DENVER – What do remote-control garage door openers have to do with national security?
A secretive Air Force facility in Colorado Springs tested a radio frequency last week that it would use to communicate with first responders in the event of a homeland security threat. But the frequency also controls an estimated 50 million garage door openers, and hundreds of residents in the area found that theirs had suddenly stopped working.
“It would have been nice not to have to get out of the car and open the door manually,” said Dewey Rinehard, adding that the outage happened during the first cold snap of the year, with lows in the teens.
Capt. Tracy Giles of the 21st Space Wing said Air Force officials were trying to figure out how to resolve their signal's overpowering garage door remotes.
“They have turned it off to be good neighbors,” he said.
The signals were coming from Cheyenne Mountain Air Station, home to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S. and Canadian operation set up during the Cold War to monitor Soviet missile and bomber threats.
Signals have previously interfered with garage doors near bases in Florida, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
