Date:         Thu, 20 Jul 95 9:57:17 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Al Knoll <alf@hpptc38.rose.hp.com>
Subject:      Genie in your garage?

A couple of basics on the "radio" controlled garage door openers.

The pushbutton thingy is a radio transmitter that sends a coded signal.

The reciever listens to any and all signals that happen to be within earshot.

If one of these signals has the recievers name on it the receiver talks to the
motor relay and turns on the lifting motor if it was off or off if it was on.

Now if the receiver gets all higgledypiggeldy and whines at random to the motor
relay your garage door will raise and lower randomly.

If it's really an oooold Genie then the receiver is a separate box that has 
a ~5-10 inch wire just hanging down as an antenna.  You can replace the receiver
and see if that fixes it or just disconnect the receiver and see if the problem
remains.  

A common method for folks who'd like to help you clean out your garage is to
get a passel of transmitters and set em to all on or all off and just drive 
around a likely neighborhood and see what they can catch with their electronic
garage door fishing system.  Stanley makes a secure system that's harder to 
foil.  They have two buttons on their sender.  One controls an alarm and the
other controls a security relay that can be used to lock out the first button.

You have to push secure and then open in sequence or no action.

When you go on vacation, disconnect the GDO at the 110V Plug and lock the door
with a padlock through the track.  With a double deadbolt on the garage entry
door and the GD locked they'll have a mean time of it getting in to help you
clean out your garage.

Didn't help mike tho.  They used a crowbar to pry the doorjamb out of the frame
sawed through the padlock with the sawzall that they stole along with mucho
other stuff after they disabled the alarm system by cutting the ac feed to the
garage.  So if the MFs really want your stuff and they've got an IQ higher 
than the ambient temp in Celcius they'll probably get it.

Of course the sleeping cobra in the basket by the door might deter their exit.
--
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         ___  / __   __/   ____/         Al Knoll HP Performance Technology /
        /    /      /     /             Center    Roseville, CA, USA 95747 /
       _____/      /     /             916.785.5317    (Telnet 785-5317)  /
      /           /     /             email:  alf@hpptc38.rose.hp.com    /
   __/         __/   ______/         ___________________________________/