OT: Long Range Cordless Phones?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. Can any of you tech-head pilots recommend a truly long-range cordless phone? Something that REALLY penetrates buildings, and reaches more than a hundred feet? It seems there are few players in the market -- EnGenius is the one that my phone vendor can get, for a whopping $600! (He says that's his price, and told me to shop around on line....) There are others on Ebay for less, but they all seem to be shipping from Hong Kong -- not a good thing, in my experience. We've gone through half a dozen cordless phones at the hotel, each promising longer range, only to be completely disappointed. My staff needs to be able to receive phone calls when they're away from the desk, especially when they're checking the pool -- and (so far) none of the consumer phones I've bought, no matter how expensive have done the job.

A. There have been several incidents of "long range phones" being sold in the US that don't meet US FCC regs. The last thing you need is some guys in suits showing up to confiscate your phones. There is a cell outfit (forget which) that is advertising phones which also work on your local WiFi LAN. If available in your area, that may be an option with the added selling point you have a local hot spot for travelers. Watch some of them phone's they transmit on freq. licensed by others I had one worked well 3 mile range moved back home found out it transmited on the state police freq was an interesting phone conversation. Our local techie hooked up an external antenna that allowed our cordless phone to work at the other end of the runway.. about 3000ft I'll see what he has. Not as off-topic as you might think. Some of those HK 'super long range' cordless phones cause serious interference on aircraft frequencies, and is one of the reasons why you won't see them for sale at your local Walmart. We've used the 900Mhz Engenius phones for years in production plants, and they are now on their third generation. Good phones, that also work as wireless walkie-talkies between handsets. I know someone with an acreage who is looking for something cheaper as well, but after a lot of research the Engenius seem to be the best option for something in a 'legal' spectrum. They're also a lot tougher built than your typical home handset. You can probably do a little better for price, but they will never be in the same league as a typical consumer blister pack phone. Our phone system was wiped out by lightning in May. Insurance paid $7K, at which point we would end up with the same 1980s-vintage Mitel SX-50 phone system. Although this phone system was functional, it had many shortcomings, not the least of which was that it was controlled by the most arcane computer logic system ever created -- and no one remembered how to program it. Our auto-attendant still said "Your Home Away From Home" -- the motto of the hotel in the 1980s -- because no one knew how to change it. It was time to upgrade. So, I put another $8K with it, and went up to the modern Mitel SX-200ip system, which is as up-to-the minute as money can buy in a hotel. After a 3-month install, we can now do everything we want, including customized messaging, voice mail in each suite, etc -- but we're STILL stuck with the same old cordless phone whenever we need to be away from the switchboard console. The console has a smart button that you push when you need to be away from the desk. It automatically forwards all calls to a remote phone jack, with a cordless phone attached. We can't attach a cell phone to it -- forwarding all the different lines coming in to a cell phone would be awkward, at best. We NEED a real cordess option. We are currently using a 5.8 ghz Panasonic, which works great on 80% of our property. The other 20%, however, it fails -- and that 20% includes some very important real estate, like the pool. By law we MUST check the pool often, and our desk staff is completely cut off whenever they do, simply because the cordless can't cut through all the structure between the transmitter and the receiver.

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