Garage Door Opener Antenna Extension
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ธ.ค. 2012
- How to video showing a relatively simple way to improve the reception of signal sent by the remote control at the door opener.
Also see second related video - Garage Door Opener Antenna Extension - Coaxial Cable Preparation - uploaded July 8, 2017 • Garage Door Opener Ant...
Our garage door opener worked perfectly for a couple of years. After trying different things (changing battery, having the remotes tested by the garage door company, noting how changes in weather affected the operation) I was convinced the signal sent by the remotes have become weaker with age. This was complicated by the metal foil insulation, metal garage door and metal roof on the house shielding the signal from the short antenna on the opener. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
I'm assuming the old "antenna" was a piece of wire? would be a simple job to strip the end of the antenna wire and connect it to the coax cable. At the other end just strip back the coax to reveal a section of wire similar length
Your suggestion worked perfectly for me. My range now goes to the end of the driveway finally! Thanks for adding it to this discussion, Joe!
I had hoped this would fix my issue, but I still had only a 5' range. Turns out that the issue was LED lightbulbs! Replacing those with non-led completely resolved my problem. Having the antenna extension won't hurt though - doubly good! Just glad I figured out the problem, and thanks to those that post solutions that led me in the right direction (including extending the antenna!)
I NEVER in a million years would have guessed this - thank you so much for your comment as this fixed my problem!! You saved me multiple additional hours of research and frustration!!!
I had the same problem. My garage is steel with a steel door. I first tried just extending the antenna wire outside but that only worked sometimes. Next i tried the coax like you did. I don't remember if i grounded the shield, but it hasn't failed once in about 3 years now. My unit is a chamberlain. Thanks for sharing.
This video saved me from having to purchase a new opener. In case you are not aware, use of LED lights including replacement florescent lamps will affect your reception according to the techs at Chamberlain. Using the shielded COAX reduced or eliminated enough of the interference to increase reliability greatly. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your comment.
Please subscribe. That is what keeps this channel running.
Ron
I was having the exact same problem with my opener. I read that if you wrap the original antenna lead around a pencil so it coils like a phone cord it will get better reception. I was VERY skeptical of this, but thought what the heck do I have to loose. I did it and our opener now works perfectly. I was going to extend my antenna too. but with the coil it is not necessary any more.
I had the same problem and this fix worked for me too. I used a short-cut. Instead of removing the board and soldering directly it, I cut the antenna wire off with about 1.5 inches showing and soldered the center wire to this. I shrink wrapped the junction and then wrapped aluminum tape around the unshielded section. Also, rather than actual coax, I used shielded speaker-microphone wire from Radio Shack. Before we had to be almost touching the door, now we can get 50 -100 feet away.
Nice video. In your case it might be necessary to solder onto the board and make you own antenna system outside. In my case I just needed a solder-less connector onto the existing antenna and some 18 gauge speaker wire to extend the antenna towards the driveway. BTW if you don't already know, LED light bulbs will interfere with wireless remote garage door openers. Event more know, is these circuit boards in some of these openers have a high failure rate and sometime show up with bad soldered connections.
Wow this was my exact problem! I found out I had metal studs last week when I went to mount my TV, but I didn't consider it would be acting as a faraday cage (my garage door is metal too). My first thought was the remote battery was low, so I replaced it and was frustrated when it didn't work. Thanks!
Ron I have the same garage setup as you with wood paneling covering the double sided aluminum thermal break insulation. I also have this on the garage ceiling and the garage door is insulated metal as well. I tried to solder the wire on the pcb as you suggested but the eyelet popped off and I couldn't solder it back on correctly. The unit I have is newer with the 315Mhz DC motor and Battery Backup, so the board was a cheaper design then yours. I would recommend cutting the antenna wire to a shorter length, stripping it, and solder the coax to it instead. I ordered a new receiver board and some other parts, so I haven't given up. I did install the AssureLink upgrade kit and that worked out real well. Thanks for the video.
It's just a vid about a remote, but kind of an honor to be the first to see Ron do anything.
I ordered a selection of beads. installed them on all of my opener wires and 8 foot light fixture wires. Made absolutely no difference at all. I thought it was going to be and easy fix.... hahahhaaa on me!!! First tried a single wire antenna extension, that didn't work at all... had to solder and run a coax cable out past the door opener, put a single 18" 1/2 wave wire on the end of the coax cable and ground the outside of the coax wire to house steel exterior. I soldered to the antenna wire and stuffed it up into the opener casing. With the lights on it now works about one car length, with the lights off it works out to about 250 feet!!! something is better than nothing... UPDATE: I just installed some aluminum tape over the wire between my coax and board, just 6 inches of tape improved the range...
