The BMW Universal Transmitter

[jochen 4]

I had been wanting to add a small but really convienient feature to my 540i E39 - the BMW UGDO, or universal garage door opener, or Homelink transmitter, or universal transmitter (depending on what documentation you are reading at the time)

You can program this baby to memorise any of your remote controls that you use.

It mounts in the E38/E39 sunroof panel, looks cool, all the right black plastic with white labels, properly illuminated at night with the right BMW orange.

I wanted to use it for my garage door, house alarm, and also my wife's car :-)

Or so I thought

So last week I bought one on eBay USA and had it posted to me

Received it today, and fired it up on the workbench

Well, one remote (the Honda Jap remote) from 4 worked. Why...???

The learning function worked, I swear I saw somewhere that it was compatible with my Merlin garage door opener.

So I started researching in depth - which I should have done at the start...... what frequencies are my remotes, what do the yanks use, what do the Germans use, etc etc

Turns out the yanks love to use 318MHz for their remote control freqs, whilst here in NZ we love to use 433MHz, and also some good old 40MHz stuff

So the USA-version of the unit operates 288-399MHz

And the Euro-version operates at 27MHz, 40MHz and 433MHz

I need the Euro version - and I bought the USA one... :-(

(As the Japs follow the yanks with their systems, that explains why the Jap remote worked....)

Oh well, back on eBay it goes. Unless someone here has a garage door that operates in the 318MHz range and wants to take it off my hands......

Cheerio, Jochen

[Chalkie 1]

Wow this is an old topic.

• Do Euro Homelinks actually exist in that old 3-button E38/E39 unit?
• Do combo US & Euro units exist also? I suspect rear-view mirror from later model is only way to get that.

Cheers,

Nathan.

[aja540i 1906]

I cheated, i pulled the guts out of my garage door remote and put them up in the car roof with a small power regulator to replace the battery and a push button mounted in the panel. Works perfectly and is probably cheaper, but not factory looking.