some of these things have more than one channel in case next door has the same unit. You could check and change if so. Also there are lots of other things that set them off sometimes hard to figure out.
First, a common issue with *wired* doorbells, is the cable acts as a longwire antenna, meaning, someone in Brazil runs up their power tool, causes a false trigger on your doorbell. The fix involves a bit of knowhow, to place some caps (.1uF or so) in critical areas to stop random spikes from getting through.
Before you effect this fix though, be *REALLY* sure if you want to do it. We have a musical doorbell that used to have this trouble before I got fed up and fixed it. Trouble is, after a decade or so, I'm *REALLY* sick of the tunes. I curse the day I fixed it, every day. This also might be the case with wireless doorbells too.
The second, for wireless doorbells, is to check if you have a neighbour who has the same type, and pick a different channel (if you have that option). If you've already been through that, you need to determine if it's the discriminator that is not as discriminating as it should be. Though if that's the case, you're pretty well stuffed unless you're happy to re-design.
Third option is to kick the arses of the neighbourhood kids who are ringing your doorbell and running off. Though, you can easily tell if this is the case by looking for burning paper bags on your doorstep.
My sister did that on hers, and that fixed it. She was getting 3 or so a day, and reached the point where she got creeped out by it.
I gave her a Stephen King series to watch, and I asked several weeks down the track how far she was along. She said she got about half way before giving it up. Asking if she didn't like it, said no, the constant doorbell rings at night with no-one at the door creeped her out too much.
Don't think so, on the problematic ones I've seen, phones were the norm, and didn't appear to make a difference.
I don't think traffic would do it, my guess would be if old ignition systems were doing it, it would be triggered by far more often than that.
Again, I don't think so. Would likely cause continuous issues otherwise, not just intermittent (albeit 5 times a day).
That comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but you never know... :-)
Ah! good, John. the benefit I have, is when you manually press the bell it just goes "ding dong" or two sounds.
If it is tripped, it sings merrily, like those old mantle timepieces that chime out the hour. I woudn't arise from my flight pod in front of the computer screen figuring if someone wants me they would ring again.
Kind of a metaphor on life, isn't it? thanks for your assistance, I'll play with the channels if no joy I'll commit it to landfill.
(thinking to myself) I wonder why they have a licence to produce it, if it be so tenuous. Fits in nicely, quality wise with Samsung fridges and Daewoo cars.
They do. That range is a 'free for all' as long as you limit power, transmission time, and of course only intend it for short range work. As long as you comply with the licence conditions (the above being part of that), it's free.
Problem is, since there is so much demand for short range work, and everyone tries to keep costs down as far as they can, RF licence costs can amount to quite a significant amount. Stands to reason everyone tries to use the freebie one.
Sure, knowing this you could build a tight comprehensive coding system that removes any chance of false triggers. And for security applications, they certainly do that. However, since doorbells can't warrant this type of cost - they don't.
Wireless does have it's applications, but even here, I veer towards wired (for almost everything), simply because it's by far more reliable, faster and cheaper than the wireless options.
One day my garage door wouldn't open any more by r/c. I investigated, reset and even reprogrammed the receiver. No success.
Later that day I found that my wireless doorbell (AARLEC) didn't work either. Checking this out I found that someone had pressed the button so hard that it got stuck and operated constantly. That didn't trigger any more bell sounds though.
But it jammed the receiver of the garage door!
Freeing up the door bell button fixed both problems, of course.
The garage r/c never triggered the door bell. Nor would the door bell open the garage door, they are coded. The question is, can some codes resemble the other's close enough to trigger an action?
Have you ever noticed your neighbours' cars arrival trigger your doorbell? ;-)
No, but I'll be keeping an eye out. We do have a "Blair witch" feel around here, everybody's mobile phones go in and out of reception as well We have put it down to the power pylons in the next street.
It doesn't even need to do that. Akin to two radio stations transmitting at the same time on the same channel, you don't get a good signal of either.
Exactly *how* they interfere with each other can vary, but the bottom line is, one 'unwanted' transmission can corrupt a wanted transmission enough to stop it from working.
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