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310Mhz Garage Opener Detector

All,

I live in an apartment and we have a radio controlled garage door opener. Every once in a while someone's remote gets stuck on and the door remains open until the battery dies (there are about 40 cars in the garage). I looked at my remote and its a Linear Corp. Digital Transmitter Model DTD which transmits on 310Mhz.

What I'd like to do is find a cheap receiver of some kind that would allow me to detect which car has the stuck remote. I was thinking that maybe an X10 product might be easily adaptable to my purpose since they use 310Mhz frequency. What I would like is a hand-held, battery operated device that would beep or indicate when it was near a remote that was active so I could walk through the garage and find out who needed to be contacted to fix their remote. Any suggestion?

Alternative solutions are welcome (other than moving ;-)

Regards, David

Reply to
DMF
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}... }What I'd like to do is find a cheap receiver of some kind that would }allow me to detect which car has the stuck remote.

A cheap filed strength meter would probalby suffice.

See:

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or google for more circuits.

Stan.

Reply to
Stan

I'm no radio expert but... You may need more than a receiver. The signal may reflect off the walls and cars in the garage and bounce around. You might need complex, sensitive equipment to "triangulate" where the signal is coming from. This would be a very expensive system using three antennae and receivers to sense from which direction the signal is strongest. Since these openers sometimes operate for 50 to 100 feet away from the receiver the signal would be bouncing all over the place and make it very difficult to find the source within the garage. Someone more experienced in radio frequency equipment may have a better or much simpler answer for you.

Reply to
Jumpster Jiver

Thanks to everyone who replied. I am looking into a cheap Field Strength Meter as suggested by Stan.

These remotes work from about 100ft since I can open the door from about that distance. I think that as long as the FSM has a sensitivity adjustment I can reduce the sensitivity until it can only detect from about 10ft. That should allow me to zero in on the car in the lot with the stuck remote. Also, even though the output from the remote is pulsed if the button is stuck on its probably sending out enough sequential pulses at the 310Mhz frequency for me to detect with the FSM... I hope... right now the only way for the landlord to deal with this is to post signs to get the other tenants to check their remotes and/or wait until the battery dies, so the door stays open for days.

Regards, David

Reply to
DMF

you probably want a FSM with audio out,,, you'll be able to hear the pulses and when they get louder you are getting closer...

hmmm portable TV set tuned to UHF Ch 39 = 620 MHz which is the second harmonic,,, you may be able to see some lines on snow when you get close....

may need to get very close as the second harmonic should be much weaker

Mark

Reply to
Mark

}hmmm portable TV set tuned to UHF Ch 39 = 620 MHz which is the second }harmonic,,, you may be able to see some lines on snow when you get }close....

hmmm...also, if you have a portable cable-ready tv, cable channel 38 would show the 310 mhz signal in the video.

Stan.

Reply to
Stan

Stan...

cable ready TV..... great idea...!

Mark

Reply to
Mark

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