if it was just a freak one time thing after swimming.


Coop

Re: Garage door

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 11:36 am
by DCIV
It was pouring down rain last night and it did not work from the top of the driveway. Did work much higher up than the straw method though. I’m gonna give it a few days before I decide if I need to get all “coop” on this project or not.


Coop

Re: Garage door

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:07 pm
by mjannusch
What model of opener do you have?