WiFI walkie-talkies

I am seeking some guidance from fellow PM'ers. Does anyone have any experience with ROiP radios or WiFi walkie-talkies?

I am looking for a system that will allow me to talk between my home and shop. I want a PTT system. My 87 year old dad is getting very frail and he has a difficult time using his smart phone.

I am looking at the the ICOM radio. IP1FS Remote Communicator - Features - Icom America

I tried have tried UHF and VHF radios loaned by friends and the steel siding of the shop kills the reception.

Getting old suck by-the-way.

As always thank you guys for the help and recommendations.

Tom

If your shop is relatively close to your home, maybe an old fashioned wired intercom might be the answer. You'd have to trench in a multi-conductor cable, but then you'd be set. You could add stations to the areas your father uses, and maybe have one on a cable so it could sit close to his favorite chair.

I have a Panasonic phone set with two units. It contains an inter-comm that works very nicely. If the steel building ruins Wi Fi, then a simple phone extension with inter-comm would be OK. You would need an extension line to your shop unless you already have one.

Most brands of extension phones have an inter-comm feature.

EDIT: Hmmm, 1800 feet? Forget a telephone line. CB Radio or Ham rig would work.

BobRenz said:

If your shop is relatively close to your home, maybe an old fashioned wired intercom might be the answer. You'd have to trench in a multi-conductor cable, but then you'd be set. You could add stations to the areas your father uses, and maybe have one on a cable so it could sit close to his favorite chair.

Click to expand...

Bob, I'm 1800 feet so the distance is an issue.

Thank you,

Tom

You might try mounting the antenna outside the metal wall and connecting to the radio inside with a piece of coax.

Ham radio requires passing a federal test for all operators. Ham radio cannot be used for a commercial purpose. Citizen's Band CB does not require passing a federal test.

Best wishes --- Allen KC9LJN

AA+ said:

Ham radio requires passing a federal test for all operators. Ham radio cannot be used for a commercial purpose. Citizen's Band CB does not require passing a federal test.

Best wishes --- Allen KC9LJN

Click to expand...

That's right there is a test. But he stated that he wanted to communicate with his DAD in the house.

Newman109 said:

That's right there is a test. But he stated that he wanted to communicate with his DAD in the house.

Click to expand...

Yes, distance is an issue. These radios are Wi-Fi based and from everything I am reading require no license.

1800 feet should not be issue for good radios.

One could build passive repeater which is just 2 antennas connected back to back.

A yagi outside connected to omni inside and only needed at shop.

Baofeng makes decent and cheap radios, about 20 bucks each.

Google gmrs and frs as these are unlicensed frequencies.



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AA+ said:

Ham radio requires passing a federal test for all operators. Ham radio cannot be used for a commercial purpose. Citizen's Band CB does not require passing a federal test.

Best wishes --- Allen KC9LJN

Click to expand...

There is also MURS (multi-use radio) which is a bit like the new CB operating on the old "business band" frequencies. No license required.

You can get MURS base-stations and external antennas. I have no problems with reception on my MURS handhelds in the shop 1,000 ft from the house. These are all line of sight frequencies; if you can't see the person you want to talk to signal may be degraded. I also have a driveway alarm that operates on MURS. The sensor is down in some trees over a small hill 1/2 mile away. We had signal troubles so I put a cheap j-pole up in a tree ($30 for antenna & $40 for custom made low-loss coax) and its crystal clear now.

The handhelds I have are programmable to receive weather radio channels as well which is a nice feature.

This looks like an interesting alternative:

https://www.target.com/p/relay-scre...r/-/A-54260742?preselect=54243569#lnk=sametab

Wifi plus cell, but just one button to connect him to your cell.
More of a table top than desk top solution, though.

Chip Chester said:

This looks like an interesting alternative:

https://www.target.com/p/relay-scre...r/-/A-54260742?preselect=54243569#lnk=sametab

Wifi plus cell, but just one button to connect him to your cell.
More of a table top than desk top solution, though.

