It was back in the 1980s one day I was talking to a guy on the phone and he said he was talking from his car on a highway. This was before cell phones were popular. He claimed he was using a wireless phone with the base unit back at his house with “an added length of antenna” and he said he bought it at Walmart.
I went and bought the same phone and it was a very ordinary type of wireless phone at the time, I never tried calling anybody from the car.
There was a base unit that plugged into the landline and a handset with a whip antenna on top. Half the call went up around 46mHz, the other half was down above the AM band, maybe in the 1600s (probably before the x-band).
It was kind of convenient when I wanted to walk away from the desk or outdoors, but that unit died and now it’s 2012.
What is the current state of the art of similar wireless phones? I assume they are digital now, if they exist at all. I’m bringing it up here before I go browsing to see what’s out there.
These type phones are likely Part 15 devices.
engenius digital 900mhz fhss
engenius digital 900mhz fhss cordless phones. can handle 4 bases each with 4 lines and 36 handsets. is 1 watt on handset and base and base has a 6db gain outdoor antenna with 60ft of coax.
can reach over 5mi in and out of buildings. i have a box of bases and handsets for sale.
these normally retail for 300-600 a set.
Are You Kidding???
I’m gonna pretend I didn’t read the next to the last sentence in that opening post.
Where you been..hiding out in the boonies out of touch with the human race for the last 30 plus years???
As the horse and buggy grew into the horseless carriage and the phonograph record grew to CD and magnetic tape to optical storage to flash cards, things evolve…as did the old analog cordless phones grew into the digital Ghz channel hopping and bopping phones of today…and much smaller and lighter. Cell phones pretty much have replaced the home phones, cordless or no, and those things have 100 times more features and gizmos than even the most fancy new home cordless does.
That is what it means by keeping up with the times and the trends, you won’t miss anything along the way and end up left behind on something so trivial and taken for granted to great extent as something trivial as a cordless phone!
And yes..they are Part 15.
RFB
And Yet It’s True
I did not keep up with changes since the first cordless phones.
Is what’s been said so far all there is to know?
The 800mHz base plus hand-unit, and the cell phone?
Anything else?
Cell is out for me by preference, I only want a cord-free phone here at the tool shed so I can wander away from the cord.
$300 to $600 is way more than the phone back in the 80s.
More Than Meets The Ear
“I did not keep up with changes since the first cordless phones. Is what’s been said so far all there is to know?”
You can get a cordless phone these days for 20 bucks at wally world or biggie lotties or $$$ general..all the latest and greatest. Last one I bought about a year ago also has caller ID on it, number memory, redial, call timer and a few other things I never bothered with.
I remember those old cordless phones that were the size of an army field radio of WWII, just like the early cell phones were. And yep, they cost a lot and performed rather flaky at best. But they were what they were for their time.
Today, all of it and then some..fits into your shirt pocket with the world at your text’ing fingertips. Watch a HD movie on it, listen to HQ audio on it, order a pizza on it, find your way around the town you lived in all your life with it, oh and while doing all that, causing the wreck that just sent 5 people to the hospital!
The good..the bad..and the ugly. More than just a title to a movie.
RFB
but those cheap cordless tend
but those cheap cordless tend to not work across the house let alone a large rural yard.
i will let you have my big box of them cheap ($600 shipped conus for all). IIRC there is enough for 4 sets w/2 handsets each. no base antenna though only rubber ducks for base and handsets which will still get you 1/2 to 1 mile
if you have an interest email kc8gpd – hotmail – com
Random Chance
Well I would say you got a batch of clone “CZH’s” in the aspects of cordless phones.
Mine works half way down the block and the base sits inside a mobile home comprised of metal outer walls and the base sits right next to a wi-fi router at about waist height next to a rack full of equipment.
Got mine at biggie lotties. 2.4Ghz unit, the battery in it is still good too after a year of use. Love the caller ID on it, let’s me know when it’s worth answering or not!
The phone itself was cheap and works very well..if only the phone service was cheap too…had to kill that and go with pre-paid cell’s and saving 40 bucks a month..goes a long way in helping to decide if 5 of that goes in the tank or on the table come dinner time.
RFB
the ones i have are legal
the ones i have are legal license free and operate on the 900 mhz ism band using maximum legal limit. they use the same coding digital cell phones use so using another phone or police scanner to pickup conversation is useless. they also act as digital walkie talkies capable of phone to phone direct or phone to phone using base as a repeater.
