Sputnik opened garage doors?

I've heard this story twice since last week's anniversary of the first Sputnik launch. I looked it up on the main snopes site but couldn't find anything.

I found some information online suggesting that Sputnik was launched during a peak period of solar activity -- any garage doors that seemed to open on their own might have opened due to the solar activity. Sputnik apparently did not transmit a frequency that would have triggered garage door openers.

Has anyone else heard the Sputnik/garage door story? As soon as I heard it, I thought it was total B.S., which my research has confirmed, but it seems to be a popular and mostly unquestioned story. I heard it first on the radio, where it was presented as fact, and today in a letter to the editor, where it was printed without correction or comment.

[Tootsie Plunkette]

FWIW, in our middle-class suburban neighborhood, at least, none of the homes had electric garage door openers at the time Sputnik launched. My dad, who like to tinker with 'cutting edge' technology (we were the first in our neighborhood to own a color TV!), didn't install one until about 1960.

[Paveman]

I agree its false.
Unless different frequencies were used on the few remote garage doors around at the time.
Sputnik transmitted at a much lower frequency than garage door openers.

One transmitter operated on a frequency of 20.005 MHz (megacycles in 1957) and the other on 40.002 MHz.

The current garage door opener market uses a frequency spectrum range between 300-400 MHz

Not sure about the 50s, but the frequency was lower in the 70s. I was in the Air Force, stationed at a base in Texas. We had a minor problem with a few flight crews who found that if they tuned the HF radios on the aircraft to a specific frequency between 25 and 27 MHZ (don't remember the exact frequency), they could get approximately 1/4 of the garage doors within a 1/2 mile circle beneath them to open/close. While flying over the town, they would key the transmitter a couple of times, causing great annoyance among local homeowners. Base commander used to get several complaints a week about "government experiments".

[Brad from Georgia]

My uncle claimed that not only did Sputnik open his garage door, it went in and parked itself there overnight. He's the same uncle who claimed he was the Pope's granddaughter, so we don't take him too seriously, though.

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Brad from Georgia

My uncle claimed that not only did Sputnik open his garage door, it went in and parked itself there overnight. He's the same uncle who claimed he was the Pope's granddaughter, so we don't take him too seriously, though.

YOMANK.

Plus padding.

[Paveman]

Originally Posted by Robigus

Not sure about the 50s, but the frequency was lower in the 70s. I was in the Air Force, stationed at a base in Texas. We had a minor problem with a few flight crews who found that if they tuned the HF radios on the aircraft to a specific frequency between 25 and 27 MHZ (don't remember the exact frequency), they could get approximately 1/4 of the garage doors within a 1/2 mile circle beneath them to open/close. While flying over the town, they would key the transmitter a couple of times, causing great annoyance among local homeowners. Base commander used to get several complaints a week about "government experiments".

This got me to go dig some more. I did find a few sites (of unverifiable veracity) that said some garage door openers work in the 40 MHz range. Interestingly, that is exactly in the range of one of Sputniks radios. So now I think solid information about a 1950s garage remote is needed. If any of that is verifiable I'll have to change my opinion to plausible and make it contingent on the signal strength coming from Sputnik.

Interesting side note and something I was seeing in the news before this discussion is the current issue with the military's use of a frequency around 390MHz which is causing garage doors to open. Eglin was mentioned in a few of the articles so watch your garage door Robigus.

Originally Posted by Paveman

This got me to go dig some more. I did find a few sites (of unverifiable veracity) that said some garage door openers work in the 40 MHz range. Interestingly, that is exactly in the range of one of Sputniks radios. So now I think solid information about a 1950s garage remote is needed. If any of that is verifiable I'll have to change my opinion to plausible and make it contingent on the signal strength coming from Sputnik.

Interesting side note and something I was seeing in the news before this discussion is the current issue with the military's use of a frequency around 390MHz which is causing garage doors to open. Eglin was mentioned in a few of the articles so watch your garage door Robigus.

Luckily for me I'm on the wrong (or is that "right") side of town. There is one section of town that has trouble with garage doors due to the system being tested on Eglin. It doesn't open/close doors, but seems to jam the signals so the doors have to be opened/closed manually.

[Elwood]

Run-of-the-mill RC Cars operate at 27 or 49 MHz, as do any number of children' walky talkies. When I worked for Radio Shack, I got one or two customers over many years who claimed that an older garage door opener or cordless phone would cause the car to move somewhat predictably. It would not surprise me if garage door openers existed in that frequency range, but I find it hard to believe that Sputnik affected operation here on terra firma.