Click to expand...

Thanks. After talking with icom. That system is way outside of my budget [emoji857][emoji857][emoji857]

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You might be able to run the Target thing as wifi only, with no cell at all. Worth a look.

If you register two Amazon Echo devices on different phone numbers they can call by voice to each other.

Probably not useful Tom, but this brought back memories.

My grandfather, before he passed away (at the age of 96) had switched to using these walkie talkies to talk with my grandmother and me, who lived around a kilometer from his house. Once setup they involved just one button press. But we had to recharge the batteries often. He had a lot of fun with them.

FX-490 NERO/SILVER

Not sure if this legal to use in the U.S., but I was surprised to read by chance a thread that hit close to home.

As said earlier if you get a radio with the ability to use an external anten a such as a base station setup for frs or gmrs you will have no issue.

de N2AB

Tony Quiring said:

Google gmrs and frs as these are unlicensed frequencies.

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Click to expand...

FRS is unlicensed (as is MURS) but GMRS requires a license, ($90/10 years now I think) that covers immediate family, but permits higher powers and better antennas.

A Wi-Fi connection (if you shave line of sight) via a pair of yagi antennas, or by “cantenna” antennas might work too.

Could also use phones on a push to talk (PTT) plan. Works as a normal flip phone would, but most have a button on the side to make them function like walkie talkies to either a group or a single user. The one linked below is one to one. There are some smartphones that can do this as well. Has the benefit of using the cell service to do it, but an additional monthly expense. Verizon and Sprint seem to be the ones with the most/best support for it.

Here is an example phone
Nextel Direct Connect: Push to Talk Mobile Phones from Sprint

Why would 1800 feet exclude a hard telephone line? We have home phones that are connected to the local phone exchange that is miles away. And they use relatively small gauge wire. I see no reason why a 24 gauge cable would not work. If you are in doubt, use 20 or 18 gauge.

Newman109 said:

I have a Panasonic phone set with two units. It contains an inter-comm that works very nicely. If the steel building ruins Wi Fi, then a simple phone extension with inter-comm would be OK. You would need an extension line to your shop unless you already have one.

Most brands of extension phones have an inter-comm feature.

EDIT: Hmmm, 1800 feet? Forget a telephone line. CB Radio or Ham rig would work.

Click to expand...

If UHF and VHF radios do not work, then WiFi, which uses much higher frequencies will just be worse. It will be even more restricted to line of sight and you would probably need both the house WiFi antenna and the shop WiFi antenna located in a window that faces the other. I have WiFi problems just a dozen feet away in my U shaped house where the signal only has to pass through two or three NON METALLIC walls.

Because the shop has metal walls, an RF signal (radio, WiFi, etc. are all RF) would have to enter the building via a window or other opening in those walls and then disperse inside the building to reach areas that are not in a direct line with that window. There is a compromise here. The wavelength must be small enough to pass through that window and then large enough to bend around it's edges and to scatter off the contents of the building. Something in that VHF to UHF range would probably be the best compromise for that. But both frequency bands have been tried with no success. That tells me that an RF solution (I hate that word "solution") seems to be unlikely to work.

I can see two ways to make this work. The first is the hard wire intercom. This can be a new cable or, depending on how your buildings are wired, there are intercoms that use the power line for their connection. Google "power line intercom" or something like that.

The second way is to establish an outdoor RF link between the buildings and connect both ends of that link to indoor RF distribution systems. This could be WiFi or some form of two way radio repeaters. This would overcome both the distance and the metal walls of the shop. The essential element here is there are three systems that are interconnected: the house system, the link between the buildings, and the shop system.

It may, and I say "may" be possible to make the shop end of that type of system a passive combination. That is to say that no electronics would be involved, just two antenna; one outside pointed at the house and the other inside those metal walls to broadcast the signal inside the shop. They would be connected with a simple RF cable. No guarantees with this method.

Personally I would just bury or fly a cable between the buildings. That has a very high probability of success and also a relatively low cost.