Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with cordless

Cordless Phone Dropouts - Grrr!

cmm — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:58:00 -0800

DECT Cordless Phone dropouts are driving me insane I spend a lot of time on the phone and I like my cordless phone, but it has dropouts that bother me. Sometimes they are sparse and other times there will be 2 or 3 in the same minute. When the audio drops, it just goes silent for about a half second then picks back up. It is not audible on the other side (or they just don't mention it, but it doesn't cause they to pause or anything).

The phones are Panasonic DECT 6.0 phones, TGA1034S. The volume is great and the address books are nice. I get good reception. But I have dropouts that are driving me crazy. They occur no matter how far away from the base I am. The base is plugged into the electrical and phone jacks and all phones just talk to it.

I've seen information about cordless phones not playing well with wireless routers, but these DECT phones I thought were supposed to not be susceptible to that.

My wireless router is a Netgear router I think running b/g. It is running on channel 11. I can't find anything that would let me change where the phones are running. The phones are ~1.9Ghz I think and the Wifi is 2.4GHz and I'm at 11 which should be the top of that. So they should be far enough apart.

I've tried moving the electrical plug from the GFI plug in the kitchen to a non-GFI with no change. I haven't yet tried moving my wireless to another channel because they seem suitable separated to me.

Do I just have some bad phones? My best guess is the dropout is the DECT phone swapping frequencies, but I can't imagine a noticeable dropout is normal behavior for this. Any help would be very appreciated! Thanks.

How can I extend the range of my 2.4GHz cordless phone?

simplesharps — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:37:35 -0800

I'm thinking of relocating the base station to a different part of the house, behind a brick wall which will significantly reduce the range of the handsets . Is it possible to open one of these up and install a more powerful antenna? Bonus points if you can find parts available in Australia.

"Don't hang up, let me cut our internet..."

blueberry — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:14:12 -0800

Our wireless internet and our cordless phone(s) hate each other with the unbridled passion of a thousand suns. Hi. My house-mate and I here in Portland get our telephone and internet service through Qwest.

We have DSL
(MenuMeters tells me that our maximum download rate seems to be about 170KB/s).

The internet info comes to us over the same line as the phone. Qwest provides us with an "Actiontec DSL modem with wireless gateway" (model #GT701-WG). We plug the phone line from the wall into the modem, and then plug our cordless phone into the modem. The idea being that the wireless modem will take the internet stuff and broadcast it out to our Mac and Windows laptops, while routing the telephone stuff to our phone.

Here's the problem: if we are doing anything with the internet
(loading a web page, downloading podcasts, uploading photos to Flickr)
the phone starts dropping out. And the more internet activity, the worse the problem—if you're talking to someone, you can hear them but they only hear every other word you're saying.

So it seems that the wireless modem signal is interrupting the 2.4 GHz's cordless phone's signal. (yet, interestingly, it only seems to affect our side of the conversation; we can hear the other person fine and if someone leaves us a message on the cordless phone's digital answering machine we get the whole message even if we're downloading a bunch of podcasts)

• We have tried switching the channels that our wireless modem broadcasts to, but that hasn't helped.

• We've plugged in a "splitter" and it has had no effect.

• Yesterday we tried a new 5.8 GHz cordless phone—one touted as having no problems with wireless internet—and it has the same exact problem. A PDF I found online [link to PDF] states the Actiontec GT701-WG "operates on a 2.4GHz frequency, similar to many cordless phones" Which puzzles me as to why we'd have the same problem when we tried a 5.8 GHz phone...

• we have also tried cursing profusely, to little effect

My question is this:

Is it possible that the Qwest-provided Actiontec GT701-WG is the weak link and that more recent routers might be more cordless-phone-friendly? My thinking is that if two different phones* and switching router channels hasn't worked, the only constant in the problem is the router itself.

I was thinking maybe we could just pick up an Airport or something, go back to our old reliable phone (a Panasonic LX-TG2431) and have better luck.

As a side question, any Qwest users out there who have done this? I just want to make sure that Qwest doesn't have some quirk that requires using the Actiontec unit.

* The two phones that we have used that have both had the problem:
- a Panasonic LX-TG2431 "2.4 GHz Gigarange"
- a 5.8 GHz phone from Radio Shack (model number 43-138)

Wireless Monitor: does it exist?

yoga — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:31:52 -0800

HowTo Filter: add a second monitor that is wireless? I found this device, but the post is a year old and I was hoping for a solution that doesn't cost as much. this is even older and more expensive. There is also this, from DisplayLink, but I don't understand how it works - it is actually wireless? It looks like the monitors they make have a sub chip built in, but I don't get how it all connects back to the pc. I want to add a second lcd monitor to a winxp desktop machine, but I want it to be wireless. It's going into a showroom down the hall, which is about 75 linear feet away. We have a clearwire router that my laptop finds just fine in the showroom. I'd rather do a wireless thing so we're not crawling around above the ceiling fishing cable around.

We'll be displaying a looped video and/or our website on the second monitor when we have open houses to show our products and design. So I was thinking just add a second monitor to our existing machine, set up what we want while at the machine and just have it display the same thing in the showroom.

