New military radio system battles garage-door openers
By Lisa Hoffman
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
December 8, 2005
For a time, it seemed as if garage doors at homes near certain military bases had been possessed by mysterious spirits that caused them to open or shut on their own, or otherwise go blooey.
The culprit actually was a new military radio system, which, as it was being deployed at various sites this year, was elbowing out garage openers from the radio frequency on which they had squatted for some 20 years.
This caused quite a stir in communities near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and the Susquehanna defense depot near New Cumberland, Pa., which were among the first to field the new Land Mobile Radio systems. Reports of balky openers streamed in. As many as 10,000 complaints about malfunctioning devices were fielded from one major door-opener manufacturer since the radio rollout began in late 2004, according to a Dec. 1 Government Accountability Office report.
The cause was the installation and testing of the radio system, part of an $800 million effort to enhance communications for homeland-security and operations reasons. The Pentagon plans to set up the systems at 137 installations in 28 states over the next five years.
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