OT. Intercom-house to detached shop, recommendations.

atomarc · Apr 9, 2020

Semi machine related, sort of! I have a detached shop that's about 60 feet from the house and shares the same power. Right now, and for a long time, I have used a intercom that evidently traveled through the 120v wiring to function. It has now given up the ghost and I need to replace it.

Everything I see now is wireless. Is this what I want..has the other type gone by the wayside?

Does anyone use a intercom or have a recommendation as to a brand or style/type.

Stuart

kustomizer · Apr 9, 2020

We just bought a Vtech phone from Amazon with an intercom built in that works great

thermite · Apr 9, 2020

atomarc said:
Semi machine related, sort of! I have a detached shop that's about 60 feet from the house and shares the same power. Right now, and for a long time, I have used a intercom that evidently traveled through the 120v wiring to function. It has now given up the ghost and I need to replace it.

Everything I see now is wireless. Is this what I want..has the other type gone by the wayside?

Does anyone use a intercom or have a recommendation as to a brand or style/type.

Stuart

I'd probably just pull Army Signal Corps WD-1 commo wire and use ignorant telephones.. CAT5 right beside it...

...even so..

You can still get Ethernet-over-house-wire or "Powerline Networking" goods. VoIP goods ride it just as easily as internet access can do.

Better yet...?

I had three campuses, two adjacent, to do full new from-scratch PABX & Data comms systems, around 3,000 handsets, HKIS, Repulse Bay, HKG some years ago.

Primary School and Middle School were separated by a roadway we were unable to get permits to run under, wide bridge over that had been approved but not yet built.

Under a hundred feet, but may as well have been the English Channel.

Solution was an Infra-Red 100 MBPS laser pair.

Then we had voice, data, video, - ANYTHING you could run over a 10/100 CAT5 cable, internet access included until the bridge was done and could carry Copper and fiber.

Those are point-to-point. Aiming is dead-easy. Weather was no big deal, and it is as "private" as whatever you chooses to connect to it. Or do NOT choose to connect to it.

A(ny) broadband solution could do more than "just" intercom. Video conferencing, internet searching for info, materials ordering, and security cameras, for example.

At 60 feet, "cheap and basic" WiFi may or may not do so well and may have to compete for an open channel if you are in a comms-competitive area with other households and/or businesses.

Here's a sample of the high-end gear:

FSO IR Laser Wireless Links

At under a hundred feet instead of several miles, there's plenty of cheaper stuff, and even DIY isn't hard.

moonlight machine · Apr 10, 2020

You have a cell phone? Ball and chain has a cell phone? set the speed dial and there you go.

Tony Quiring · Apr 10, 2020

There are high power WiFi devices too, nano wave maybe.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

gustafson · Apr 10, 2020

The newish multi unit cordless phones work pretty well. At work I have one that is ~80 feet and 2 walls from the base unit and works well. And it is at least 10 years old

thermite · Apr 10, 2020

moonlight machine said:
You have a cell phone? Ball and chain has a cell phone? set the speed dial and there you go.

Phhht.. not that the average 'Merican female NEEDS any more training than she was BORN with... but run her through the "command VOICE" projection course, any branch of the military as is part of non-com and Junior Officer required skills?

"Batteries not included", she'll take the hair right off yer scalp at good quarter-klick, 60 feet but a whisper.

Chip Chester · Apr 10, 2020

To the OP's question, here's a rundown of types and relative prices. Don't know the company or whether shopping will get better deals, but it shows and explains what's available.

Intercom System & Wireless Intercom Experts

Marty Feldman · Apr 10, 2020

Chip Chester said:
To the OP's question, here's a rundown of types and relative prices. Don't know the company or whether shopping will get better deals, but it shows and explains what's available.

Intercom System & Wireless Intercom Experts

Interesting rundown. OP does not mention budget, but I am struck by what seems to be the high prices. Components are cheap, and ready to go simple devices sell for very little at bigboxes. Do the high price tags reflect feature-bloat? Not bloat of course if full-featured functionality is required, but I'm guessing that what is wanted here is simple message transmission ("Dinner's getting cold").

