Combination butcher block and kitty litter box

[K5UJ]

My cordless phone is a 2.4 GHz analog motorola.   Probably one of the last analog ones.  I don't think you can even get a 900 MHz cordless phone now.  And I think they go higher than 2.4 GHz.  I think they are all digital spread spectrum now.

I had a UHF tv in grad. school in Nashville back in the late 1980s that picked up cell phone calls on the higher channels.   It was very weird and iffy to pull in a phone call but my roommate and I messed around with it a little bit for the sheer novelty before getting bored and going back to real TV. 

[k4kyv]

I have a 900 mHz spread spectrum cordless phone in the shack.  The one we have in the house is a newer 5.8 gig unit.  The old one has several times the range of the newer one.  I can take it with me all the way to the road about 100' in front of the house when checking mail or picking up the newspaper, and never lose  the signal.  With the newer one I can hardly even make it outside the house before the signal drops out.  Even inside the house when I use it upstairs and move to a position where there is metal roof between me and the base unit, I lose the connection.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Interesting. I wonder how I was picking up our new cordless phone on an HF-VHF portable reciever?  Granted I was in the same room as the base and the phone was elsewhere.   I have gotten into the phone on some occasions while operating, but not since I changed the crappy dipole for an h-loop.

Might be cool to check it out with a spectrum analyzer and see what's what.

[WB2EMS]

I have a 900 mHz spread spectrum cordless phone in the shack.  The one we have in the house is a newer 5.8 gig unit.  The old one has several times the range of the newer one.

Some of those old 900 Mhz cordless phones were kick ass. My neighbor used to have one that let him run his lawnmower 3000 feet from the house down the runway to his mailbox out by the road and stay connected the whole time. The 2.4 Ghz unit he got to replace it was junk in comparison. We used a brand called EnGenius that makes 900 mhz long range phones for some of our apps around the school.

Here on campus, we have a major issue with 2.4 and 5.8 Ghz cordless phones bought by individuals and departments messing with the WiFi installations across campus. I'm in the middle of purging a building now of those phones. Some of them frequency hop and basically take up the entire ISM band whenever they are in use, or if the phone line tied to them is active ,like someone is on the paralleled extension, even if the handset is not in use. Every WiFi connection for 100 feet goes off line when they are on. Nasty! Fortunately the DECT6.0 standard puts them on 1.9 Ghz in their own playground. But convincing people to switch or not buy the wrong (cheap) ones in the first place is a never ending process.

Me, I like the phones with features. I have an HTC Ozone now which is ok, but doesn't run the windows mobile apps like they told me it would. That's one of the maddening things about buying a cell phone to me. You have to get information from reviews, the salesdroids in the store will tell you anything it takes to get you to buy the phone. "Yes it does that. Yes you can transfer your contacts easily" etc. And then you get it home and half of that turns out not to be so. In the case of the Ozone transferring contact from my Palm was so maddening I never did do it. And it won't run any of my old windows mobile apps like the PSK31 app. I swear I never have an interaction with the Verizon store that doesn't leave me storming out cussing under my breath. 

Might go with an Android based phone next time or maybe an IPhone if they ever get on the Verizon network. But I always evaluate the RF performance of the phone first by reviews and even some testing when I first get them. I operate in some fringe areas and a substandard phone will not cut it. That's also the reason I stay with Verizon, nobody else has rural coverage like they do. I too miss the bag analog phones for some applications.

[W8IXY]

Here at Telos, where we make the hybrids that most broadcasters use, for the last year or two, we have been getting several calls per week (and increasing) complaining that the on-air quality is very poor.   When I explain that many of those calls are from cell phones, the customer asks "Can't your products clean up the audio?".

I got a call from a producer at a network based in LA that had complaints from a nationally syndicated personality complaining that one of the calls that "sounded bad" was from a cell phone from a listener driving down an LA freeway!  "Can't your products clean up the audio?".

Many times, the audio quality/distortion/noise is so bad that you can't recognize who is calling.  And whoever came up with the idea to include the "comfort tone" (that whooshing noise that occasionally appears when you are listening to the incoming call), needs to be forcefully reprogrammed.

And, lately, I have been experiencing the majority of cell phone calls in half duplex.   The old analog desktop speakerphone boxes from decades ago were much better than the service being foisted on us now.   If it wasn't for being required to have a fancy phone for work, I'd not have anything but a copper wired home phone.  The radios would give me all the communication I need to do wireless.

