High-power DECT phones

[John_BS]

Does anyone have any advice / experience of cordless phones which might work in an old house with thick (stone) internal walls?

Are the BT Elements 1K jobies good?

John

[John_Baines]

I use a BT Elements phone and find it very good indeed - it reaches all around the house and garden, and I can even wander as far as the school behind me, or the village shop, and still get a good connection. My house has fairly thick walls (no plasterboard in my world!), and I don't seem to have any 'dead' spots with the elements whereas I did with other cordless phones.

I do have the base unit quite high up in the house, which I think helps a lot. I've been very happy with mine.

If I can help with anything more specific, do let me know.

John

[Vintage_RC]

I don't think there can be such a thing as a high power DECT phone as the specifications including maximum and average power levels are defined in the standard ETS 300 175. That's not to say some phones have better real world performance than others.

[Station X]

When I had a landline I installed the DECT base station in an upstairs room which gave very good coverage in the house and garden. My internal walls are constructed using pulverised fuel ash blocks which I understand can attenuate radio signals

[brenellic2000]

The best phone I had was an Ascom 128(?) from c1990. It used an external aerial which allowed me to use the base station in my workshop (internal wire mesh screening - don't ask) and give perfect 'cordless' reception over a 5 acre estate and my cottage 300 yards away.

When she died nothing could replace her. BT Elements was not bad , the 1K is a lot better , but the 1K still can't penetrate my workshop screening. The solution seems to be an externally mounted aerial by a window to replace the standard desk-top job. In theory it should be possible to use one phone between two base stations...

[Oldcodger]

Many years ago I worked in the private telecomms industry. At one customer living in an ancient building I found that ye old BT cordless with the pull out aerial would work outside the building, but a "modern" dect dancall would not.
However Dancall had a range extender ( no doubt today other makes have as well). OT,but Dancall was only cordless to feature a battery box for powerfail. But I found that being DECT , it worked with BT DIVERSE and both worked with my present BT cALL gUARDIAN dECT CORDLESS.

[SiriusHardware]

One of the systems we make uses a DECT phone as the user interface to the system and we have at times supplied some really well made DECT phones which were of industrial quality and sometimes described as 'long range' (not to be confused with high power, since longer range can be achieved by other means such as better aerials).

Most DECT phones don't have external aerials, partly because of the very short wavelength involved, but partly because people just don't like aerials sticking out of things nowadays - however at least one of the 'Long Range' DECT phones we sold had a stubby or flexy whip aerial coming out of the top of the handset like one of the older generation analogue cordless phones.

Some of these phones were branded ASCOM as per bren's post above, another brand was I think 'EnGenius'

[brenellic2000]

Yes, Ascom make very good stuff. I think they are Swiss?

Question! On the BT Elements 1K, there are two 1" aerials. It is possible/practical to extend these by 1m of cable for external use?

BT does an DECT Extender to boost Diverse cordless phones... but why not the Elements? Are these unique to particular phones?

[John_BS]

Thanks for all the feedback : I have yet to actually visit the house in question, but it is thatched, stone, and old, so the internal walls will probably be thickish and stone as well.

John

[bluepilot]

I live in an old house with very thick stone walls. There isn't anywhere in the house where I can put the base station so that there is reception everywhere. However I put a repeater in the barn and that can be seen from the bits of the house that can't see the base station. You just need to work out carefully where to put the bits to give good coverage.