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Garage door remote controls - some history.
Early UK garage door opener manufacturers would have
thought our modern remote controls wondrous devices. The garage door
openers of the time in the UK - the 1960's and 1970's - were ultrasonic.
You could count the manufacturers twice on one hand.
These devices' endearing characteristics were that they died
after slight impact. They needed careful handling; often were
directional signals, which was disconcerting at times, and more seriously,
were susceptible to spurious signals producing random operation.
Random opening of garage doors usually turned out to
be not the work of some rogue. But no-one was amused - these things were
extravagantly expensive. The least they could do was to work properly. At
around £35.00 and upwards for a zapper in 1969 it was no joke needing to
replace them on a regular basis. And there were only a few frequencies
available. The one at number 23 Your Road could probably open the garage
door at number 31 Your Road.
Fun and games all around indeed.
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One family became a customer because they'd not been
able to isolate the problem with their garage door openers. They opened
for no apparent reason at all times of the day and night. Often, closing
without the owners intervention, it was more like a cartoon for children than expensive
'real life' action.
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Another, a local GP was not amused to discover his garage door open
most mornings for the passing world to see his grand storage of 'stuff'
beside a busy road. |
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In the first case the local taxi service and their
radios were the problem but the GP's garage door had a surreptitious relationship with the
milkman. Yes. Strange but true.
When conditions were right the rattling of milk bottles in
the wire crates did the early morning favour of opening the door.. |
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Security was non-existent. You'd maybe guessed that. |
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There came on the scene a blessing in the form of
vhf radio transmitters. Good range, smaller in size but it
transpired that these things were vulnerable to randomly produced radio
signals from portable hand held signal generators which was good only for
the thieves with some brains. |
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Now though, Tornados flying around would activate
these. Not very good when night flying training was all the rage. Things
were moving on apace and the next major improvement was a coding system
using ten switches to send a personalised coded signal every time. Things
were getting better but not perfect. Having
said all that they had one major advantage over the current remote
population.
They all had a screw which, when turned with a
screwdriver you have handy, opened the casing for battery changes. Try to
open some of the joke designs around now and you'll spot the difference.
Maybe you'll be distracted by the broken fingernails. |
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At the same time electronics designs were becoming more
stable and cleverer.
Now there came along a different way of doing things. The designers
developed a method of enabling the transmitter and receiver to talk
to one another. |
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This is RTS™
and other descriptions like Rolling Code,
which means that the signal sent to open the door or gate is coded
differently every time it is used and at the same time the receiver is made aware of its next
authorised signal from that sender. That's nearly clever isn't it?
What's even nearer clever is that the system can handle
more than one transmitter each with their own differing coded
system. |
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So now, if a remote, fob, transmitter, zapper or whatever you
prefer to call it is lost or stolen there is a need only to reset the remote system
and the missing zapper can not be used. What is more interesting is
that the Tornado, rattling milk bottle and taxi radio effect (these latter
two almost a thing of the
past) have gone from our lives. |
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Not having switches to change codes, instead prompting
only a 'handshake', we can be sure that the latest remotes are
providing a first class service. Security and convenience in abundance. |
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Another benefit is that the Somfy remote you see at the top
of the page has several functions. Button No 1
can open and close gates. Button No 2 opens one of a pair of gates for
pedestrian access. A third can talk to the garage door opener and
the fourth button can switch on area lighting
- driveway and such. Now I call that sophisticated - and much cleverer
too since it is all built into the circuit supplied with the kit. No
extras to pay for. Remarkably robust, the
Somfy RTS remote
is streets ahead of other flimsy affairs. |
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PS No we didn't forget about the short lived infra red remotes
which also had a specific code. As you may imagine, because they operated
in the
light spectrum, they suffered interference in adverse lighting conditions.
One such adverse condition was the tinted glass so
beneficial to drivers. Some early Infra red systems couldn't cope with this. Curiously,
the sun, when it came visiting, created some problems of its own. Having
said that, some sites are still working satisfactorily since the late
seventies. Maybe it was the luck of the draw and the need for bit of local
practical ingenuity that caused the problem. Perhaps there was not much
luck and ingenuity around in those days.
We did encounter one superb infra red system but the
let down was that their garage door openers were rubbish (withdrawn within
six months?) so we cannot give them credit here. |
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PPS Yes we did find solutions to the ultra sonic
problems. |
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