Who Said, "Don't Get Me Started On Cordless Phones?"

[gizmo]

timely thread...

The restaurant where I work has for years had a Panasonic cordless phone, very basic, probably 900MHz. It has had low volume for years, probably been dropped. Trying to use it in the kitchen was hopeless, especially when Japanese tour guides with high pitched voices and little English phone up to arrange their next stop. Finally it stopped charging. I discussed what was needed with my employers, I suggested a multi-handset phone so it could be used as an intercom with the house - they live next door. Previously we dialled their home phone - 25c per call.
With the owners' approval, I picked up a Doro 3-handset + answerphone that was on special at Target for $79. (Was $180). It worked very well but was very fiddly to use - tiny buttons, have to access too many functions via a menu, confusing to use. But it worked, including working perfectly as an intercom.
Nobody liked it much so it went back to Target for a refund. I had since chased up specs for a Uniden WDECT which promised longer range (still 900Mhz I think), simple operation, extra-volume button (perfect for a noisy kitchen) and NO answer machine - it had proved to be an unwanted nuisance on the Doro.
John came home with a Panasonic 5.8 GHz fancy schmantzy costing $280!! More tiny buttons than you could imagine, doesn't work properly as an intercom (drops out or can't contact other handset at all), changes settings by itself especially turns volume down, so cumbersome to use John comes almost crying with frustration to me and says "how do you use this bloody thing again???" for the hundredth time, and the answer phone won't stay turned off - if the incoming call waits more than about eight rings, the answer phone turns itself on. So we get cryptic messages like "hello, Yumiko here, want to change our booking to 6 people plus one guide" when we have no idea who Yumiko is, what day or time she is coming... so we just don't want an answer machine at all!!
To make it harder, the place John bought the phone from is a small 2 person store in a small town, nowhere near as helpful a returns policy as a big company like Target. (no relation to Target in USA) so the best we can get is that the technician will look at the phone and look for a fault... meanwhile we have a battered old cord phone...at least you can hear the callers on it..
Any recommendations for a phone? must be:

-Current model, available new now
-not prone to interference - we have lots of gizmos in the kitchen
-very simple and intuitive to use - owners are in 60s age bracket and not technically minded at all
-NO answer machine or one that stays off when turned off
-just about bullet proof
-able to have raised volume - incoming voice, not just ringer volume
-intercom function that works reliably and clearly across a 50 metre car park.

Thanks

Chris.

 

[jaxsunst]

I am a fan of Uniden, it is a basic caller id model. It was purchased at Walmart in 1999. It was the cheapest one they had. It has been trouble free, with great reception, and only one battery replacement a year ago.

 

[foraloysius]

I bought a Siemens Gigaset 200 recently. Until now I'm very happy with it. One of the ringtones wasn't too annoying. I bought a 4-handset package for €149.- which would be around $190.-. Here's a picture of the 2-handset.

 

[gizmo]

Thanks Louis, that's a great looking phone.
I don't think Siemens cordless phones are sold here but I will chase them up.

Chris.

 

[westytoploader]

Since we moved, we've always had Panasonic cordless phones, and now we're on our third one, the Panasonic KG-TX3244 cordless system, with 2 separate handsets. In the 2 years we've had it, it has been a great performer, and I like the speakerphone capability on the handsets as it doesn't tie you down to the base like our previous phones did. I still wish it had the speakerphone on the base in addition to this, for quick answering; on the old ones I could just walk over to the handset and push a button to answer if I knew the conversation would be quick.

I think the whole MHz-GHz thing is complete bulls**t; no matter what the power is, the range is the same. This one right now is 2.4 GHz, but still, if I'm down in the laundry studio, it breaks up horribly on both ends; I have to be outside in order to hear and be heard. I think the all-metal studio is the problem though; I have to hold my cellphone to the window in order to get reception.

When we lived in Houston, we had a Cobra cordless in the kitchen for the longest time, and that was a great phone. Like the other cordlesses we've had, the batteries started becoming weaker and weaker on that one as well.

--Austin

 

[Cybrvanr]

RF power and wavelength

There are two things that will affect the performance of a cordless phone...or ANY RF device. The first one has been previously discussed. The higher the Mhz, the smaller the wavelength. A 900 Mhz phone has a significantly larger wavelength than a 2.4 Ghz phone. Even better yet, I still have an old 49 Mhz phone that will work two blocks up the street!!! (yes, you can pick up a conversation on it with a police scanner) The problem with wavelength is that if any metallic or organic object comes between the phone and the base station, and it's larger than the wavelength...the phone stops working. You may be able to catch a "bounce" off of another object, for instance, if you set the base in front your car, and then put a gas can in front the base, the phone will probably still work because the signal will bounce off the car's body. It WON'T work behind the car though (unless the signal bounces off the gas can at the right spot)

NOW, the other half of the equasion is RF power. Again, the higher the signal, the easier it is to stop it, so you need more RF power to get the job done. The problem is, increasing the RF power of the handset makes the handset bigger because you need a bigger battery. The tradeoff would be a shorter talk-time. There's also a ton of balarkey going round out there about RF signals causing cancer. Now, a cordless phone doesn't transmit hardly as much power as your local clearchannel broadcast affiliate, or even your microwave oven inside. But still, the manufacturers still use this as an excuse to pull back the transmitting power, and thus build the phones cheaper, all while selling them for more, claiming it's a 'feature'

In all honesty, the ONLY reason to buy a high frequency phone is if you are getting interference problems with neighbors, or other users. 900 Mhz phones are a pretty good choice nowadays, because that's the old analog cell-phone band. Since most people don't have analog cell phones anymore, intereference issues are not the big a deal. You'll only find them used, but if you can find an old 49-54 Mhz phone, that will be the ultimate in distance performance, because they have such a large wavelength. Most of them are huge too, and contain high power RF transmitters and lots of batteries. The drawback to many of these however is that they are AM and not FM. I've got a rare AT&T FM model that was built in 1989, but these are hard to find. It's audio quality is about that of a broadcast radio station. Pretty much all analog cordless phones built after that era are going to be FM, while most digital cordless phones are VSSB