I also don't completely understand how to set up two monitors from a single machine. I'm assuming I go to control panel and add a monitor, but how will we tell it to display the same thing as what's on the monitor at the machine?

Any suggestions?

Cordless phone base station that lets more than two people talk at once?

neustile — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:42:06 -0800

Can you recommend a cordless phone base station + extra handset solution that lets more than 2 people use their handsets on the same call at once? I work in a large room with 4-6 other people in a small company. We have a landline and up to now we've been using a Uniden PowerMax cordless base station + individual handsets per person. This works fine but often we have a call where there will be more than 2 of us on the line at once -- the Uniden phones don't let more than 2 people pick up their handsets at once. Where do we go (cheaply, easily) from here?

I know there are all sorts of VoIP and "pro" phone solutions but we're really not interested in paying for that or setting it up at the moment. I'm really looking for a landline cordless base station type solution, but just one that lets you pick up more than 2 handsets at once.

New good-looking cordless and 5.8Ghz around 802.11n

zenpop — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:43:04 -0800

We need a new (stylish) cordless phone for our house that will work around Apple's new Airport Extreme. Don't like using mobile at home so we want to purchase a new landline phone. Would like some recommendations for a reliable, non cheapy, smart-looking setup that includes answering machine. My old Panasonic's buttons are failing and also it's ugly. Would love something like this V-tech but the reviews are so crappy we're passing on it.

And finally will a 5.8 Ghz phones interfere with my new Airport Extreme base station which uses the new 802.11n technology (or vice versa)?

Can my computer upstairs power a monitor and cordless keyboard downstairs?

jimmyjimjim — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:25:16 -0800

After only living in tiny apartments, I'm moving to a two story house, but I'm an utter newbie about household networking. Here's the main dilemma: Upstairs, in my office, my Macbook Pro will power an external monitor and keyboard. That's where I'll do most of my work. Downstairs, I intend to buy a 52" HD monitor to watch DVDs. I'd like the option to sometimes work down there....with the upstairs computer driving the downstairs monitor, and using a cordless keyboard that talks to the upstairs computer. Note: I won't ever need to drive monitors simultaneously. Is there any way to do this? Or do I need to buy a downstairs computer, and network the computers so both HD's are kept dynamically in synch (e.g. via Leopard's "Time Machine")? That'd be more expensive, though I could probably get away with using a pretty old/crappy computer downstairs (so long as its HD is at least as large as the one upstairs so they can synch properly, and so long as it has enough video ram to drive the large monitor).

How to use a fax machine in a room without phone line support?

queue_strategy — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:29:01 -0800

How to use a fax machine in a room without phone line support? The printer/fax machine is in my office, which is not wired for the phone -- I use a cordless phone. My server room -- which includes the Vonage box for VOIP -- is on another floor.
In order to use the fax function, I need to unplug everything, haul it upstairs, connect it up to the active phone line and then reverse the whole process when the fax is sent.
This is such a pain. Any easy way to enable the fax with my cordless phone network?

Seeking Wifi (802.11a/b/g) friendly cordless phones

notpeter — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 12:44:46 -0800

Can anyone recommend a cordless phone that won't interfere with 802.11b/g and is maybe even 802.11a friendly? I'm setting up wifi for my mother's house, but her existing cordless phone (Digital 2.4ghz) killed all wifi in the house when in use (and the wifi disrupted the phone too). I figured moving the phone to 5ghz (bought a Uniden 5ghz digital phone) and seperating each on to seperate bands would help, it helped the wifi, but the Uniden seems to be incapable of operating more than 5ft away from the base without static. After returning the POS uniden, what should I get?

Would I better off in a band different band besides the 2.4ghz that 802.11b/g uses (47mhz, 900mhz, 5ghz) or getting a 2.4ghz handset compatible with Wifi? No one seems to make any not super cheapo (vtech) 47mhz or 900mhz phones anymore, might that mean those bands are likely less crowded than 2.4ghz?

I'd also like to be a good neighbor and not just pollute the 5ghz band too. Are there any 802.11a friendly cordless phones? Do certain phones play better with other phones? Does it matter?

Background: she lives a house in a residential neighborhood, not in an apartment so there shouldn't be too much signal bleed from the neightbors.

Can anyone recommend handsets that they use simultaneously alongside wifi without headache? I'm looking for something in the sub $150 range.

I need zip!

Nathanial Hörnblowér — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:58:29 -0800

I have cordless blinds and they've lost their zip. They are the kind of blinds that you pull on slightly at the bottom and then the cord is pulled up at the top, raising the blind. Now when I pull on it, nothing happens. Is there anything I can do to fix this? Other than buy new blinds?

What cordless phone works in old houses?

Songdog — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:18:29 -0800

Can anyone suggest a cordless phone system that will work throughout an old house? We've barely had the phone service connected for a month in our new apartment and we are already preparing to return our third set of cordless phones. Something about the structure of the building is causing us much grief.

