House to shop communications

[Awlknottedup]

I am looking for a communications link between three buildings. The first building is a double wide trailer. The garage with the wife"s sewing room is twenty feet from the house. It is a pole building with tin siding. The shop is about a hundred feet away and is another tin covered pole building.

Electricity for the garage is a single 30A 120V circuit from a breaker in the house load panel. Shop power is a 240A 100A line from the meter on the utility pole.

I have phone and WiFi into the sewing room with repeaters. I want to set up some sort of intercom between the three buildings. Looking for ideas.
 

[Dick2]

We bought an intercom system from Radio Shack back in the late 50's? (maybe early 60's) that just plugged in to an outlet. As long as both units were on the same side of the electrical panel, it worked great.

Mom could talk to whoever was in the shop if there was anything important - like announcing that lunch was ready.

Don't know if anyone makes those anymore; if they do you could buy the number of stations that you need.
 

[Glenn F.]

Not to sound insulting, but do you have cell phones? Cell-to-cell calling has eliminated the need for most residential intercom systems. Not being sassy.

Glenn
 

[Ralph, Ohio]

It sounds as though all buildings have electric outlets served by the same transformer. If that's true you might try some of the wireless intercoms that plug in to an outlet & communicate over the power wiring. That's probably the simplest solution but it won"t be perfect. Expect to hear some constant hum & other noise when electrical devices turn on or off. Be sure to buy the units some place where they can be easily returned if not satisfactory. You might need to try different outlets in each building to find the ones that work the best. One advantage of these intercoms is that the steel siding has no effect.

Another option might be CB radios in each building with mobile antennas mounted in a good location inside the buildings. At that close range the radios would probably work OK through the steel siding and you would not likely get much interference from the rest of the world.
 

[Dusty MI]

I have 4 of this type. They are 3 channel. And sometimes do give trouble, when they do you can just switch channels.

Dusty
 

[Awlknottedup]

I had thought of using those. Finding which phase the garage is on is a minor problem. I have also thought of GMRS with external antennas. I have those already for when I am in the woods. I also have amateur radio stations in the computer room and shop but the wife is not licensed.
 

[don t-9n180179]

I thought the same.
Wife and I have Verison.
Calls to other Verison users are free calls.

FWIW...don t. ...
 

[Awlknottedup]

Those would wrok fine if the sewing room and computer room were on the same phase. I am tempted to get a couple of cheap sets to see if they are usable.
 

[guido]

Hello awlknottedup,

How about walkie talkies?. Not very expensive and with at least 1/2 mile range

Guido.
 

[MFPoor]

Sprint cell phones are free from Sprint customer to Sprint customer. We use 'em shop to house, tractor to tractor, etc. No need to have other communications devices.
 

[Stephen Newell]

I use a Radio Shack intercom for three buildings. One is more than 100 yards from the house. As long as the intercoms are plugged into the same leg of the electrical system it will work.
 

[matt p]

We use cordless phones made by panasonic it has a intercom feature that works really well,they came in a set with base station and four handsets,they also have signal boost repeater for extra long range. We bought them at radio shack model #kx-tga652c for around $130.00. We are about 350 feet between buildings and no problem with reception
 

[Mike Kork]

All of these ideas are great but my experience with house to shop interruptions (communications) was not a positive one, I even removed the shoppe telephone and I am much happier now.
Your results might be different, I wish you luck.
 

[D beatty]

I use the old fashion way my feet and walk to house and if I fell lazy I use cell phone.
 

[Butch(OH)]

Yup, that would be our place too. And when I dont want to play 20 questions with her on the phone I TEXT, LOL