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Air Force Jams Garage Doors
SonicSpike points us to a Chicago Tribune article reporting that in Colorado the Air Force is jamming garage doors. In a joint U.S.-Canadian operation, they were testing communications on a frequency that would be used by first responders in the event of a threat to homeland security. From the article: "But the frequency also controls an estimated 50 million garage door openers, and hundreds of residents in the area found that theirs had suddenly stopped working... Technically, the Air Force has the right to the frequency, which it began using nearly three years ago at some bases. Signals have previously interfered with garage doors near bases in Florida, Maryland, and Pennsylvania."
This happened to me on Maple Street. Caused quite a stir and a few people wound up shot in the action ... course they were commies so no harm done.
What that sentence could be trying to say is that the Air Force has the rights to the frequency, but only started using it three years ago.
until I go out and find an F16 in the garage.
So the test was a total success. Because it proved, in undeniable public, that in the event of an emergency, the first responders around essential Air Force bases would be getting jammed by people opening their garage doors.
These tests are important. That's why I was stunned when I realized (3 years later) that on September 11, 2001, I didn't hear a single transmission of the Emergency Broadcast System. If ever there were an emergency during my lifetime that the public needed broadcasts to know what what was happening and what to do, it was multiple aerial bombings of NYC and the Pentagon. But there was nothing.
Though we'd all been taught since childhood to be always at least a little bit subconsciously afraid, but trusting the government had a system to handle even the ultimate emergency: nuclear war. And endured countless nerve-rattling drills, usually interrupting the most otherwise "relaxing" TV and radio (PBS, mostly).
I guess those weren't "tests" at all. They were the real thing: steady fear/trust propaganda. Never really expected to do anything in any kind of emergency, even survivable ones like 9/11/2001. Because they all delivered the desired result.
So maybe these Air Force tests are really failures. Because instead of keeping people irrationally afraid, yet trusting the government, they've actually woken people up.
--
make install -not war
oh noooooooooo, now they'll have to get their fat asses out of their car and do the keypad instead! NOOOOO!!!! What is this, the middle ages?! Maybe some ppl will hire illegal immigrants to open their garages for them :P Then again, there's always the wireless, computer controller option :D Anyone got a driver for a USB 2.4 GHz garage door?
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
the problem here is that those garage doors openers are unlicensed transmitters using a band they wouldn't be allowed to use if it wasn't for the "low power" exceptions. if they'd put their transmitters on a public band or gotten a license, they wouldn't have this problem
They shouldn't have made their openers to operate on this frequency, in the first place. It's no secret which frequencies are allocated to the US gov't. It's laziness on the part of the company.
Nah, its not $10,000, just 250 for each garage door affected.
David McGuire, whose Overhead Door Co. received more than 400 calls for help, said the Air Force may be able to slightly adjust the transmission frequency to solve the problem. If not, it will cost homeowners about $250 to have new units installed.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
And what occur the garge owners use their remote-control? Does this jam the Airforce frequency??
8:30 am:
"- Chief, we have fired the missile!
"- Hum, which missile?
"- Well, The Missile, ya know!
"- Ah..... Ah? Who has given that order?
"- Well, you know, Washington signals nowadays are rather mixed but I confirm the emission was on the usual frequency and has been repeated frantically in the last minutes. According to the Terrestrial Message Bluring Scheme we have had for some years now, the Message came from many locations but with the same words in it".
"- Hum... It certainly comes from the White House then. Big affair."
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
TFA was short on details. This article http://www.krdotv.com/story.cfm?nav=news&storyID=1 613 says disruptions were affecting devices in the 390 MHz spectrum range.
According to the US Department of Commerce, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf, the 335.4 to 399.9 MHz band is licensed exclusively to the government.
Sorry for the lack of HTML skills.
The FCC will give you a free pass if you're below some maximum power, which brings us to this tidbit from TFA: Holly Strack, who lives near the entrance to the facility, said friends in the neighborhood all had the same problem. "I never thought my garage door was a threat to national security," she said.
Don't worry hon, your garage door opener isn't a threat, unless you're somehow violating FCC regulations.
And this genius: David McGuire, whose Overhead Door Co. received more than 400 calls for help, said
If by "sign of the times" you mean "the military is getting around to testing systems that should have been up and running years ago".
Why does this article try to inject so much fear into what is a relatively straight forward issue?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I wager these garage doors have that little notice on them, you know, the one that says "this is an FCC class B(?) device... must not interfere, must accept any such interference, blah, blah, blah...". The manufacturer can stand behind that. It's CYA compliant, probably, from a legal standpoint. It's definitely not PR compliant. I don't see this so much as a problem with the Air Force trampling on our rights, as a company that took a gamble that there would never be any powerful interference that would mess with their device. Usually there isn't.
All that aside, USAF should either stop using the frequency or offer to refund a retrofit of existing doors--whichever is cheaper. I can also foresee the mfct recalling the doors; but if they do that they probably have no recourse with the government. After all, they knew they were taking a chance by producing such a device. And then the garage door people could start using ultrasonic or infrared, with a crypto key of some kind between the receiver and transmitter to guarantee non-interference, and that would be that.