-Marty-

moonlight machine · Apr 10, 2020

thermite said:
Phhht.. not that the average 'Merican female NEEDS any more training than she was BORN with... but run her through the "command VOICE" projection course, any branch of the military as is part of non-com and Junior Officer required skills?

"Batteries not included", she'll take the hair right off yer scalp at good quarter-klick, 60 feet but a whisper.

Prolly where the ball and chain learned it.

jim rozen · Apr 10, 2020

thermite said:
Phhht.. not that the average 'Merican female NEEDS any more training than she was BORN with... but run her through the "command VOICE" projection course, any branch of the military as is part of non-com and Junior Officer required skills?
"Batteries not included", she'll take the hair right off yer scalp at good quarter-klick, 60 feet but a whisper.

Just like in the military, she can't *make* you do something. But she can make you WISH you had.

Years ago, western electric made a nice set of tiny wall intercom phones. Model 327 - They're available inexpensively, run off a 6 volt lantern
battery for signaling and voice. Look cool too. I have one in the basement shop, one in the garage, one in my attic room, and there's
one on the main floor. Keeps the hollering from one place to the other to a miniumum.

Like the mike blip that overcomes the squelch, often just a ring on the buzzer says it all.

What do I have? Western Electric 327?

Scottl · Apr 10, 2020

deleted
.....

atomarc · Apr 10, 2020

I have looked at a few of the links provided and some of the intercoms are way out of my price range. The cell phone idea is out as well as, being a antique, I don't have one and don't intend on getting one.

There are a whole bunch of wireless ones but they're instructions seem to indicate they are only powered via a USB connection. If they actually plug into a wall outlet they would be a candidate. There are also a few that do plug in and use the house wiring to communicate. That's what I have now but doesn't seem to want to work anymore.

I haven't completely ruled out a megaphone or semaphores so I'll keep searching. Thanks for the ideas.

Stuart

thermite · Apr 10, 2020

atomarc said:
I have looked at a few of the links provided and some of the intercoms are way out of my price range. The cell phone idea is out as well as, being a antique, I don't have one and don't intend on getting one.

There are a whole bunch of wireless ones but they're instructions seem to indicate they are only powered via a USB connection. If they actually plug into a wall outlet they would be a candidate. There are also a few that do plug in and use the house wiring to communicate. That's what I have now but doesn't seem to want to work anymore.

I haven't completely ruled out a megaphone or semaphores so I'll keep searching. Thanks for the ideas.

Stuart

Stuart? When C&P Telephone ruled-out an ADSL modem for this house lo an age or three ago, they told me it was because my five copper pairs were off a 17,100 foot as the grounded crow's drunken walk routing had taken him from the serving Central Office in Herndon. Ignorant plain-black rotary-dial or DTMF tellyphone didn't give damn - nor did fax. THOSE all JF worked as did V.35 and V.90 Modems.

Seventeen THOUSAND feet, not 60 feet.

Sixty foot, call it a hundred, most any wire you run will do telephone/audio pass-band, ol' phones or vacuum-tube Dukane PA system onward. I could run it duplex-phantom down an ordinary wire fence and a decent Earth tie point, each end.

Burial mere INCHES down was all we had, here. Hadda pull new my own self after a storm exposed enough to snag it with a rotary lawnmower.

Now - if yah have roadway or such? Low radiated power RF. Cheap and cheerful Kid's "walkie talkies" work at many hundreds of feet. We use 'em when the family is split-up wandering around trails in parks and such.

Given you already have power for wall-warts, both ends, yah won't have much hassle over batteries.

USB? BFD.

I just use a USB hub / charger / multi-connector-style gadget.

IT plugs inta the wall. End of problem.

TeachMePlease · Apr 10, 2020

Can I recommend an FRS radio pair, instead? Extra useful cuz you can carry it around with you in the shop, rather than having to go to the intercom, also useful outside the shop, cheap, and easy?

