On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:52:49 -0500, "Karl Townsend"
wrote:

There's a garage door on the side of the packing shed that is open/closed
every time a tractor load of fruit comes in. Three tractors most days.

If one remote dies, you have to retrain all three, otherwise the other two
won't work. this is getting to be a terrible pain. Plus, most of the time
the remote won't work till you're right in front of the shed.

So does anybody make a decent higher power remote? We're going to buy three
new ones.

Karl


Your new remotes would have to be compatible with your existing
receiver unless you change the receiver out also.

FCC part 15 regs limit the power that a UHF (typically 300 to 400 MHz)
remote can use. However, if your shed is metal you could probably
enhance the range significantly by running a wire from the receiver
antenna to outside of the metal shed with about 10" of wire outside
of the shed and held a couple of inches away from the metal skin. You
should be able to get at least 25 feet of range, more from a
transmitter on an open tractor vs inside of a car or truck cab.

Chamberlain makes the vast majority of residential openers. They buy
their radios from vendors but Chamberlain is where to get them in
small quantity.

http://www.aaaremotes.com/liftmaster.html They also have 'em at
Sears and Home Depot.

You might explore why your remotes are dying. I probably operate my
door at least two or three times a day most days, and my three
Chamberlain remotes have been working for at least 15 years. Maybe
they need to be ruggedized somehow for the service they see on
tractors, or something. The weakest part of the remotes is the
plastic-flap-actuated circuit-board contacts. Bypassing those with
weatherproof and gorilla-proof pushbutton switches might enhance
remote lifetime considerably. Renewing batteries once a year wouldn't
hurt either, though I don't recall when I last renewed the battery in
any of my remotes.

If you are willing to change out the receiver, then I'd look for stuff
that works in the 915 MHz spread-spectrum band. That can be much more
powerful and won't screw up your 2.4GHz or 5.8 GHz wireless LAN.