This is just another reason for me to be happy I don't have a car, nevermind a garage.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Just a casual thought; But could someone on the Air Force staff flip the their garage door switch every time UCLA scores against USC so that the garage doors open up in a nation wide "wave"?
Its not that at all. When they purchased those devices, they were licences under Part 15. Which states, A. the device must accept harmfull interferance B. the device cannot emmit any harmfull interference. They are a secondary user of those frequencies, and funciton is not garanteed on those frequencies for those devices by the FCC. Its like when my ham radio equipment interfears with the naibors baby monitor. The first problem is i'm not even using the frequency it uses, just one close to it, and the poor design and construction of the device comes into play. Second of all, I fall under part 97 rules, which allows me to generate some levels of interference, so long as it is 120db down from my primart transmitting frequency, i'm legal.
This has nothing to do with rights, there never were any rights to those frequencies for the public, they were never anything more than a secondary user.
Well, gentlemen, we know who here has a garage door opener. :-)
LOL.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Normally, I like to assume good faith when commenting. I'll make an exception in your case. Shut the fuck up. Please. Owning a device which uses a certain frequency doesn't necessarily allow you the right to use that frequency.
Ah yes - the immediate assumption that the citizens are in the right, and the goverment in the wrong. Only in this case, that assumption is wrong.
Garage door openers are what are called class 'B' devices - devices that transmit using extremely low power and are unlicensed and unregulated. Because they are extremely low power, they can pretty much use any band they want. In exchange for this freedom from licensing and regulation however, theres a catch - owners of class 'B' devices may not interfere with legal and/or licensed users of the band in question, and must accept any interference from said legal and/or licensed users of the band in question. This is usually spelled out in tiny, tiny print in the users manual.
That being said - you'd be surprised how much class 'B' (sometimes called 'part 15') devices you have in your house. I bet if you check the manuals for your computer (or motherboard), your stereo, your TV, any radios, etc... I bet they all carry the appropriate disclaimers.
This also happened in Ottawa in 2005. This story and this story sum up the incident. I was in Ottawa at the time, and I keenly remember the US Embassy lying to our face about using this signal. "Oddly" enough, the problem stopped once the CBC contacted the Embassy and asked them about it. Too bad those engineers didn't get to trace the signal back. What also got to me while trying to get through downtown is how the embassy is allowed to eat up a lane of traffic for their precious concrete walls, as if there was ever a real danger in Canada. I heard that those walls were tested in Canada because of the low risk, I guess it's convenient to test concrete walls and signal jamming here.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Am I the only one that thought that trapping your hand inside the top of the door (the first to be eaten into the ceiling) and pulling the MANUAL RELEASE LEVER is an extraordinarily bad idea?
For real. And judging by the 'omg teh gov't is teh evilz' posts here, it is working quite well.
I thought it was funny, but apparently it is a political issue to some, obviously the American Government are evil fascists for this human rights outrage.
For a few hours on one random day I was faced with the decision of whether to shut my garage door manually or wait until the test was completed...that's it, the terrorists have won.
How about looking at from a different perspective. Quit being so damned cheap!!!
Garage door openers, RFID tags, baby monitors, cordless phones, wireless microphones, wireless routers and many other devces are unlicensed devices. They are permitted to operate only when they do not cause interferance to licensed service. They are not garanteed to operate if a licensed service is operating near by.
Radio spectrum is scarce. The Air Force has had a license to those frequencies since 1934. RTFM that came with the garage door opener. The manufacturer clearly states a garage door opener is an unlicensed device and as such a licensed operator can have the unlicensed device shut down if interference occurs. Further the FCC can fine an operator of an unlicensed device $10,000 if he continue to use it to cause interfere with a licensed service. On the other hand, a licensed user has no responsibility to protect the unlicensed user from interferance.
If you want garanteed operation, purchase a device with a licensed central dispatch, obtain a license to use that frequency and pay the monthly dispatch fee for the licensed service. Otherwise, don't complain when you get something (like the use of radio spectrum) for free. Especially when someone else owns the rights to that spectrum.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
BTW, I'm part of the squadron that helped get this system online for the testing.. At our unit's holiday party, they presented the squadron commander a garage door opener as his door prize.
Maybe they were just trying to lure foreign airforces to use it in their hangars, so if^H^H when the U.S invades somewhere all the pilots are stuck behind two very, very large doors.
A cunning plan indeed
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
According to this article, most door openers use 390 MHz, with some using 315 MHz and 372 MHz. All of these frequencies are in a band that is reserved for the federal government. For example, military aeronautical radio systems, including the backup communications system on the Space Shuttle, use the 225-400 MHz band. Any unlicensed users of this band do so at their own risk. The manufacturers of garage door openers have only themselves to blame. It's like building a house in that nice, empty artillery practice range.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Unlicensed radio systems (like the garage door openers, ALL your WiFi gear, your car keyfob, etc etc, but NOT, IIRC, cell phones) operate under "FCC Part 15," widely mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. The important point in this regard is that ALL Part 15 devices operate subject to two inflexible rules: 1) you can't interfere with licensed users, and 2) it's your bad luck if licensed users interfere with you.
