Question:
I put up a new Sears garage door opener. I works fine except that both
remote control unit have very little range. They must be within
approximately 15 feet of the door. My brother-in-law has the same style
house in the same neighborhood and has the identical opener. His remotes
work from about 200 feet. I swapped remotes with him (reprogrammed my unit
to work his door and vice versa) with no improvement. Sears customer
service won't address the issue except to say that I need to purchase an
antenna extender kit. The clerk at the Sears store said that I don't need
an extender kit and, besides, they don't even carry them. He said that the
electric eye units are mis-aligned. That didn't make sense but I realigned
the units. Again, no improvement.
Answer:
Sounds like an interference problem w/ some other device that is
blocking your receiver. There are numerous items that will cause this
like ham radios, police scanners, cable tv that is not grounded
properly, cell phone towers, large tv dish antennas, or another garage
door opener in the same garage or right next door.
Turn off every circuit breaker in the house except for the one to the
door opener. Make sure there is nothing else plugged in that is on the
same circuit. If the problem disappears the interference is inside the
house. Turn the breakers back on one at a time to determine what
circuit causes the interference.
It was a few years ago, but we had one customer whose transmitters
wouldn't work whenever his BMW was parked in the garage or driveway
even when the car was turned off. I think it was the car burglar alarm
that was interfering w/ the opener. When he moved the car down the
street the opener worked fine. As so as the car was at the house, the
transmitters would quit working completely. They would not even work
from inside the garage.
