Home to Shop Communication

[Phillip Sisson]

My shop is in a steel roof pole building, and I'm looking for ideas on communication to and from the house, my old wireless intercom got zapped years ago by lightning, and my cell phone has no service inside the shop. I've thought about a two-way radio (like Motorola XV2100) but don't know about the FCC license. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Brian Weick]

what about a phone system with a built in intercom between phones, I do believe they make them, my phone has it, but I never use it- all you would have to do is run a telephone line to the shop -get the same phone system ~ problem solved:D
Brian

[Jim Becker]

What Brian suggests is how I handle it. I have a Uniden multi-handset wireless phone system (the new DECT version at this point) and one handset is in the shop building. Not only does it facilitate normal phone access for that building, but it also serves as an intercom to/from any other handset on the system...which will support up to six. (I have five currently)

[David G Baker]

If all else fails, get a couple of old 23 channel CB base station radios and a couple of antennas. Mount one antenna outside of your home and the other outside of your barn, run coax cable to the radios. The reason I bring this up is that I have several base stations and several antennas from my old CB days and am planning on using a couple of them to do exactly what I described.
Depending on where you live, base station CBs are found at many garage sales for little or nothing.

[Darrell Jones]

At our old house the shop was detatched and 100' from the house. We used our cordless phone which had an intercom feature.

[Joe Pelonio]

My shop is in a steel roof pole building, and I'm looking for ideas on communication to and from the house, my old wireless intercom got zapped years ago by lightning, and my cell phone has no service inside the shop. I've thought about a two-way radio (like Motorola XV2100) but don't know about the FCC license. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Look at the Motorola Talkabouts, like the T9500XLR. No license required and have a monitor function. I'd wonder though about the metal building and whether it will work if a cell phone does not. The intercom on cordless phones might be the best bet, since the wireless communication is between the handset and base the metal shouldn't affect it. Like Jim, we have one with 5 handsets.

[David G Baker]

My pole barn has metal siding and composition roof, the small hand held radios work great. My house is around 200 feet from the barn. The only problem with mine is the frequency sometimes picks up CB radio conversations and the LOML thinks I am trying to contact her.

[Mike Henderson]

My shop is in a steel roof pole building, and I'm looking for ideas on communication to and from the house, my old wireless intercom got zapped years ago by lightning, and my cell phone has no service inside the shop. I've thought about a two-way radio (like Motorola XV2100) but don't know about the FCC license. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
If all you have is a metal roof, with wooden sides on the building, any RF device should work just fine. In order to really shield the inside from electromagnetic signals, the entire building would have to be metal and there'd have to be no holes in it that are in the order of the wavelength of the frequency of interest. (Actually, the holes have to be smaller than a fraction of the wavelength.)

An example of this is on an airplane - as soon as it lands everyone pulls out their cell phone and tells someone that they just landed - and the airplane fuselage is totally conducting. It turns out that the windows are large enough to prevent the fuselage from acting as a Faraday cage.

If your whole building is not metal, you might just be in a dead spot, or the roof might be between you and the cell tower - there is a dead space behind a conducting obstruction. But if the building isn't metal, and there's only wood between you and the house, any wireless device should work between your shop and the house.

Mike

[Larry Browning]

My shop is about 100 feet from the house. I had been using a 2.8ghz cordless phone with 2 handsets. The phones were probably 120 ft apart with a concrete wall in between. the intercom feature worked flawlessly as well as the phone. I could hear and answer the phone when it rang, my wife could call me from the house. The intercom has a separate ring tone for the intercom so it is easy to tell the difference between a phone call and the intercom. Yon can even transfer a call to the other handset, which is what my wife would do when I got a call and she answered the phone.
We recently "upgraded" to one the the new DECT type phone with all the same features as our old phones and the wireless range is much worse. It just barely works. I have to now step outside the shop to get any kind of reception at all. So even though the cordless phone with intercom is really the best option, I would stay away from the DECT type phones go with the older 2.8ghz or 5.something Ghz due to the range issue. I later found a chart that showed the advantages and disavantages to the different phone types. It did indeed say that the DECT phone had a much shorter range that the other types.

Don't listen to these other guys about radios and the like (unless your shop is a few miles from the house) . A simple cordless phone is the answer. Installation is as simple as plugging in the phone charging base in the shop and the wife already knows how to use the phone. It is also the cheapest way to go as well. You can get a 2 set cordless set for as little is $60. This is a no-brainer.

[Jim Becker]

Larry, I'm getting significantly better reception and range with my new DECT system than I did with the 5ghz system it replaces...

[Phillip Sisson]

This sure is a great forum, I want to thank everyone for the ideas. My shop seems like a vault.
Phillip

[Brett Elliott]

I've thought about a two-way radio (like Motorola XV2100) but don't know about the FCC license. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

So long as you use the FRS (Family Radio Service) channels and not the GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) channels, there is no license issue. However FRS channels have a lower maximum transmit power than GMRS channels, thus a bit less range. However, going from the shop to the house shouldn't be a problem with the lower powered FRS. This would help the batteries last longer as an added bonus.

The manual will state which channels FRS and which are GMRS. If not, I can help you figure that out.

Brett

[Larry Browning]

Larry, I'm getting significantly better reception and range with my new DECT system than I did with the 5ghz system it replaces...

I was very happy with the 2.8ghz panasonic model we had for several years. The battery was running weak on the handset in the house and we want to get another handset. so rather that getting a new battery and extra handset, we picked up a new panasonic cordless with 3 handsets. While at Best Buy they had a chart that showed the differences in the various frequencies. I did notice that the DECT phones showed that they had a shorter range than the 2.8Ghz models. But since there was no issues at all with my previous phone's range I thought it would be fine. Anyway, at this point the only way to use the new phone is to step outside and even then, there is noise on the line. I think I would hook up my old phone if I hadn't given it to my daughter.

[Jim Becker]

Strange, Larry. The Uniden DECT system I just put in place is crystal clear with no drop-outs. I can walk about 200' down to the mailbox without any interference. The 2.4ghz system I originally had could do that, but had other issues. The 5.8ghz system could barely make it to my shop without drop-outs...it drove us nuts.

[Larry Browning]

Maybe I need to move the base or something like that. It just seems the other phone was better. I really do wish I had it back.

[Phillip Sisson]

I just wanted to update on my comm. to shop problem. I bought a MURS base station with one hand held radio. Its a 4-mile range intercom. It works great in my shop. No more cold meals Ha !!!

[Bruce Volden]

So...that was it then huh?? It's all about the belly!:D

Bruce

[Hank Phillips]

http://wow.osu.edu/experiments/sound/images/stringtele.jpg

[David G Baker]

http://wow.osu.edu/experiments/sound/images/stringtele.jpg
Hank,
I tried your suggestion. It worked great except for all the birds that kept landing on the string.

[Hank Phillips]

Hank,
I tried your suggestion. It worked great except for all the birds that kept landing on the string.

I only had a problem with squirrels running the length of it, but I really like squirrel stew, so... :D