Sputnik Activated Garage Door Openers
ashsm
new book: Sputnik: The Shock of the Century by Paul Dickson, claims that
Sputnik activated some radio controlled garage door openers as it passed
overhead. This would have been in 1957.
I was 11 at the time, and don't ever remember hearing of this happening.
Also never heard anyone claimed that it happened until I read this
review.
-- Jim Skillman
Keith Willis
>A recent book review ('though I cannot recall where I read it) of the
>new book: Sputnik: The Shock of the Century by Paul Dickson, claims that
>Sputnik activated some radio controlled garage door openers as it passed
>overhead. This would have been in 1957.
I guess the way to go would be to establish the frequencies likely to
have been in use by late 50s door openers, and comparing these with a
record of the frequencies being broadcast at the time by the
satellite. Unfortunately, I have no idea where either of these
snippets might be found.
Keith "Not much help, I know" Willis
--
Welcome to Folklore group of singing and dancing "AFU"
Keith Willis
<ke...@bytebrothers.co.uk> wrote:
>I guess the way to go would be to establish the frequencies likely to
>have been in use by late 50s door openers, and comparing these with a
>record of the frequencies being broadcast at the time by the
>satellite. Unfortunately, I have no idea where either of these
>snippets might be found.
Just found this, at
http://www.nytimes.com/partners/aol/special/sputnik/sput-04.html
which is a page from the New York Times of 5th October 1957:
"RCA Communications, a subsidiary of Radio Corporation of America,
said the first signal had been received at 8:07 P.M. on a frequency of
20.005 megacycles on the 15-meter wave length."
Does anyone know whether this coincides at all closely with
frequencies that might have been in use for door openers at that time?
Keith "following up one's own posts, yadda yadda" Willis
Ben Zimmer
Keith Willis wrote:
>
> On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 17:15:23 -0500, ashsm <as...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >A recent book review ('though I cannot recall where I read it) of the
> >new book: Sputnik: The Shock of the Century by Paul Dickson, claims that
> >Sputnik activated some radio controlled garage door openers as it passed
> >overhead. This would have been in 1957.
>
> I guess the way to go would be to establish the frequencies likely to
> have been in use by late 50s door openers, and comparing these with a
> record of the frequencies being broadcast at the time by the
> satellite. Unfortunately, I have no idea where either of these
> snippets might be found.
A quick Nexis search turns up a couple newspaper articles that treat
this as common knowledge...
---------------
Washington Post, October 4, 1977
"20 Years After Sputnik"
To the bizarre sound of a cricketlike beeping radio that some Americans
said could open remote-controlled garage doors (remember?) and others
feared presaged more woundrous and sinister developments, the Soviet
Union 20 years ago Tuesday opened the space age with the launch into
earth orbit of a 184-pound silvery globe called Sputnik 1.
Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 1991
"What Sputnik and Police Cruisers Set Off"
Does anybody save me remember back in October of 1957 when the Soviet
Union hoisted Sputnik into space? [...]
Now at that time the self-opening garage door was new, and there had
been a business flurry that year, and a lot of folks in our neck of the
woods had installed them. Press a button and up went the door, the motor
activated from a distance - the driver could open his doors while he was
still down the street. Great! Otherwise, us old fogeys had to lift our
doors, swing them on hinges, or roll them on tracks.
Well, there was a sudden wave of complaints about these automatic doors.
People who had spent good money for them found them open when they
should be closed and closed when they should be open, and the things
wouldn't stay up and wouldn't stay down. Unreliable. The dealers were
perplexed.
It was Sputnik. Every time Sputnik made an orbit, every automatic garage
door would go into action.
[Goes on to describe a case in Rockport, Maine where a garage burglar
alarm got set off every time a police cruiser drove by.]
---------------
Also found many articles saying that the solar maximum of 1989 threw
garage door openers out of kilter in California (some articles say San
Francisco, some say Southern California). But this wasn't a direct
result of the solar storm, as some thought. Seems that a Navy station
lost normal communication links with ships offshore and switched to a
band that was being used by a local garage door-opening company.
