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What is the best option for increasing garage door opener range?

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There seems to be a special kit for extending the antenna but I want to try splicing another wire first and bringing that wire outside the garage.

I have a 10 year old Chamberlain and the range sucked - from every source. I did exactly as you are thinking and soldered a long thin (~20 gauge) wire onto the short one hanging out of the unit. To get it outside my metal garage door that was likely attenuating some of the signal, I ran that wire out through a tiny hole in the garage door trim and ran it vertically from top to bottom on one edge then painted it in. It tripled my range and works >90% of the time with the default geofenced Tesla settings.
 
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I need to be extremely close to the garage door in order for the opener to work from the car and I suspect this is the reason that auto opening does not work for me.

I'm looking into options for increasing the range. I have an older Chamberlain Garage door opener
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Would be great to get this to work so as I pull up to the driveway, the garage door is already open.
We have two openers, one a overhead door and one craftsman. The ohd opens from 4-5 houses away the craftsman I have to be sitting in the driveway.

I went with technology and got a myq for both doors for $68 at Sam's club. Now I can open and close from anywhere and it will alert me if I forget to close and even autoclose at set times. Lengthening the antenna doesn't help if the opener signal is not getting through the door/wall
 
I have a 10 year old Chamberlain and the range sucked - from every source. I did exactly as you are thinking and soldered a long thin (~20 gauge) wire onto the short one hanging out of the unit. To get it outside my metal garage door that was likely attenuating some of the signal, I ran that wire out through a tiny hole in the garage door trim and ran it vertically from top to bottom on one edge then painted it in. It tripled my range and works >90% of the time with the default geofenced Tesla settings.

This is exactly what I plan and doing and hope it works!
 
As long as the wire is copper it will work. Do not use copper plated steel. The only thing better than copper would be pure silver wire. That would be an expensive antenna extension.

Turn off everything that is within 50 feet of the opener and try again. You may not need an antenna extension, just an appliance replacement.

I installed a new Chamberlain opener that is on 390 MHz (yellow antenna wire insulation) to replace a Craftsman opener from 1977. The car can now open the door from the street which is 75 feet from the garage and I have steel garage doors.
 
Before making any changes - would recommend first testing using a remote supplied with the opener. If the range is acceptable for the handheld remote, then the problem could be with the homelink hardware in the car.

While longer range is useful - a downside is that you can get unintended openings from the car. If you have the trigger point set in the car on or close to the street, if you drive by the front of your house, the software could trigger the opener - and you could end up leaving the house with the garage door open.
 
Some of you are making a 'random wire antenna'.

The length of any antenna is a function of the frequency it's supposed to work at, and the speed radio waves travel through the copper. For best efficiency and to reduce standing waves, make it 1/4 wave, 1/2 wave, 1 or some multiple. Here's a calculator: Wavelength Calculator K7TJO

Gauge of wire does matter. Too small increases impedance. 18 gauge is fine for a longer antenna like this.
 
Does the optimal length different based on wire gauge?

I thought finding 30 feet of quality 18-guage copper wire would be so easy on Amazon. Apparently not. Just about everything they sell is tin and copper. Anyone have a source for quality copper cables?

Also I found this guide handy for figuring out the frequency:
garage door openers learn buttons color difference

With my purple button, the frequency is 315 MHz and therefore the length should optimally be a multiple of 37.47 inches or 1/4 or 1/2 of that.
 
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Bumping an old post... OP, did you have any luck resolving your range issues?

I have a new-to-me P85D, and the homelink has no range at all. I have to have the nose facing the garage door, and be about a foot from the door for it to work (and this is really inconvenient seeing as I have to back in to the garage to reach the charger). The remote that came with the opener still has great range (50' +) as does my truck and the BMW that I traded in on the car.

Any ideas?
 
Bumping an old post... OP, did you have any luck resolving your range issues?