Superior Range
At a couple City facilities, regular consumer cordless phones have been tried. The range was dismal. We tried 49 mHz, 1.5 gHz and 2.4 gHz systems.
The Engenious cordless system was tried at one facility and worked great. Coverage was far beyond what was expected, covering the whole facility.
Two more systems were purchased and installed at larger facilities. Keeping in mind the base unit was using the supplied rubber duckie antenna, again these phones worked great. At the Water Treatment Plant, the plant operator could maintain coverage in three different building and travel across the way to the well field almost a half mile away. We purchased the outdoor antenna system for the unit but didn’t need it.
The reason we even bothered with cordless phones is the obvious fact that people call the published phone numbers which the cordless phones are an extension of. The cost of cell phones was not acceptable.
And, as a Part 15 system, it wins hands down.
You’re not going to watch
You’re not going to watch movies or do texting on a $20 phone. Plus, Carl wants to actually use the phone as a phone, with some range.
Most cordless phones today are DECT, which means they operate slightly out of the 2.4 Ghz band that is used by so many other wireless devices, including wireless networks. There’s also a 5 Ghz band that is supposedly noise free and so offers greater range.
Generally, without the kind of high power that the Engenius units have, you can talk about halfway down the street on a decent phone. That generally means name brand, such as Panasonic, Uniden, etc. Although I did have a Vtech that was amazingly slim (the compromise is battery life, as it’s a small battery) and it worked well. If you’re going to get a cordless phone, you should also consider paying a little extra and getting bluetooth built in – that way you can pair your cell phone to it and take cell calls as well as land line calls from the handset (thus carrying around only one thing). Or, if you’re like me, you go to a cell phone only, and use the land line when you are home to talk on the cell phone.
To keep this discussion on Part 15, I’d be curious if the Engenius was FCC approved, as opposed to being merely compliant. To get the kind of range talked about, i.e., 5 miles, you’d need an external antenna. Perhaps not so for the 1/2 to 1 mile range. The nice thing about 900 Mhz is that you do not have to be obstruction free for it to work (unlike the higher bands).
It Works As Described
I can’t speak for Engenius units or any other brand, only the one I have and it does what is expected of it just fine.
And it’s obviously legal or it would not be sitting on the wally world shelves and biggie lottie shelves at this very moment.
I see a lot of text’ing going on with 20 buck cell phones all the time. Don’t know but even cheap trac phones have texting..as does even the most basic cell phone has these days. Most providers offer text messaging for free and it’s there in your phone regardless if you use it or not.
As to watching movies, no you wont find those on the cheap phones, but plenty of 3 and 4g and iPad’s and blackberrys and all that other stuff capable of viewing movies. What I can’t understand is watching a movie on such a tiny screen even if it is 5 inches wide. ICK!!
What ever happened to the typewriter and one on one communication?!!
RFB
Skype via Wi-Fi
Carl,
Well talking from you car has taken a new step in technology. That is NOT using a cordless phone NOR a cell phone. Some people who like their anonymity like using Skype.com as it uses peer-to-peer VOIP and a strong encryption protocol which is *ALMOST* impossible to monitor.
But, how to go mobile with it? You could get a tiny laptop/netbook (ACER for under $300 at Walmart) with a DIY (homemade) wi-fi cantenna on your car roof. Get yourself a Skype handset at Walmart for $29.95. You can make almost free phone calls all over the world using someone’s open or public hot spot on the road (i.e. McDonalds’s, Dunkin Donuts, etc.). Most of them are free now. Of course you can’t be moving as you loose the signal too fast. Your not supposed to be making phone calls while driving anyway (in most states in USA).
But let’s say you don’t want to do it that way. Let’s say you want a hand held device to do all that. Enter: Belkin Wi-Fi Phone For $190 or NETGEAR SPH200W Wireless VoIP phone for $192. There are cheaper ones but they don’t access open hot spots that require human authentication.
I like the laptop/netbook method mounted in my car. I make my own high-gain wi-fi antennas and can be several thousands of feet from a wi-fi hot spot. You don’t need a Skype headset. You can use an old laptop headphone set too. You can find undocumented open hot spots with http://www.netstumbler.com it’s free.
Skype allows outgoing AND incoming calls. You can also do SMS and video calls.
SpookySR
P.S. – Here’s a diagram for the Wi-Fi Car Phone: http://i40.tinypic.com/33w1cm9.jpg
The nickname for this technique is called WAR-DRIVING.
