Hi all, sorry to clog up the net with a question about cordless phones but I’m figuring that many of you guys work out of a home office and would have some experience with this. I just purchased a nice 5.8 GHz Uniden two-line cordless phone for our new house. I have one handset stationed at the main base and it works fine. The other handset is in my office on a remote base. The office handset has intermittent heavy static. It comes and goes about every 5 seconds. When I move closer to the main base it goes away entirely. We do have wireless phone service via Vonage, but I can’t imagine that’s the issue. The phone has been charged plenty long.
Any thoughts on this? I’m dreading taking it back and trying another one for fear the same thing will happen. Our house is 3500 s.f. but only about 2000 s.f. on the first floor where the two phones are.
Thanks,
Rob
Replies
2 things,
Our cordless has a channel button. Need to push it on occasion to get clearer reception. beats me what it does.
Do you have a low voltage transformer or bunch of elec. ballast fluorescents nearby and on? Ruins my long distance baseball reception.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Your cordless operates in the 5 GHz ISM (Industrial/Scientific/Medical) band. The good news is that the 5 GHz band is generally less crowded, and microwave ovens don't leak that high. The bad news is that for a given transmit power the 5 GHz band is more rapidly attenuated by walls, furniture, people, and humidity. That might be a contributing factor.
Having said that, I'm going to bet that you have a computer or some other equipment in (or near) your office with an 802.11a (or a/b/g) wireless card. Your broadband router should be an 802.11b/g router if it's the Linksys VOIP unit. The b and g live in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, so shouldn't interfere with your phone. If I'm right, try disabling the 802.11a radio on your computer. Otherwise you might try turning off various pieces of electronic equipment in your house to try to isolate the offending device.
Good luck.
Ok Doc, you are right, I do have a wireless laptop running in my office. The wireless router is located next to the base unit in the kitchen (where I don't have static issues). How exactly do I disable the 801 doo-hickey? And, what will that do to my ability to utilize the wireless internet functionality of my laptop?
Thanks, Rob
The bad news is that it will vary and you may or may not be able to do anything about it, depending upon the hardware, OS, and driver. But...
On the computer that I'm using right now (Windows XP SP2 with an Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG) I do the following:
1) Go to Control Panel -> Network Connections
2) Open "Wireless Network Connection"
3) On the "Advanced" tab select the "Wireless Mode" property, clear the "Use default value" and select the mode to use. Since I don't have "a" my choices are "802.11b only", "802.11g only", and "802.11b and 802.11g" -- if you have the last one, that's the one for you.
Good luck.
Thanks. I'll give it a shot.
- Rob