Amazon.com: Motorola T100 Talkabout Radio, 2 Pack

Something like that.

thermite · Apr 10, 2020

TeachMePlease said:
Can I recommend an FRS radio pair, instead? Extra useful cuz you can carry it around with you in the shop, rather than having to go to the intercom, also useful outside the shop, cheap, and easy?

Amazon.com: Motorola T100 Talkabout Radio, 2 Pack

Something like that.

Motorola knows their s**t.

I had this honking heavy semi-armoured A/N-f**k-me command radio set "built in" to my M-151, 'nam. Silly jeep went thru a full set of - 12 was it? - universal joints about every thousand miles. Radio wasn't much better.

USAF Senior MSGT as was running Bien Hoa AFB Base Fuels drops in for a visit, he's driving a plain-old farm-duty International 2WD pickup ain't set a foot wrong in 200,000 miles and talking over a lunchbox-sized hand-portable Motorola rig proven in desert oil-fields, to North Woods logging camps, to Artic expeditions.

Guess when the aircraft cost the very Earth to buy and fly, yah gots to keep the rest of the gear cheap, simple, and never-die reliable?

EPAIII · Apr 10, 2020

No cell phone? That's almost dangerous in today's world. I just ordered a new one and can send you my old one which is still working just. It just has limited available apps. I can even steer you to a couple of companies where you can get service for $20 per month, data included.

On the intercom, what you have is a wealth of choices.

USB power can be had from any wall outlet with a very inexpensive wall wart. I have purchased them for less then $5.

You say the house wiring intercom does not work any more. Have you made changes to that wiring? New breaker box? New wire runs to the shop? Or in the house? Why did it stop working?

Be sure to include tin cans and string in your thoughts.

atomarc said:
I have looked at a few of the links provided and some of the intercoms are way out of my price range. The cell phone idea is out as well as, being a antique, I don't have one and don't intend on getting one.

There are a whole bunch of wireless ones but they're instructions seem to indicate they are only powered via a USB connection. If they actually plug into a wall outlet they would be a candidate. There are also a few that do plug in and use the house wiring to communicate. That's what I have now but doesn't seem to want to work anymore.

I haven't completely ruled out a megaphone or semaphores so I'll keep searching. Thanks for the ideas.

Stuart

jim rozen · Apr 10, 2020

thermite said:
Motorola knows their s**t.

Actually that's what we used before I ran the power and data lines out to the garage.
Inexpensive motorola handi talkies. Worked great but you had to remember to bring them
along...

hobbyman · Apr 10, 2020

There is the eternal problem of being summoned from the garage/shop. I found a cheap and effective solution when browsing Princess Auto, the Canadian version of Northern Tool. They had really cheap auto alarms with a remote control. I hooked it up to a 12 volt dc power supply board from that land across the ocean and now She Who Must Be Obeyed presses a remote button in the house and the claxton sounds in a synthesized voice "Help Me Help Me" Or "System Disarmed" It cost me 22 Canuck bucks and She is happy.
My customer saw it demonstrated and said she should have gone to Cabellas and bought one of those electic dog collars with a remote. LOL

atomarc · Apr 10, 2020

Well...I bit the proverbial bullet and bought an inexpensive intercom from Amazon. This was after I realized that the USB cord they were showing plugged into the little xformer that came with the set. It was only $54.00 clams and the literature says it's good for 1/2 mile..?

It had a better rating than some of the others and the enclosed disclaimer said it did not come from Wuhan province. I guess that's somewhere in Idaho..or Mexico, don't know for sure, but it does sound like a lovely spot to visit, as soon as I'm off the ventilator...if I get off the ventilator. :eek:

Amazon.com: Wireless Intercom System Hosmart 1/2 Mile Long Range 7-Channel Security Wireless Intercom System for Home or Office (2018 New Version)[2 Stations Black]

Stuart

OT. Intercom-house to detached shop, recommendations.

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