I have a new-to-me P85D, and the homelink has no range at all. I have to have the nose facing the garage door, and be about a foot from the door for it to work (and this is really inconvenient seeing as I have to back in to the garage to reach the charger). The remote that came with the opener still has great range (50' +) as does my truck and the BMW that I traded in on the car.

Any ideas?

Yes, I am happy to report that all I did was buy a wire from the hardware store, connected it to the short antenna sticking out of the garage door opener and ran it all the way out of the garage and down the side of the garage door frame.

I no longer have any issues opening the garage door but I'm having major issues trying to get the car to automatically open the garage door as I arrive.
 
Okay, back to looking into an easy way to extend the antenna. Has anyone just spliced a certain gauge wire and just strung that outside the garage to increase the Model S garage door opener range?
Both my standard garage remote control and my Model S Homelink used to be really unreliable, sometimes working, sometimes not, even from close range (and no, I don't have and LED lights nearby causing interference). My garage has a metal door and I suspect that was a factor. I recently extended the antenna, and both my remote and Homelink work perfectly now.

To extend the antenna I used a spare piece of coax cable I had lying around (e.g. the kind used for cable TV) long enough to reach from the garage opener to the inside front wall of the garage.

I desoldered the existing antenna wire from the garage opener logic board. I cut off both connectors on the coax cable, soldered one end of the center conductor to the logic board where the original antenna was connected, and soldered the original antenna wire to the far end of the coax. The original antenna wire now hangs just on the inside of the front garage wall, high but beside and clear of the metal door itself
 
My range issues were solved by switching my generic LED bulbs in the garage door opener to the Genie brand LED bulbs.

Since adding the extra cable, my range has been extended greatly but to make the connection even more solid, I'm going to get these lights that are designed to eliminate interference in garage doors. They are less expensive than the Genie bulbs and, more importantly, come in a 100W variant for extra light.

These bulbs combined with the extra length of cable should help. I'll post my results.

https://amzn.to/2WPsCxp
 
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Some of you are making a 'random wire antenna'.

The length of any antenna is a function of the frequency it's supposed to work at, and the speed radio waves travel through the copper. For best efficiency and to reduce standing waves, make it 1/4 wave, 1/2 wave, 1 or some multiple. Here's a calculator: Wavelength Calculator K7TJO

Gauge of wire does matter. Too small increases impedance. 18 gauge is fine for a longer antenna like this.

Using the wavelength calculator at a typical frequency of 390 Mhz yields about 2 1/2 ft. Running a wire from opener through garage wall could be 15-30 ft long. While multiples of 2.5 ft are best, you'll discover accuracy has marginal impact on distance. In my ham radio days decades ago, we often used a 'long-wire" antenna (~100ft) for the receiver. Also, you will receive marginal range extension by opting for 18 vs. 20 / 22 gauge wire. Getting your antenna outside the garage and eliminating nasty led bulbs are the greatest factors extending range.
 
Using the wavelength calculator at a typical frequency of 390 Mhz yields about 2 1/2 ft. Running a wire from opener through garage wall could be 15-30 ft long. While multiples of 2.5 ft are best, you'll discover accuracy has marginal impact on distance. In my ham radio days decades ago, we often used a 'long-wire" antenna (~100ft) for the receiver. Also, you will receive marginal range extension by opting for 18 vs. 20 / 22 gauge wire. Getting your antenna outside the garage and eliminating nasty led bulbs are the greatest factors extending range.

Keep in mid those ham wavelenths were/are 15 meters or so.
 
There are ham bands from 135.7 kHz (2200 meters) to 250 GHz (1.2 millimeters). All frequencies above 300 GHz are also available to hams.

Frequency Allocations

Yes. It's been a long time for me, but I still have my ham license. I still have my old Kenwood tube-final transmitter and receiver, and my first radio too, I can't remember what it is. I heard there is no more morse code needed, and I was pretty good at it. Speaking of long antennae, back in the day, I was able to string an antenna between dorm buildings with no one noticing. It stayed there all year. HA! I sorta miss those days, but really can't figure out what in the world there is to talk about OTA.