Topic: Davis Vantage Vue and the garage door opener ?

[Greg_M]

I installed my mom's Christmas present yesterday (the snow finally left) a Davis Vantage Vue.
She seems to think it is opening her garage door when it transmits as she has found it open a couple times.
I'm kind of doubting that's possible but I thought I would ask.
She's 86 so probably it is just forgetfulness.

Seems like if it were opening the door it should also be closing it, but who knows?

[Bushman]

Nope.   Mom is getting forgetful.

[SlowModem]

If worse comes to worse, show her in the manual where you can change the transmit channel. 

[miraculon]

I had a problem with my garage door opener doing a phantom opening a while back.

I noticed that it correlated when I went on the air with my Ham radio. Whenever I transmitted on 20 meters (14.3MHz or so), the door would open. I don't know about this interference closing the door, because I never left the door open when I was on the radio.

The RF was being picked up on the wall push-button wire. The tech support was very good for the opener company and they recommended a few turns of the button cable through a ferrite filter. It solved my problem quite well and it didn't happen again.

However, I doubt that the <8mW signal from the Davis would be causing this. I had a 200+ Watt linear amplifier on my Ham rig. Also, the Davis frequency range is in the 902-928MHz band (33cm)

It might not hurt to try temporarily disconnecting the pushbutton wiring at the opener for a while to see what happens. You could also try wrapping the opener pushbutton wiring around a ferrite. Again, this would be located close to the opener.

Greg H.

[SLOweather]

Does she live near a military base?

[Greg_M]

Does she live near a military base?

She lives adjacent to The Very Large Array (NM) which is a pretty radio quiet area BUT that's within a MOA (military operations area).
It hasn't happened in the previous 10 years or so which doesn't mean much.
Since this morning (when she found the door open and closed it) it has not happened again, she says.

[Greg_M]

I had a problem with my garage door opener doing a phantom opening a while back.

I noticed that it correlated when I went on the air with my Ham radio. Whenever I transmitted on 20 meters (14.3MHz or so), the door would open. I don't know about this interference closing the door, because I never left the door open when I was on the radio.

The RF was being picked up on the wall push-button wire. The tech support was very good for the opener company and they recommended a few turns of the button cable through a ferrite filter. It solved my problem quite well and it didn't happen again.

However, I doubt that the <8mW signal from the Davis would be causing this. I had a 200+ Watt linear amplifier on my Ham rig. Also, the Davis frequency range is in the 902-928MHz band (33cm)

It might not hurt to try temporarily disconnecting the pushbutton wiring at the opener for a while to see what happens. You could also try wrapping the opener pushbutton wiring around a ferrite. Again, this would be located close to the opener.

Greg H.

When I got my license she decided to try to get hers too (she was younger then) and she succeeded in getting her tech license.
I got her a little 2m handheld (for her birthday or Christmas) and she listened for a while but to the best of my knowledge she never keyed up.
Since then she's had a couple of "events" and is not very agile anymore, but she likes looking at the weather info on the display. I got her another brand of station and it lasted one year and a day and actually cost more than the Davis but it was in color.