Part of the apartment is on the second floor of a two hundred year old New England farmhouse. The other part is on the first floor of an adjoining house which is not quite as old. These are connected by a winding stairway, at the bottom of which is one of our two working phone jacks (the other is in our toddler's bedroom, and therefore of very little use). I threw together a rough diagram of the layout in Sketchup. We were really hoping to use a single-base, multi-handset system, so that we could keep handsets charging and ready in several rooms despite our single useful jack.

First we tried a set of digital 5.8GHz phones from Uniden (TRU-9460 and TCX-905). The phones were easy to set up and use, but the sound got a little fluttery as soon as we ventured into any of the upstairs rooms, and a lot fluttery when we went to the two back rooms. I tried walking outside the house and had a good signal on the three sides near the first floor section, but a terrible signal from behind the older two-story section.

So I took these back to the store and brought home a set of digital 5.8GHz phones (KX-TG5623M) from Panasonic. These phones didn't look as nice to me, and weren't as nicely designed, but I'd heard good things about the performance of Panasonic phones. Unfortunately the sound was just as bad (and they were harder to use). Back they went.

Speculating that 5.8GHz might be getting sponged up by our old walls I decided to bite the bullet and try 2.4GHz, even though it might not play nicely with my (or my neighbors') 2.4GHz Wifi networks. So I brought home a digital 2.4GHz set from Uniden (DCT756 and DCT750 similar to the first set, though the design is a little older and not quite as nice. These phones reach slightly farther into the upstairs: you can talk on them in all rooms. But they sound very poor, especially from the farthest rooms. There's a heck of a warble up there, and even sitting in the same room as the base they don't sound great, offering my own voice back to me with an annoying hollow ring. I tried turning off all my Wifi gear, but it didn't make a noticeable difference.

My next test will probably be a 900MHz digital phone, though it pains me that manufacturers are treating 900MHz as the bargain basement and shielding it from any of the design improvements they've made in the last decade. Maybe they hope small phone book and caller ID memory will push us to buy 5.8GHz hardware. It makes me fear for the batteries they probably use in the 900MHz models. More annoying is the apparent dearth of multi-handset 900MHz digital phones. The few that are out there don't even allow both handsets to be used at once so that two people can speak with Grandma.

Maybe it sounds like I'm whining, but for $90 or so you'd think you could find a phone system that's usable throughout a three bedroom apartment. This place isn't huge, about 75 feet (23 meters) from end to end, with the phone base close to the middle. The old part of the house is really old, so we don't think there's metal lath, though a friend suggested that there might be a lead component in the old plaster. I'm wondering whether there might be metal sheeting of some sort between the two connected buildings.

I'd be grateful for any general or specific advice about this problem. Have you solved such a problem with a particular model? Is there some kind of a repeater or booster we can use to extend our base station's coverage (without microwaving our bathwater, that is)? And no, we don't want to go cellular-only.

Long range cordless phone

miles1972 — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:46:15 -0800

Long range cordless phone? I'm looking for a long range cordless phone which I can carry with me as I walk the farm. I'm talking a range of maybe 300 metres (1000').

I know these types of phones do exist. Does anyone have any experience with them? Especially in Canada?

And I know, a cell phone might be the best option, I know all about that. I want to know about long range cordless from a base station attached to a land line.

Can multiple 5.8GHz cordless phone sets co-exist?

iTristan — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 07:42:29 -0800

Can two separate 5.8GHz cordless phones co-exist in a home? I've got a Uniden 5.8GHz cordless phone set that I use for business on a VoIP line and I want to get another cordless set (with digital answering machine) for my home land line.

Because I have an 802.11b/g network I don't want it to be 2.4GHz (or 900MHz) so the second phone set would also be 5.8GHz (probably the AT&T 5840).

Will the two 5.8GHz cordless phone sets conflict if they're both in use? My instinct says yes, but I don't know if they've got some sort mechanism to prevent interference. Anyone had experience with this?

manufacturer reconditioned...

flummox — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:22:50 -0800

I am currently shopping for a scanner and cordless power tools. I am considering factory reconditioned models. What are peoples experiences, good and bad, with this?

Question number 14652

costas — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 13:53:22 -0800

PhoneFilter: I am thinking of buying a US-sold cordless phone and bringing it back to Europe. Other than voltage and frequency (which I've checked) is there any other reason why an American phone wouldn't work or work less in Europe (different ring-tone signals or Caller ID standards perhaps)?

Help me find a cordless phone

agropyron — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:29:37 -0800

Cordless phones My cordless phones have terrible battery life. Plus if I hold one against my shoulder w/my chin, I often accidentally hang up. Does anyone have a cordless phone they love?
Requirements: Caller ID, clear sound.
Nice to have: 2+ handsets, volume control on the handset.

Wireless Networking Standard With Higher Frequency Than Cordless Phones?

Fupped Duck — Fri, 23 Apr 2004 19:14:40 -0800

80211b vs 80211g: According to my research, both are using the 2.4ghz freq as are cordless telephones. Isn't there a wireless networking standard that uses higher frequencies so that there's no interference from cordless phones?