Worked good for me. I don't know if it made any difference or not, but I grounded the shield because it was easy to do. Anyway, this ends 5 years of annoyance and frustration. Thank you.
Soldering on a BNC connector would allow for a quick disconnect as well. Great videos. thanks
Originally I expected I would need to connect the shield of the coaxial cable to ground but I found I did not need to do that in my particular case. Try a length of speaker wire and connect it with a wire nut when you twist it to the end of the antenna and see how it works. You can always disconnect it again if it does not work better.
Ron, this is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!
Hi Ronald,
I had exactly the same problem with my LIftMaster and did exactly what you said and it completely solved the problem.
i have this exact model of opener, with the exact same problem. This worked so well, and was a good use for the coax, since we 'cut the cord' 10 years ago, lol
The old antenna was the 11 inch purple wire shown. If you hired a “service technician” (or the neighbors kid) that is the type installation you could expect, some twisted wires. If you want a better installation, you solder it to the circuit board. On the other end I originally intended to make and install a rigid antenna, but after it was working so well I did not need to. So if you know the result before running the experiment, then yes, you could strip back the end of the coax.
Using an existing hole is a good idea. Having the extension run alongside electric wires may be a bad idea. Try a length of coax as in the video. Center wire connected to the circuit board and ground the outside shield. Then have a short antenna wire connected to the center wire of the coax. The length or the antenna should be the same as was originally on the door opener.
Ron,
Thanks for the video. I wish you would have shown the actual connecting process of the coax and the circuit board. I don't know how much to strip from the cable, how (or if) you snipped off the original male connector, ect.
I showed unsoldering the original purple antenna wire. Later in the video I said I connected the center coax lead in place of the original antenna wire and you can see the long copper wire from the coax sticking out past the surface of the board after soldering it to the board (I cut that off before reinstalling the circuit board). I am not sure what you meant by “original male connector”… I unsoldered the original purple antenna wire.
I made a short video with a bit more explanation and showing how to prepare the end of the coax for this application.
Garage Door Opener Antenna Extension - Coaxial Cable Preparation
th-cam.com/video/whlm9KoPh8E/w-d-xo.html
Hope that helps. Please subscribe. Ron
I thought so as well. If I had grounded the coax shield then the purple 11-inch antenna on the end of the coax would have been “in tune”. But it did not seem to make any difference. So I’m not going to argue with the result. The antenna extension they sell commercially is really off.
I have had the same problem. We had a metal roof and a new garage door installed and from that time on, the remote garage door opener were starting to be unreliable. We had to be very very close to garage door to open it with the remote. I solved the problem by adding a 700MHz RF amplifier (from Digikey Order Number: 1465-SMA67-1-ND) and a BNC connector to the motor drive unit. Then I run a 50 Ohm impedance coax cable with a crimped BNC connector and stripped the coax shield on the other end by the same length as the short original wire antenna. Now it works like a charm and I even gained some 50ft extra range.
P.S. With respect to the coax shield, for best results the shield should be connected on the circuit board to a nearby ground. If you don't care to connect the coax shield, you might as well use any wire you have and don't bother with coax.
Hi, can I ask - if you connect the outer shield of the coax to ground on the circuit board, do you have to connect the outer shield to anything at the other end of the coax where you connect the antenna to the central core, or as you have done - strip back the insulation to the same length of the original antenna wire? Many thanks 👍
Only need to connect the outer shield to ground on the circuit board. You do nothing with it at the far end where the original wire was connected.
I have extended the length of the factory antenna wire by simply soldering a similar diameter wire to the existing wire. Usually about 6 to 10 inches more will do the trick. No need to do all that you did, no messing or possibly damaging the board either.
Thank you Ronald Walters ! I finally did this and it worked beautifully. In my situation I was getting interference from my WiFi network. Took a while to even realize that much. Putting the antenna outside and farther from the network did the trick. I'm not getting the hundreds of feet like some (probably because I'm still getting interference) but to the end of my driveway which is way better than 1 foot away from the door. Seriously made my whole family happier!
200 feet away is really good. You certainly don't want it to pick up too far, as another remote or transmission could open the door.