--Ben
ObSimpsons: "An automatic garage door opener makes you feel like you're
working in a futuristic wonderworld."
Peter Caswell
Ben Zimmer <bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
<snip>
>
> Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 1991
> "What Sputnik and Police Cruisers Set Off"
> It was Sputnik. Every time Sputnik made an orbit, every automatic garage
> door would go into action.
> [Goes on to describe a case in Rockport, Maine where a garage burglar
> alarm got set off every time a police cruiser drove by.]
"Every time Sputnik made an orbit"? How long did it take to make an
orbit? Didn't it orbit the earth a dozen times a day? Were the doors
opening and closing all the time?
Is an alternate explaination that there was just too much duplication in
the garage openning codes. This would lead to one press of the button
opening many doors.
-Peter "Seems like a convienent excuse from the manufacturer" Caswell
Ragnar
"Peter Caswell" <peter-...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:peter-caswell-8BB...@ultranet-reader.news.rcn.net...
Also, Sputnik put out an extremely low power signal. It likely didn't put
out enough energy to activate garage doors at orbital distances.
Russell P. Holsclaw
> the garage openning codes. This would lead to one press of the button
> opening many doors.
In 1957 what few garage door openers there were extremely simple, activated
either by the mere presence of a signal on a certain radio frequency, or
perhaps by a
single-frequency tone modulating that signal. Digital codes did not come
into play
until the invention of the integrated circuit, about a decade and a half
later.
Many of these may have been activated by loud static crashes, or "skywave"
interference from outside sources (see below).
The 20MHz frequency of Sputnik was not used for things like garage door
openers, which
probably used the 27MHz frequency band (the same one used by CB in later
years). That band
was allocated by the FCC for low-power devices (under 100 milliwatt),
including remote controls,
and cheap toy walkie-talkies. It continued to be used for walkie talkies
after CB became big, but
other remote-controlled devices were moved off this band up into the VHF
frequencies after the
CB craze hit.
The frequency difference is too great to imagine interference from a
satellite.
A Solar magnetic storm would increase the reflective characteristics of the
ionosphere, and bring in interfering
signals to the 27Mhz band (which normally doesn't get much ionospheric
propagation except during periods of high solar flux. 1957 was at just about
the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, so that explanation seems
plausible. We're at a peak period in the cycle now, and 1957 was 44 years
ago.
When the ionization level of the ionosphere goes up, the highest frequency
radio signals it reflects (technically called the "maximum useable
frequency" or "muf"), tends to increase as well. This only gets up to the 27
MHz band during solar peak years, and occasionally pushes up much higher,
even into the VHF range. You can see this happening when the signal from
low-numbered TV channels start to get interference from TV stations on the
same channel from other cities. The ionosphere is bending signals back
towards the earth from beyond the horizon. This is how "short wave radio"
works. (Higher frequencies mean shorter wavelengths) Sometimes the signals
bounce back and forth between the ionosphere and the earth multiple times,
and you can hear signals from around the world. This also gives rise to the
hobby of "ham radio", which has several bands throughout the "short wave"
part of the spectrum (3 - 30MHz, also called "HF" for High Frequency)
Russ Holsclaw (amateur radio W0ROM ... a "ham" since 1961, currently not
very active, although I should be, with a solar-max going on :-) )
Russell P. Holsclaw
By the way...
It was not just a coincidence that Sputnik was launched during the solar-max
period in 1957.
See:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik/igy.html
--
Russ Holsclaw
Andrew McMichael
> In 1957 what few garage door openers there were extremely simple, activated
> either by the mere presence of a signal on a certain radio frequency, or
[...]
