What I’ve found is a quagmire.<\/p>\n
First off, our house is filled with crummy cordless phones. There is the one behind the bar that rings well enough but makes your callers sound like they are in a deep pit (it rubs the lotion on it’s skin). Upstairs, there is the analog 900 MHz phone. It sounds like shit too and it has crappy range. Then there is the Olympia OL-2410 we’ve been using; it sounds… not like “total crap” but just “poor” and the display recently went south.<\/p>\n
What phone do I use? It’s the kind of phone that you can pummel an assailant with. It’s a corded Southwestern Bell Freedom Phone. It’s unapologeticly heavy, sounds great and feels good in your hand.<\/p>\n
So, last week, the Olympia 2 handset phone system broke after 1 1\/2 years of service. I called Staples and used the extended service plan I got to get an $80 credit. While I was waiting for the credit to arrive, I plugged in my old Uniden 900 MHz digital spread spectrum phone. This is a great phone. Great range, sounds like a corded phone, long battery life, enough heft in the handset to leave a welt on an assailant (especially since you can throw it across the room at him), a well designed answering machine… da da da…<\/p>\n
The credit arrives so I go to Staples and pick up a Vtech 2.4 GHz phone. It was great except for it’s horrid range: less than 50 feet. Admittedly, compounding factors include that the range problem was between the 1st and second floors and we have 2 Wifi networks in the house. But shouldn’t these devices SHOULD be able to coexist in the same band?<\/p>\n
I returned the phone.<\/p>\n
flavors of….. vanilla. With the help of a self-avowed over-achieving salesman, I picked out a $70 5.8 GHz phone. To be specific, it is a Maxus 5.8 Gigahertz Dual Handset, Radio Shack # 43-3585. I got it home and plugged one of the phones in. I didn’t dare take everything out of the box until I knew it worked because, I swear Radio Shack must employ master jigsaw puzzlers to pack their products. The corners of my mouth started to curl up as the dual-frequency hum of the dial-tone remained steady in my ear while I walked from room to room. Satisfied, I ripped the rest of the packaging open.<\/p>\n