Thanks for the video. You'd think the manufacturer would test the product with similar conditions to your home.
If you’re having problems with your garage door remotes make sure you don’t have LED lightbulbs in your garage door opener because that will interfere with your remote or if you have a bad electrical board itself and that could be replaced
I read that garage door A19 rated bulbs would work just fine
rock on mr walters...thanks...for the tip😎
Good job I need to do this.
Great Video. I deviated slightly by cutting the existing antenna wire about 2 inches from the metal cabinet and connected the coaxial cable to the antenna wire. After apply insulation tape, I gently shoved the antenna wire into the metal cabinet since the metal cabinet will shield any RF interference from the unshielded antenna wire.. I also grounded the coaxial cable to the cabinet. With the other end of the coaxial cable outside the garage door and attaching the antenna cable that I cut off, my garage door now opens about 50 feet from my garage door 100% of the time. Thank you for solving my RF interference problem! I can now keep my LED light bulbs.
Ronald, thanks for the video and helping people out for the last 10 years! QUESTION - Why didn't you just connect the center core of the coax to the end of the existing antenna wire? Why solder it to the board?
This has been covered in the comments many times. Did you read the comments?
The idea of using coax in the first place is to shield any interference that may be part of the problem. To do that you want the shielding as close to the circuit board as possible... plus it looks neater.
Originally I expected I would need to connect the shield of the coaxial cable to ground but I found I did not need to do that in my particular case.
Thank you sir! Solved my problem!
Good to hear it helped. Thanks for watching. Please Subscribe… that is what keeps this channel available.
In theory, your fix should do the trick for my Genie opener's range problem too. I'm hoping that I'll be able to do the same thing, but the circuit board in mine will be a little more difficult to get to. Did you use the standard type of coax that's used for television cable?
Thanks for posting your video, it's a good starting point for me.
Route 66 I used standard 75ohm
RG6 TV/Cable coax. It would be best if the outside shield was grounded but I
did not need to on mine. You are just trying to get the antenna outside where
it can pick up the signal instead of the antenna being shielded by your house
and the garage door.
Ronald
Great video, I need to extend my range too.
On the back of my LiftMaster there is a co-ax socket, the instructions say that if I want fit an extension to this point I should first cut off the original antenna.
I don't really want to do this so would it cause any harm to use your suggestion and use exposed co-ax outside the garage but leave the original wire connected?
Thanks
Graham
dalbhraddan I watched your installation video but could not see the socket. Looks like your antenna wire is purple color. Sometimes a receiver can get confused if it has more than one antenna because they can cause interference. However these door openers usually do not seem to be too picky. Just try it with the coaxial extension plugged in and see how it works. If there appears to be a problem try rolling up the original antenna wire in a tight roll and put a piece of tape or zip-tie to hold it coiled and try again. If still a problem you could unsolder it from the circuit board (you would need to first remove the board) if you do not want to just cut it off. My guess is it will probably work just fine with the extension plugged in. Good luck!
Ronald Walters
Thanks Ronald, I'll experiment around with things and bear in mind your help.
Thanks
Graham
AWESOME WORK & AWESOME VIDEO! THANKS FOR THE IDEA!
I AM HAVING A PROBLEM WITH MY GTO DRIVEWAY GATE WIRELESS INTERCOM F3100MBC CALL/KEYBOARD BOX, (LOCATED AT THE GATE) NOT COMMUNICATING WITH THE BASE STATION CALL BUTTON ANSWER/RECEIVER WHICH IS LOCATED INSIDE THE HOUSE.(this is used like a walky-talky system to speak to the person at the gate)
IT WILL WORK WHEN I BRING IT WITH IN 25', BUT NOT AT 100'?
SO AFTER SEEING WHAT YOU DID HERE, WOULD YOU THINK I COULD JUST EXTEND THE COAX CABLE ANTENNA ON THE BASE UNIT?(unit has a coax based antenna that i think can be removed and attached with some coax cable)
I KNOW I SHOULD NOT BE HAVING THIS PROBLEM TO BEGIN WITH. iT IS SUPPOSE TO WORK A LOT FURTHER THAN 100'. ESPECIALLY W/O OBSTRUCTION! BUT I PURCHASED IT USED, SO THERE YOU GO!
LOOKS GREAT, AND SAVED $180.00, BUT I THINK I MAY KNOW WHY NOW!