Hat's off to you! Great stuff. Someone should get this into urbanlegends.com
--
Andrew McMichael, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton University
http://www.princeton.edu/~amcmicha/cv.html
Ben Zimmer
"Russell P. Holsclaw" wrote:
>
>
> A Solar magnetic storm would increase the reflective characteristics of the
> ionosphere, and bring in interfering
> signals to the 27Mhz band (which normally doesn't get much ionospheric
> propagation except during periods of high solar flux. 1957 was at just about
> the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, so that explanation seems
> plausible. We're at a peak period in the cycle now, and 1957 was 44 years
> ago.
1957 wasn't just a peak in the cycle, it was the biggest peak in the
past several centuries, with up to 200 sunspots per day:
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/solarmax/predict.html
This explanation makes perfect sense. Everyone in the U.S. was obsessed
about Sputnik flying overhead, so when garage doors started going on the
fritz of course it got blamed on the pesky Russkies instead of
sunspots. Today garage doors, tomorrow...
--Ben
deacon b.
<peter-...@usa.net> posted something that included:
>"Every time Sputnik made an orbit"? How long did it take to make an
>orbit? Didn't it orbit the earth a dozen times a day? Were the doors
>opening and closing all the time?
Sputnik took 96.1 minutes to orbit.
It only sent radio signals to earth for 21 days, and only lasted 92
days before the orbit decayed enough to burn up.
(Must've had a 90 day warranty....)
deke
--
She wants a man of principle, who will take interest.
She's been dating bankers....
Gerald Belton
<deke...@BLOCK.generous.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 08:28:43 -0500, Peter Caswell
><peter-...@usa.net> posted something that included:
>
>>"Every time Sputnik made an orbit"? How long did it take to make an
>>orbit? Didn't it orbit the earth a dozen times a day? Were the doors
>>opening and closing all the time?
>
>Sputnik took 96.1 minutes to orbit.
Which does not mean that it would pass over your house every 96.1
minutes, of course.
Gerald
--
Wedding and portrait photography
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill
http://www.beltonphoto.com
deacon b.
Belton) posted something that included:
>On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 15:51:28 -0500, deacon b.
><deke...@BLOCK.generous.net> wrote:
>>On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 08:28:43 -0500, Peter Caswell
>><peter-...@usa.net> posted something that included:
>>>"Every time Sputnik made an orbit"? How long did it take to make an
>>>orbit? Didn't it orbit the earth a dozen times a day? Were the doors
>>>opening and closing all the time?
>>Sputnik took 96.1 minutes to orbit.
>Which does not mean that it would pass over your house every 96.1
>minutes, of course.
Lady gets on the bus with eight kids. "The oldest are 12, the girls
are 10, there are two boys who are 7, and the youngest are 5."
The driver looks at the lady and says, "You get twins *every* time?"
Lady giggles and says to bus driver, "Of course not! Most of the time
we don't get any kids at all!"
I doubt there were *any* homes which were directly under Sputnik on
more than one orbit.
David Lesher
>Is an alternate explaination that there was just too much duplication in
>the garage openning codes. This would lead to one press of the button
>opening many doors.
Codes? Son, that's the modern stuph. Openers of that era had receivers
that basically assumed that any signal at that approximate frequency
had to be the right one.
As for Sputnik, it's laughable. See, there's this concept called
"the inverse square law"... Sputnik had a one watt transmitter.
It had an altitude of oh 900km as I recall.
Assume the car transmitter had a 0.1 watt unit. It has an operating
distance of say 10 meters.
A) Calculate the relative power levels at the receiver from each source.
B) If the garage receiver were in fact sensitive enough to hear
Sputnik, calculate the range at which the 0.1 watt transmitter will
be equal strength to it.
Ed Ellers
"In 1957 what few garage door openers there were extremely simple..."
And yet fairly involved to install in one's car, often using a transmitter
mounted in the trunk with a button mounted under the dashboard. The
cigarette-pack-sized control transmitters, not unlike today's, came along by
the mid-1960s.
"...activated either by the mere presence of a signal on a certain radio
frequency, or perhaps by a single-frequency tone modulating that signal."
I suspect most likely the latter.