Needs a Re-name
WAR-DRIVING might seem like trouble. Can we change it to FRIENDLY-DRIVING?
But I never meant I wanted a concocted car phone. I said that some guy claimed he was talking from his car with a common wireless desk phone.
I only want a wireless phone for my desk and work station so I can roam without making everything fall off edges from a long cord dragging it all down.
When RFB mentioned the name Uniden, I think that was the brand at the time, and I got one, but it went dead very soon and I didn’t have time to do anything with it.
I may tour the Wal-Paper Mart and other shelf stores to see what there is.
I am one of those people that believes microwaves cause bone and tissue damage, but the presumption that lower frequencies are safer is only a wild guess. Fact is, this is RF city here with all the part 15 rays.
Who am I fooling. I don’t know anyone I can call.
Cordless
Kept the promise by scouting the aisles at Wall-Paper Mart and have a VTech CS6619, which is really amazing.
It looks like a tv remote, but the test call conducted yesterday had the phone signal solid everywhere indoors and in the entire yard, even the far edges.
Telephone frequency range- 1921.536 – 1928.448 mHz
It provides Caller I.D.
Head tumor, here we go.
CALL FOR HELP
The new cordless phone may have a defect.
Tell me what you think.
The RED CHARGE LIGHT is supposed to go out once the battery is charged.
The battery is expected to charge in 11-hours.
But on the third day of solid charging, the RED CHARGE LIGHT is LIT and has never gone out.
The little battery symbol shows a full battery (3 solid lines, not blinking).
Does it matter? Should I exchange it?
Red Light
Around the house here are many rechargeable goodies and it is always a mystery to me what the lights mean. Some go off when charged, some flash while charging, some flash when charged, and some don’t have lights.
Do you know what type of battery the phone contains? Some chargers terminate on battery temperature, some on voltage, some on current, and some on a microchip’s best guess as to the battery state. One thing you could do is to determine if the battery holds a charge as expected but this is guesswork at times. You might also try a few battery charge/discharge cycles and see if the light eventually goes out. It could be that the batteries need to be conditioned but perhaps not.
If the light is suppose to extinguish and it doesn’t and if it is convenient you could exchange the unit for peace of mind.
Neil
Let’s See Now
Based on your comments, Neil, I removed the battery to grab its number, and I noticed signage on both sides of the battery which I had not properly noted when it was first put together.
One side said THIS SIDE UP. The other side said THIS SIDE DOWN.
I flipped the battery over and it is now charging again, CHARGE LIGHT ON.
Why does it matter which way the battery lays in the phone?
The polarity is determined by a little connector out at the end of some wires which can only be inserted one way.
Best Guess
My best guess is that it may have to do with allowing enough cord play so it doesn’t get stressed but unless it is an old LeClanche battery with liquid electrolyte and open tops it shouldn’t matter otherwise.
Neil
New Theory
Now that I have considered this RED CHARGER LIGHT from every point of view, I have a new interpretation of what the mini-manual is trying to tell us:
CHARGE LIGHT:
On when the handset is charging.
I think what they mean is…
ON when the handset is placed in the charger.
I think the light indicates that the handset is placed correctly and making contact.
I now believe the light only goes out when it is removed from the charger.
Last night I made a 30-minute phone conversation and the battery was fully charged, didn’t even lose one of its three little lines inside the on-screen battery symbol, suggesting there is no problem.
Total time spent fretting about a non-existant problem: 2.5 days.
Charging Light
Makes sense to me since that is how my 5.8 GHz phones work when parked in their bases. The light is always on when they are parked which is good because sometimes they don’t seat properly to make charging contact. The light being on is assurance of a good connection.
I, too, have misinterpreted manual in like fashion.
Oh well, sometimes it’s the plane and sometimes it’s the pilot.
Neil
On Wireless Phones
So, where do Cell Phones fit into the mix of unlicensed transmitters?
I realize they operate on a trunked system and the cell tower trunked system would be licensed but all those cell phones?
Are they Part 15 devices? Are they allowed under a blanket license of the carriers system?
I recently installed BDA’s (bidirectional amplifiers) in our Fire Stations to improve connectivity to MDT’s (Mobile Data Terminals) used in the Fire vehicles using cellular service.
Antenna outside, antenna inside, BDA between them. Seems the power output is around 20 dbm. That’s an external amplifer boosting the signals. No license required.