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU THINK THAT WILL DO THE TRICK, OR IF YOU HAVE A BETTER SOLUTION?
THANKS AGAIN FOR THE GREAT VIDEO!
+Dog-gone Dogs Radio communications can be finicky especially with some of this low power stuff. You have an antenna on both ends. I would probably look at the gate end which sits out in the weather hot/cold/wet/dusty. See if there aren't some oxidized or corroded connections with the gate end antenna/push button unit/wires. These things generally are low power and it doesn't take much to make them quit. Other than that, I really have no experience with a gate opener specifically. The wireless thing makes it easy to install, but something hard-wired between the gate and the house (buried in the ground alongside the driveway) would probably be more dependable.
Ronald Walters --Thanks for the reply, Ron!
I extended the coax type of antenna today on the receiver located inside with about 20 feet of coax cable so it was on the outside on the roof edge. So now it is only 50' between the two, so the CALL button works every time now! (but there may be a problem just like you mentioned in the outside box, because it should have worked at least 150' straight shot!
BUT, for some crazy reason i can still not communicate(carry on a conversation with whoever is at the gate?)
Oh well at least i know "someones at the gate!"
Like i said, i guess that's why i saved a bunch of $$$ on ebay!
Hi Ronald,
I have attempted this very same thing before seeing your video, but unfortunately not with the same results. I too have a Chamberlan Liftmaster (1/3 HP) same exact circuit board however. I used RG6U standard shield cable. I made sure the exposed center conductor is the same length as the original antenna. Even doubled checked that my antenna size was 1/4 wavelength. I have tried both connecting the shield to ground, and without ground. Unfortunately my improvement was marginal at best. It does work about 80% of the time, compared to 50% of the time, however the range has not improved (no more than 20ft from the opener). I have wood walls, vinyl siding, metal garage door. Any other ideas? I'm very electrically inclined, but my RF knowledge is lacking.
If I may ask, what is the length of the exposed center conductor on your coax cable? Great tutorial!
jonboy545 I ran the coax outside and soldered the original antenna wire to the center conductor mainly because the original antenna was flexible stranded wire. I was going to ground the outside shield but did not bother to do so because it worked so well as it was... which leads me to believe the antenna length is not that critical and you may be able to just run a long length of regular wire.. If your garage door is metal you want to get to the outside of that. The remote works better on a damp or rainy day and not as well of dry hot days. But extending the antenna outside the house gets me well over 120 ft away in the worst conditions.
Cheting with solder sukcer? that is a genius invention, use it all the time.
Seemed inconvenient to wire the coax directly to the board, so instead I enlarged the hole in the plastic cover where the previous antenna wire poked through, and mounted a F-type F-61 female panel connector. The center pin was soldered to where the original antenna was connected and the ring or shield side of the connector to the ground on the circuit board, which is that large foil area near his left thumb.
Notice that the board has a purple "learn" button, which indicates that it is a 315 MHz receiver. I made a ground plane antenna, using 9-inch lengths of copper wire for each element and another F-61 connector. The antenna is mounted in the garage attic and connected with a 20-foot length of RG6 coax. Range is about 600 feet.
The hole in my plastic cover was already big enough. Looked like they had used a connector on the board at one time then went the cheap route with a short bit if wire and bad range. With my steel roof I didn't even bother to try and antenna in the attic.
Thanks for posting this. I guess I could just accept this information and use it to solve my problem...but inquiring minds want to know why this works. I know that an antenna has to be of a certain length (some function of the RF wavelength??), but why does the coax not act the same as a length of common wire? Is it the shielding that makes it simply act as an extension for the antenna instead of a long antenna? And if that is so, why is it necessary to attach the original antenna at the end of the coax? Is there something special about the makeup of the antenna or is it just a piece of wire? Couldn't you just strip off the shielding at the end of the coax (same length as the antenna) and allow the unshielded core of the coax to act as the antenna?
Also, can someone answer the question "Why are some remote devices so weak and flakey?" Garage door openers seem to be prone to this type of problem. I also have a remotely operated electronic predator call that has extremely poor range despite having a big clunky remote with an antenna and lots of battery power. Yet I my car keyless entry, which is a tiny fob powered by tiny batteries works reliably up to several hundred feet away.
It's just wire. It's easier to just solder the wire on the end rather than strip the coax back, plus the center of the coax is just a single strand, easy to break, the antenna were it multi strand, flexible, and stronger.
I had to do something similar to a car alarm once because my mounting location had too much metal around it.
RF remotes can be pretty cheaply made sometimes, and transmitters can actually drift over time and become "out of tune" with the receiver. Although, my #1 problem I seem to have with all remotes is if the contacts are not good, even a 1.5 VDC battery can spark against the contacts which builds up carbon and gradually becomes a bad connection.
Most times, if I take out a battery, clean the contacts and battery, put it back in, then my remotes will work again.
I try to use DEOXIT contact cleaner when I can and I think that can help.
Otherwise, pencil erasers can clean up contacts without taking away metal like an abrasive would do.
Some remote can be 'weak' or better said out of tune. The remote must operate on the exact same frequency as the receiver. The remote, so as the receiver, are build cheaply without any crystals, so frequency stability over temperature, time and humidity is not very good. This can lead to greatly reduced sensitivity e.g. range. (do a little research to find out what frequency your receiver unit operates on. To find out, on the back of the unit is a FCC registration number, googling this number leads to the FCC site which documents all technical details on FCC licensed devices including the operating frequency. Knowing the operating frequency of the device can be helpful.)
Inside the remote unit may be an adjustable tuning capacitor (may look like a small screw). This can be adjusted to match the frequency of the receiver.
However, adjustment shall not be made with a metal tool, as the presence of the metal at the tuning capacitor will disturb the tuning, one needs a ceramic blade or plastic tip screw driver to tune this properly. Generally for tuning, it needs specialized and very expensive RF test equipment, such a spectrum analyzer and an antenna. Usually these are not accessible to normal people so to tune this anyway, one would do it the caveman style, one needs to be far enough away from the receiver (let's say 20ft) so the receiver would not 'see' the remote when the button on the remote is pressed. (Mind you the orientation of the remote with respect to the receiver antenna is somewhat relevant) Assuming the remote has been opened to be able to access the tuning capacitor, pressing the remote button while slowly adjusting the tuning capacitor might help to find the optimum tune. Tuning this without the RF test equipment doing it caveman style can be very finicky and frustrating and may not yield the desired improvement, so do this at your own risk. Remember: RF stuff is like black magic 😁😁😁
I had the same issue and model. I removed the LED bulb and replaced it with an incandescent bulb. It works great now! Not sure why but a low wattage incandescent bulb fixed my problem.
Mine started doing this when i used an LED, but when I removed the LED the problem remained.
An incandescent bulb is as simple as it gets (except vibration from the door opener can shorten the life). LED's have a bit more going on inside electronically and possibly it is generating RF interference since it is so close to the door opener receiver. I am just guessing here.
Sorry, did't see your comment earlier. An incandescent bulb is as simple as it gets (except vibration from the door opener can shorten the life). LED's have a bit more going on inside electronically and possibly it is generating RF interference since it is so close to the door opener receiver. I am just guessing here.
I have used an LED for a week or two and after removing it the range of the opener is nowhere near what it was.
I am having a similar problem, but due to an extremely noisy transformer for low-voltage lighting. Quick question, how did you determine where to ground the shielding?
+Jason Wolfgram See where ground is - green wire. Make absolutely sure it is the ground wire. If you aren't sure, get someone to help you.
So, to be clear, you reattached the original antennae wire to the end of the coax. How did you reattach it? Did you solder it to the center lead of the coax or some other method?
Thanks for the video.
I soldered it. You could strip the center lead to the same length but it may not hold up as well as a piece of flexible multi strand wire.
going with the coax. I replaced my four 8 foot neons with LED bulbs. I love the extra brightness but the door opener doesn't work unless they are off.
Since you appear to have interference form those LED bulbs, you may need to ground the outside of the coax. Thanks for watching.
got an apartmwnt building that need garahe openwr replaced. to save money and time, can i put multi code receiver on this unit, so that tenants can keep using their current multicode remote.?
I am not familiar with that. Sorry!
Ronald, I have this problem with my chamberlain opener not responding to the remote unless I point the remote upward right at the opener inside the garage I tried using coax to extend the antenna wire to outside the house, but I'm getting mixed results. since I'm not confident in my soldering abilities I just used a but splice to attach the coax to the openers antenna wire and a splice to attach a piece of speaker wire to the end of the coax outside the house. Is soldering the coax directly to the board important for this to work? I also didn't ground the shield wire as I didn't know to do this
Sean Aiello If your remote will not work any further away than that you have other problems. With the original short antenna and the garage door open, the opener should receive a signal while you stand out in the driveway. Either your antenna is not connected to the circuit board (bad solder joint or broken antenna wire) or something wrong with the remote. Go back to square one and start over. Reinstall the original short antenna wire. Go to the people who installed the opener. They usually have a tested for the remotes which indicates which channel they are on and signal strength. Possibly a new battery is needed. If none of that works you may need a service call to check out your problem. I cannot tell from here. Sorry!
Ronald Walters yeah it works farther away the longer wire has helped I can get it to respond almost have out of the driveway however it doesn't respond everything. I've ordered a replacement remote to rule that out, maybe will have to check the original antenna wire for continuity and going to replace the outlet in the garage for possible interference issue. Will keep you posted
I'll call it good too
Woah. That's.... alot. I've seen videos of people just stripping and twisting in a separate wire, running it along the ceiling to just above the garage door and that extends the range pretty nicely. Why would this be necessary? The only difference I have seen is the metal roof...
First you need to understand that the initial "assumption" was the receiver in the door opener required a tuned antenna (that the original antenna wire was a specific length for a reason) and the door opener company confirmed that requirement. Using a coaxial cable filters out outside or unwanted signals or interference. Apparently using a compact fluorescent bulb or some LED bulbs in a door opened can cause interference for the remote control. And yes I have a metal roof, the house is wrapped with aluminum foil backed insulation under the siding and the garage door is also metal. If I simply ran a length of wire outside and found out it didn't work... then I would have needed to remove that and run the coaxial cable. Easier to just run the coaxial cable in the first place. Normally the outside shield of coaxial cable needs to be grounded in order to be effective. In this case it didn't seem to make any difference. Thanks for watching!
Great. Thanks!
You used a coax cable, seems like any insulated wire would work, no ? Or is the impedance of the coax a key parameter? Was that 50 ohm impedance cable?
I used RG6. Originally I expected I would need to connect the shield of the coaxial cable to ground but I found I did not need to do that in my particular case. Try a length of speaker wire and connect it with a wire nut when you twist it to the end of the antenna and see how it works. You can always disconnect it again if it does not work better and use the coax as suggested. Whatever works....
I tried this "pig-tail" coil, and it didn't help at all. I finally used Ronald's coax solution and it's much, much better.
So do I have to use a coaxial cable or will any wire type work?
Lord Esperath It is best to use coaxial cable as it shields the remote radio signal from various sources of electrical interference (motor noise, florescent light noise, etc.) so only the correct signal reaches the door opener receiver. Ground the outside shield to the door opener.
Wow as far as my garage door goes, i still have the same Genie opener and remote that was in this house for the last 25-30 yrs, and it will open while driving down the street before arriving at the 100' drive way! (virtually no obstructions though)
It's just this stuborn GTO Mighty-Mule gate system that always lets me down! I am about ready to just make the kids and wife, get out and manually open /close the frikin gate! lol!;-)------if extending it like you did your garage does not work, that's exactly what we will be doing, because i am sick of spending money trying to keep this frikin gate system working correctly!
Seems like something quits on it every 6 mths or so!
Sorry, just venting a little! lol!
Hello why just use the same anntena cable and weld it to the other new black cable ??
andresco50 After it was all done I probably could have. You never know for sure what is preventing the signal from the remote getting to the door opener antenna. My garage door is aluminum. My house has a metal roof. The house is also wrapped in foil backed insulation and there is always the possibility of electrical interference. Generally, the antenna is cut to a correct length for the radio frequency of the system. In this case the original purple antenna was 11 inches long. When using coaxial cable, the center of the coax is connected to the circuit board at the door opener (where the antenna was originally connected) and the outside shield of the coax is connected to ground (which shields the receiver from any stray signals and effectively zeroes out the length of the long coaxial wire). Then I connected the original purple antenna to the coax outside the house putting the system back to an 11" antenna length. I used the original purple antenna wire because it was flexible and it was available. I had not yet connected the coax shield to a ground because a ground was not handy at the circuit board. When I tested the remote it was working so well I just left it alone. Had the remote not worked satisfactorily, I would have connected the shield to ground as originally intended.
wow. 200ft range... i practically have to ram the door with the car before i can get a signal... maybe.
we have the same garage door opener, but we are using a homelink remote that came with the car. but the results are the same... neither the original hand held remote or the built in homelink will open the door on certain days >_
+fabulousprofound On mine a humid or wet rainy day works better (more distance) than a hot dry day.
Mr Walter sounds like John Goodman
So I ran an extension with just speaker wire through a hole for an outside light so the wire was outside the house and NO difference. Does not make sense to me. Any thoughts?
So I know this comment is from 4 years ago, but I want to reply in case someone comes by and sees this, that they know why.
Antenna's need to be a fraction of the wavelength they need to receive. For example, the garage door opener I have operates at 315MHz. The Wavelength of 315Mhz is approximately 95.17cm. Most whip antennas are Quarter wavelength antennas, meaning that an antenna for my garage door opener should be about 23.8cm, or 9.3 inches.
In essence, the reason that your solution didn't work is because you used speaker wire. That wire is unshielded, meaning that the entire length was an antenna. Lets say for example that you ran 20 ft of it. You effectively created an antenna that operates most effectively at around 12MHz.
You have to use some sort of shielded wire, and only expose the center conductor to whatever length you need to be at 1 quarter wavelength.
Daniel, thanks for that. I have no idea if I ever replied to 4n6man 4 years ago or not. TH-cam was supposed to send us an email whenever we received a comment on one of our videos... then they stopped doing that (but never told us they stopped) thus I may have never seen this comment. Then as a result of one of their "improvements" they shuffled comments and replies like a deck of cards and replies may or may not be associated with the corresponding comment. Sweet! TH-cam is an imperfect system. Ron Walters
I have the same issue. I'm glad I read the comments. Thank you
Seems that a large number of comments with good results were left by those who followed my suggestion of using coax. Therefore I suggest doing what is shown in the video... which worked for me as well as many others. Thanks for watching!
Here's a hint I had same problem , Dont use LED lights in Door opener they are not capatable with mother board , I put in incadesants and opener works great 200 feet away with door closed.
+Phil Saladino Spot on! that was my issue! The LED lamps can give off an interference. They must have an FCC logo stamped on it, if not, you'll run into some weird non responsive remotes.
How about circular fluorescent bulbs?
Led was the problem for me too, thanks so much...
Thanks! that fix it.
Now the bad guys can check to see if they can get your door open futher away, but at least you can get your door open
This guy sounds like Eugene Porter from The Walking Dead
WHY NOT JUST ADD AN EXTENSION TO THE EXISTING WIRE COMING OUT TO THE OPENER USING TELEPHONE WIRE ETC?
Asked and answered several times in the comments. Receivers usually have a tuned antenna (specific length of wire) which gives the best reception from the transmitter (the garage door remote). In this case it didn't appear to make any difference.
Hi, I tried to do the same with my drive garage (by hormann - promatic 2). However, I have the problem of what to do with the outer wire from coaxial cable, where to connect? I connect hot plug (central wire) in to the plate instead of the original approximately 9cm white cable (antenna?) but what about the outer coaxial wire - the screen?
My plate looks like this: namyslow.net/promatic2.jpg
Thanks for any suggestion.
***** Gently unbraid a few inches of the outside shield (the screen), twist it into a round wire and connect it to ground. You can solder the twisted shield (do not melt the coax), cut it off short and connect it to a piece of wire if that makes it easier to connect to ground. Keep it short as possible. Tape bare wires to prevents any possible shorts. If you cannot locate ground on the circuit board, the metal case of your opener (or the motor) may be grounded... connect it there.
Connecting the outside shield to ground shields the inner wire from stray signals. In my case it was not necessary to connect it to ground as the receiver was not picky about the antenna length. Just getting the antenna extended outside where it could get a clean signal from the garage door remote did the trick. Different circuitry (or the frequency used in your country) may react differently to antenna length.
Ronald Walters Thanks for fast answer. I try to connect it to metal case of motor (one of the wires that go out from board - green one on the picture - is connected to the motor case). Ill test the remote range after this (with outdoor antenna).
***** Looks like your electric is 220V 50HZ and green is the ground. Hope it works for you.
Ronald Walters Yes, line is 230V/50Hz but voltage from trafo (is in the case) is 22-23V, motor is the same 24V, and light is 24V too. Garage drive have an akku option (extra connector on the mobo) for emergency opening with no 230V line.
Good job but, that a little over kill to go through your steps when you can just tap into the existing wire.
Not knowing at the time if it would be necessary to ground the coax, it wasn't overkill at all.
first view :O