73
Ted  W8IXY



 

[k4kyv]

Many times, the audio quality/distortion/noise is so bad that you can't recognize who is calling.  And whoever came up with the idea to include the "comfort tone" (that whooshing noise that occasionally appears when you are listening to the incoming call), needs to be forcefully reprogrammed.

That's what is wrong with my cell phone. I can hear the correspondent perfectly, but all he hears from my end is a whooshing noise that roughly keeps time with my voice.  The first time it happened, the person I called though I was pranking with him.  Then when I got home I called my landline number and heard what it sounded like.

[K5UJ]

I have a 900 mHz spread spectrum cordless phone in the shack.  The one we have in the house is a newer 5.8 gig unit.  The old one has several times the range of the newer one.

Some of those old 900 Mhz cordless phones were kick ass. My neighbor used to have one that let him run his lawnmower 3000 feet from the house down the runway to his mailbox out by the road and stay connected the whole time.

Yep, I had a 900 MHz Uniden analog phone I loved because the handset was like a real handset.  It had an ear cup and was comfortable to use.

That phone could get out.  I had the base just sitting in my house where the phone line terminates but a few times I took the handset out in my car and drove around to see how far I could go before loosing dial tone.  I found I could get all the way to the other end of the Fox River bridge with it and still hear my base.  That's probably at least a half mile from my house.  I finally had to quit using it when I could no longer get the replacement battery.   I briefly considered doing a mod to the base and connecting it to a feedline to a discone antenna outside but since I had no need for it I didn't.

There are these high powered cordless phones made overseas that operate down around 100 to 200 MHz and the base transmits with around 50 watts and they are supposed to have about 30 mile range.  Illegal in the U.S. obviously.

[N2udf]

Don, We have 2 cell phones from AT&T that are pay as you go.They don't have have anything but phone/text.Works great for us.....Lee,N2UDF.

[K5UJ]

Ted,  I'm waiting for some host to tell listeners to not call if they are on a cell phone but it ain't gonna happen.   As I said somewhere else, I only have a copper land line partly for what has become quality audio (my how the bar has fallen).  I listen to a car repair show and some listeners are so compressed and shrill that it is painful to listen to them. 

Rob

[k4kyv]

Don, We have 2 cell phones from AT&T that are pay as you go.They don't have have anything but phone/text.Works great for us.....Lee,N2UDF.

Sounds like a Go-Phone.  I was told that all I would have to do would be to replace the card that came with the phone with the one that's in my phone now and it will work.  I haven't checked them out yet, but I want one with a numerical key pad, not one of those miniature typewriter keyboards, and the only ones I saw displayed on the website were the latter. Next time I get to Wal 'o China-Mart or similar store, I'll see what they have. It isn't an urgent issue with me.  I mostly use the phone in the car, and I think I have taken a grand total of two excursions in the car since I got back from Dayton.

[W8IXY]

Ted,  I'm waiting for some host to tell listeners to not call if they are on a cell phone but it ain't gonna happen.   As I said somewhere else, I only have a copper land line partly for what has become quality audio (my how the bar has fallen).  I listen to a car repair show and some listeners are so compressed and shrill that it is painful to listen to them.

Rob


Hi Rob,

What happens at many networks, is that when the calls are screened, the producer doesn't accept sub standard sounding calls.  I get calls from radio stations asking why the networks all seem to have higher quality calls than their station does.  Both the network and the individual stations use exactly the same equipment, but its hard for them to comprehend why the hybrids can't "compensate" for sub standard sounding calls.

Few stations have competent engineers any more (if they have an engineer at all), and the PD and/or GM gets on and wonders why his station's calls don't sound as good as calls to Dr. Laura.   

You can ride in a Rolls Royce or a Bentley, but if the road you travel is rougher than a newly plowed cornfield, the ride is still going to be bumpy.

THE PROMISE OF DIGITAL!

73
Ted  W8IXY

[KB2WIG]

" THE PROMISE OF DIGITAL! "

We don't care, We dont have to. We're The a phone company.

[n1bnc]

I have used, with reasonable success, ATT cellphones on T-Mobile. They require that the phones be unlocked. Motorola's charge a fee for this. But then the unlocked phones can be used on any service that has the same specs and ATT & T-Mobile are the same digital flavors.

[Opcom]

Finally getting a new cellphone for work. I ordered the most basic one with the largest keys. No annoyances and no fruity rings, I hope.