Unless a manufacturer of wireless gadgets wants to require every user to get a license (not an option for most gear), there is basically NO way to avoid the Part 15 restrictions; licensed users (emergency services, licensed commercial radio systems, and militery users) will always trump nonlicensed users. It won't happen often, but when it does, ya just gotta live with it.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
notwithstanding use in commercial, business and industrial environments. What is a digital device? (k) Digital device. (Previously defined as a computing device). An unintentional radiator
(device or system) that generates and uses timing signals or pulses at a rate in excess of 9,000 pulses
(cycles) per second and uses digital techniques; inclusive of telephone equipment that uses digital
techniques or any device or system that generates and uses radio frequency energy for the purpose of
performing data processing functions, such as electronic computations, operations, transformations,
recording, filing, sorting, storage, retrieval, or transfer. A radio frequency device that is specifically
subject to an emanation requirement in any other FCC Rule Part or an intentional radiator subject to
Subpart C of this Part that contains a digital device is not subject to the standards for digital devices,
provided the digital device is used only to enable operation of the radio frequency device and the digital
device does not control additional functions or capabilities. Note: Computer terminals and peripherals
that are intended to be connected to a computer are digital devices. Since a digital device is clearly defined as an "unintentional radiator", wireless door openers are not considered Class B devices.
If anyone is interested, the Part 15 regulations can be found here: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/rules/part15/part15-8
While I agree with your overall view of the FCC abdicating its responsibility for regulating the spectrum to prevent interference, focusing instead on "wardrobe malfunctions" and Howard Stern, the existence of Part 15 devices isn't really the problem here.
Without the Part 15 rules allowing various low power equipments to share spectrum with each other, as well as other services, you would need to buy licenses for your garage door opener, cordless phone, car alarm remote, WiFi gear, etc. There would only be as many licenses available for a given area as there were reserved channels, so if all your neighbors got theirs first, you would be SOL.
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Park in the driveway?
If you're so fragile that 20F weather is "deadly" then you shouldn't be driving. What if your car dies in the middle of a country road? You're fucked.
Hint: put a fucking coat on.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Correct, these are Part 15 devices, wrong on Class B. Class B devices are digital devices that make use of a signal of 9khz (or is that 90khz) that are NOT suppose to radiate RF.
Jesus Christ drives an SUV?
However, the spectrum is licensed by the FCC as part of the public airwaves. A powerful case could be made that the government should give that spectrum up to garage door owners, because they get more public use out of it.
After all, the government really doesn't need it, and garage doors are already using it.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Al-qaida sleeper cells can't do much damage with their car bombs if they can't get them out of the garage.
You can get a logic board for most newer Chamberlain openers that works on the 420MHz frequency. When I was working there, we had the ability to send one out for free at our discretion if a customer was having interference issues. I live near Davis Monthan AFB, and phantom door operation is a common thing if you live near the base when using the older 390MHz boards. (insurance claim anyone?)
I don't have any problems with my 420MHz board, in fact I get a better range with my remotes on 420MHz. If you are having problems with an opener made by Chamberlain (LiftMaster, Craftsman, etc) give them a call at (800) 528-5880 and explain the problems you are having and mention that you live near an Air Force Base, and they will likely send out a replacement board free of cost.
If you do have to pay, it is ~$60USD for a new logic board. They are very easy to replace.
Wire up your transmitter to a big antenna, and keep boosting the output power, until the garage door opens :)
"However, the spectrum is licensed by the FCC as part of the public airwaves." The FCC has no jurisdiction over government (eg military) radio/spectrum use. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration does. www.ntia.gov
Can you say "Part 15 device"? I knew you could.
And the NTIA trumps the FCC. The NTIA assigns frequency blocks to the FCC.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I, unfortunately, am sometimes that guy. The only times I do that, however, is when people are driving slow in a left-hand lane and there is plenty of room to get over. Although in that situation they may technically be obeying the law, what they are doing is creating a more dangerous situation by forcing people going above the speed limit to make a right-hand pass and generally pissing everybody off. It is very disruptive when someone thinks, "I am doing the speed limit, so it doesn't matter where on the road I'm at."
I do try and control my frustration and am generally not an asshole when driving, but there are definitely situations where people driving the speed limit are acting discourteous by ignoring those that want to get by. That's probably a small amount compared to the asshole drivers that just want to drive as fast as possible, though. I agree that riding behind someone trying to get them to go faster is extremely rude and dangerous, just wanted to add my 2 cents.
Or until the USAF triangulates your antenna and shows up to ask why you keep sending the code 11110101 to their control tower, with a louder gain every week...
So, who wants to build a really big garage door opener and point it at the base?
... along with a complaint that their hangar doors are opening...
You don't lock your garage to keep people from stealing your car, you lock it to keep them from stealing the lawn mower and other tools.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest