Electrical Engineers!!

[Dave]

So I'm trying to figure out how to improve my garage door signal strength since the remotes aren't working consistenly. I did the obvious and changed the batteries but no luck. So I went to google and found a suggestion to hold the remote to your chin. I have yet to try this, since I'm at work, but is that an actual option?

I see wiring go from the unit to the ceiling that I assume runs out to the front but can't see exactly, there is also a short wire in the unit itself that I tried to wiggle. The side object detector units don't receive signals I assume.

I'm bored at work obviously.

[Jonathan]

I wrote a big long reply to this and it got eaten somehow.

Salt water is a conductor, albeit a shitty conductors. Human beings are mostly salt water. You can affect your TV or radio reception by standing near it. Being near your transmitter, however, is not going to help the electric field more than propagating through air. You do have line of sight to the receiver when you click, right?

Being higher can help if the problem is a noise-related one due to reflections of waves off your driveway. I have no idea what kind of modulation they use for garage door openers, but unless the home is really really new I suspect whatever it is is subject to multipath interference. You might get by with a shitty opener which has multipath inteference by raising the clicker high every time you use it. My guess is this isn't the problem, but it's easy enough to try. The chin wouldn't be at all important, just raise it as high as you can. Above your head, even.

If the problem is a weak ass clicker, buy a new clicker. They cannot be expensive.

If a new clicker doesn't solve it, maybe you have some sort of RF interference in your neighborhood. Call the FCC!

I have no idea what a side object detector is.

[Dave]

Side object detector are the devices that detect if something would obstruct the door from closing and stop the opener. Two are usually on each side of the garage inside.

I have two clickers and the both suck. But apparently it works better in the morning than at night, but didn't thin I needed loS for a garage door, though I do have problems picking up all the digital broadcast channels, but that is another topi altogether! Tvfool.com seems usefulish

[Jonathan]

Radio goes through buildings a lot better than IR or visible light. But not perfectly --- buildings are pretty shitty radio windows. You lose AM reception when you go under the overpass, right?

[quantus]

There's an app for that...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/s ... 6/1?csp=ip