It’s a bad time to live in Connecticut if you don’t want to have to get out of your car to open your garage door; several homeowners say their openers are being affected by a radio frequency sent out by the U.S. Navy.
Apparently the Navy is using the same low-level radio signals to transmit information that is used by many garage door manufacturers around the country, and there’s not much civilians can do about it unless they want to shell out $300 to have the door’s frequency reset. In fact, this has been a problem for years in various areas and was actually written into federal law.
“Because garage door openers are unlicensed devices, they are not offered any protection from interference by licensed users in the same frequency band, and in fact are required by federal law to accept interference from licensed users,” Chris Zendan, spokesman for a nearby submarine base, said. “Base commanding officers do not have the authority to change those systems, and unfortunately we cannot offer compensation to the unlicensed users.”
But some manufacturers, such as Overhead Door Company, are willing to help out their affected customers a bit by offering free installation and parts in order to change the signal.