Boosting the cordless ranage on my Vonage system

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 08, 2006 Posts: 6

This is not directly a Vonage question, but it relates to my Vonage system at home.

I have a high end Uniden cordless phone with 3 handsets, and a base, all functional. The Uniden system is CLX475-3, and it works very well. It's operating at 5.8 GHz.

But, the base has to be at one end of the house, where my broadband router is located. The farthermost handset is located about 100 feet away. This distance is marginal. If I could knock off 10-15 feet, or boost the signal by only a few db, all would be well.

I chose the 5.8 GHz system as there's a lot of activity at 2.4 GHz, and I didn't want to crowd the airways.

Does anyone know of any "boosters" that might be use to pick up a little more range?

I can't really move the base station.

Ron Hirsch

Posts: 109 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 109

the only way your going to get the coverage is move your base staion to the middle of the house.

read in the wiring group how to hook your Vonage router up to your house phone wiring to move your phone.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 08, 2006 Posts: 6

Thanks for the reply.

I am well versed in the house phone wiring situation, and the overall electronics situation here in general. I spent my entire life in the high tech electronics industry. Unfortunately my house phone wiring has only a four wire cable, and I have two BellSouth lines active, which use that.

And, moving the router to the middle of the house would be a difficult situation, since extending the router cable there would present lots of problems.

I had another thought, but I don't know if there's any hardware to do this - I have a wi-fi network in my home. With that of course, I can connect any computer to the internet using a wireless access point.

Is there any hardware made which can use that technology to expand the capabilities of the Vonage adapter?

I know that there are devices made that use household wiring to extend telephone capabilities to remote locations. I used one years ago (and stili have the hardware). But it was only fair in performance.

I do have an older Uniden system at 2.4 GHz that spans the entire house with no problem, and the base station is at one extreme end. So, another choice could be to add a second cordless Uniden system, where the emphasis is on range. One of my older Unidens, at 900 MHz. has a range of up to 500 feet. I checked it out when I got it years back, and the range was phenomenal.

But of course, I like the handsets et al of the new Uniden system, and would love to pick up just a short range increase on that system.

It's even probable that if I moved the base station to a higher position, the range would probably increase a bit, but that is also not practical.

Thanks again for your input.

Ron Hirsch

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:00 am Post subject:

RBH wrote:

And, moving the router to the middle of the house would be a difficult situation, since extending the router cable there would present lots of problems.

I had another thought, but I don't know if there's any hardware to do this - I have a wi-fi network in my home. With that of course, I can connect any computer to the internet using a wireless access point.

Moving the base station for the Uniden phones is going to be your only answer. Since you're already running WiFi, you could pick up a wireless bridge, which would take the WiFi signal and "convert" it back to a Cat 5 wire. Then you could move the Vonage adapter wherever you wished. Search around on the forum for info on the Linksys WRT54G & WRT54GS routers. Out-of-the-box, they can't do this, but there is 3rd party firmware freely available on the 'net which adds wireless bridge/client functionality to these routers.

Quote:

I do have an older Uniden system at 2.4 GHz that spans the entire house with no problem, and the base station is at one extreme end.

Beware, WiFi also operates at 2.4Ghz, so if you try the aforementioned solution, you might find the 2.4Ghz Unidens interfering with your WiFi reception to the Vonage adapter. Some 2.4Ghz systems play nicely with WiFi, some don't. You might get lucky and have it work.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 08, 2006 Posts: 6

Thanks for the info on the firmware bit. I wasn't aware that there was anything like that around.

I've been fortunate that non of my 2.4 GHz stuff has interfered with each other yet. My wireless router also has a booster on it, as the spread between my 2 main computers is over 100 feet. The Linksys booster keeps the received signal level at its "excellent" value all the time.

I may try another Uniden, but I'll probably stick to 900 MHz, as there's not that much running at that frequency at the present.

It would be nice if Uniden provided an RF coax connection(s) on their 5.8 GHz base stations, and sold a small booster to connect there. Even though 5.8 GHz is usually a low waveguide frequency, a short run of good coax should handle it OK. It would probably need 2 connections, since there's a receive and transmit function involved. That's what my Linksys booster has on it.

Thanks again for all your info.

RBH