Cordless Phone

[SafeCracker]

Hoping it's alright to post this in the area but...

I'm looking at getting a new cordless phone. I have purchased/tried a handful with all the same results... They SUCK! I get static when I walk around the house (my old phone didn't have that). I'm using dial up and not have anything else (that I can think of) to interfere.

I'm looking for - Caller ID (with new call light if possible, not many/any phones seem to have this option) - Answering machine (don't need a bunch of mailboxes, one is fine) and CRYSTAL CLEAR recption.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Dave

[Shane R. Monroe]

Anything in the 2.4Ghz range (phase plasma rifle in the 40 watt range) should suit you fine. Don't skimp to a non-name brand. Also, look around carefully for the best deal when it comes to extra handsets.

I finally went with a Costco special. A Uniden with 2 handsets, 2.4 Ghz (unfortunately, no answering machine, but we already had one, so we didn't need it).

Make sure its a DIGITAL phone, not analog. Features vary GREATLY from phone to phone too. For me, I needed each handset to have an earphone plug.

The Uniden (do you get the feeling I like Uniden?) one I have with an answering machine was about $100 with one handset (expandable).

Oh, the other bonus feature to look for (esp if you don't have cell phones for everyone in the house) is that some of the multi-handsets work as walkie talkies. So if you're hitting the mall, you can take your phone handsets with you, change their mode to walkie talkie, and have some nice connectivity that way. I haven't tried it (we all have cells in my house) but I understand it works pretty well with a limited range.

Understand, my house was BAD for cordless phones. I tried everything before the 2.4Ghz Digital, and everything else was staticy, mostly unusable. These are much better.

[SafeCracker]

Are the new 5.8 phones better than the 2.8 phones?

[Shane R. Monroe]

Valid question.

As I understand it, the mhz (500,900,1.4,2.8,etc) has to do mostly with RANGE (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Now RANGE **CAN** affect quality. If your base is in the kitchen, and you are talking in the upstairs bedroom, and the sound is poor at 1.4mhz - then 2.8 probably will help you. Now, if the phone sounds like crap standing right next to the base at 900mhz ... 2.8Mhz probably isn't going to help you out. That sounds like incredibly bad phone lines (inside wiring probably) or severe interference (move the base somewhere else to test). Best way to test your internal wiring is to plug a CORDED phone into the jack and see if the signal is horrible. Try DIFFERENT jacks too. One jack in your house might be CRYSTAL CLEAR (put your cordless on that) while all the other ones are horrible. I've had houses like that. In that case, I'd put a multi-handset cordless in the clear jack, and put wireless handsets in every other room you want a phone - regardless if it has a jack or not.

I've found that DIGITAL cordless phones (in addition to encryption and other features) tend to sound a LOT better than ANALOG cordless phones. I had a 900mhz analog cordless and a 900mhz DIGITAL cordless, and on the same jack, the digital was clearer.

Let me share a neat trick.

Let's say you find out that every jack on a CORDED phone sounds like crap. That would indicate a problem SOMEWHERE in the wiring - inside or outside. Call the phone company - ask them if they offer WIRING INSURANCE for indoor wiring. Say that a friend had some inside wiring job done and it costed a fortunte and you're worried it will happen to you blah blah and ask them to add insurance to your phone. It will be like $8 a month or something. Ask them when that takes effect. Once you're sure its kicked in, call the tech people and tell them you have noisy lines and you want them to come check it out. They will give you the standard routine about "problems up to your house are our problems, but anything INSIDE is your problem". Inform them you have the line insurance that protects the lines INSIDE and OUTSIDE. They will come and no matter what, they will have to take care of your issue; inside or out. You can get your whole house checked out for $8.

Before you think you're scamming them and feeling immoral, just understand that if you didn't have the insurance, something like THIS would happen. They would show up and test the line to your house. They would claim "its all good to the house, must be INSIDE". Then charge you $40 an hour to come in and tear your house up. After several hours of labor, they would turn around and say "well, these old houses .. they have this older cabling that doesn't carry the signal well from our source." and they will want to rewire the whole house ... this is parts and labor here. Hundreds of dollars and lots of your time. And it MAY or MAY NOT fix your problem (the repair guy will tell you TONS of reasons why there is really nothing else they can do). Either way, you pay the bill.

Oh, and if you didn't have insurance, they would FIND a reason to come into the house - even if their line is dirty coming up to the house. This is like FREE money to the phone company. They pay the guy $16 an hour to do it, and charge you $40. Nice - no parts, all labor.

We used to get this alot at Computerland where I used to work. People would buy internet access through us, then call and complain they couldn't get 56k connections. We had a telephone division, so I know the drill. Some people are just plain psycho, tho. They have extension cords they bought at Walmart for $3 for 100 feet, running into the bedroom from the kitchen, and they are wondering why they only get 26k connections. or those 'put a phone anywhere in your home through your electrical system' extension boxes. Classic.

[WorknMan]

Do you know of any phones and/or answering machines that can do magic tricks like this?

http://www.dasym.com/products.shtml

I'm looking for one with a white list - I'd be willing to pay $300+ for it!

[Shane R. Monroe]

Damn, that's leet!

I can't help you on that one ... man, that's really cool

[WorknMan]

Check this one out:

http://www.privacycall.com/pages/id-screener-3.htm

This one has the white/invite list feature, but I dunno about the Do Not Disturb mode .. if I can't give people the access code in an outgoing message when DND mode is on, that would suck.

It has a maximum of 45 entries in the invite list. Depending on how many friends/family members you have, that may not be that much, consider most people have home/office/cell phones these days.