With technology bringing us so much at the click of a button, we’ve gotten used to convenience at our finger tips.
However, there could be problems caused from all the advances.
In a west Omaha neighborhood, a strange occurrence happened Saturday around noon. “Saturday my kids were getting things out of the garage, and my son came in and said the garage door didn’t work,” said Patti Donscheski. “When I went out to take a look at it, it looked like there was power coming to everything, but nothing would work.”
A few blocks away, two more residents near 168th and Harrison had similar experiences.
“Same thing, Saturday our garage door just wouldn’t open up,” said Christie Bechler. “One of our remotes worked, the others did not.”
The garage door problems appear to be more than coincidence. Experts say anything that emits a strong signal can affect the way our garage door works. Anything from cable television, to computer routers, and even Offutt Air Force Base conducting tests, can interfere with the frequency on which garage door operators wrok.
Every time you have something running through a power line, it does emit a little bit of sound or noise, sometimes that can be high enough to interfere with the frequency that the garage door is on. Garage doors are operated on two separate frequencies, 390 and 315. The only answer for those with issues may be to install a black box that receives both frequencies.
Still, it’s unclear exactly what caused the outage in the west Omaha neighborhood. “It’s pretty odd, makes me want to start calling my neighbors, because you don’t normally just bring it up in conversation,” said Donscheski.
“Now hearing about the neighbors it really makes me wonder, I guess I just never would have guessed it would be something so complicated,” said Bechler.
The outage may be a nuisance, but the women say it could be worse. “As long as it doesn’t affect my husband’s remote control, we’ll be alright,” said Donscheski.
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