We’ve been using cordless phones at our present house for about the last two years without a problem. Now all of a sudden we are getting static and even bits of conversation from another phone. Even my in-laws up the street are getting the same problem. (This is happening on both the old-style cordless and 900 mhz digital phones.)
Does the FCC cover this kind of thing, or should I be contacting my local phone company? I’m pretty sure the phone company would say that it’s not their problem.
Why don’t you plug in an “old-fashioned” phone (with a cord) and see if you still have the interference.
Already tried using the corded phone. Works perfectly. I also use the same phone lines for my modem and no problems there.
This definitely looks like an RF interference issue. I figure somebody just got a new cordless phone that wasn’t quite up to FCC code and now it’s blitzing everybody else’s cordless connection. I’ll ask my neighbors if they are having problems or if they’ve just gotten a new phone in the last couple of weeks.
I hate the thought of buying an even more expensive spread spectrum phone. I just bought this 900 mhz digital last summer and it was working just great, now this happens…
Doesn’t it have more than one channel? My non-900MHz cordless supports 10 channels. It auto picks a clear channel, and there is also a channel button to cycle through them manually.
It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.
25 channels on the phone. The results are the same on all channels. My other phone, which only has 10 channels, is the same way. Whatever’s causing this is doing an effective job.
I’m impressed. It sounds like more than just another cordless phone. Did someone nearby start up a ham radio station, or maybe CB?
It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.
Could be an illegal CB setup. We had a boob on the street who ran a CB with a huge antenna (he ran it up a 100’ pine tree) and some sort of power booster. We picked him up on regular radios, telephones, TVs etc. My neighbor who was a professional musician had a bunch of his demo tapes ruined when his tape recorder picked up the CB transmisions on the tapes. We finally sicced the FCC on him.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delicatorum Votis
Which brings me to my next question:
How do I reach the FCC?
I found their web site, but it seems mostly dedicated to consumer fraud and things of that nature. They don’t have anything specific there regarding RF interference or anything of that nature. I tried finding a number in my local phone book, but no luck.
Should I call one of our local radio stations and see if they have a contact number that ordinary citizens can use to call the FCC?
Recently we had a problem with some houses near Cheyenne Mtn (NORAD) their garage door openers quit working, this was a neighborhood wide problem.
City officials checked with NORAD, no problem, however they did find that one of the radio station towers was transmitting out of it’s normal range. (Cheyenne Mtn is littered with antennas for all kinds of communications.)
Anyhow, you may want to check with your nieghbors to see if they are experiencing similar problems and contact your city officials. It took our city about a week to figure it out, but when you factor in NORAD it’s not an easy task.
Just a thought, you may have some radio transmitter that like one poster said is illegal or you may have one that’s out of wack.
If there is a ham radio operator in the neighborhood, you might ask (nicely of course) if he can help figure it out. Many hams love to investigate RF mysteries such as this, both because it can be fun (if you’re into ham radio), and to help dispel the image of ham radio operation itself causing interference. You might end up with the local ham radio club scouring the neighborhood with equipment, until they found the source!
Arjuna34
Actually the thing that made 900 mhz phones so popular was because they were clear. The reason they were so clear is because the frequency wasn’t being utilized as much then as it is now. Now, everyone has a 900 mhz and the frequency is getting clogged. This is how it was explained to me. Sounds reasonable.
Pit
Guy-
It’s unlikely that the FCC will have any interest in your predicament. If you read the documentation you got with your phone, you will probably find a statement that mentions something to the effect that your phone “must accept interference caused by other devices”.
Hope you find a solution.
FixedBack
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”~~*G.K.Chesterton *
FixedBack:
Thanks for the tips. I’ll give them a try. Never occurred to me that the extra sensitivity of a 900mhz phone might also prove to be a handicap when it comes to outside interference. Pretty obvious now that you mention it…
One apartment I moved into used a metal mesh as a foundation for the wall plastering. I couldn’t use my cordless outside of the living room, and sometimes that reception was hampered.
The Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.
That very thing happened to me a few years ago. My phone kept ringing, although very faintly, and when I’d pick it up I could make out whole conversations someone was having (although they were extremely muffled). And occasionally, if the handset was off the base, I would hear the base making clicking sounds, as though it was dialing a number (like rotary dial phones would click). I would pick up my phone and it would be ringing a number as though I had dialed it myself.
On one such occasion, someone actually answered on the other end, so I asked if they knew anyone in the XXXX block of my street. It turned out that the woman’s daughter had recently moved into the building next door, and coincidentally had the same portable phone I did, set to the same frequency. So when she dialed her phone, my base picked up the signal. We both reset our phones to different frequencies - problem solved!
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Per wrote:
This brings up a question which has bugged me for years:
My phone (and other devices) does come with that statement. However, that statement is preceded with “must not cause interference to other devices.” If my phone interferes with your phone, who wins? Do you have to deal with it because of the second statement in your documentation, or do I get hauled off to the pokey because of the first statement in mine? Seriously, taken at face value the statements would appear to simultaneously prohibit and require interference.
Guy,
I work for a local phone company. If you are getting no interference on a regular corded phone, then it has nothing to do with phone company equipment (rules out crossed wires, etc). Since other people on the block are having the same problem, sounds like the others have it right - probably an illegal CB or ham set up. The FCC would jump all over something like that. Their number is 888-225-5322.
Princess of the Time and Space Continuum since 1969 (upgraded to Goddess 01/07/00)-
OK, we have enough youth. How about a fountain of smart. =^…^=
There’s no contradiction. The “must accept” is there because the manufacturer (and the F.C.C. supports them in this, reasonably enough) doesn’t want you suing them because they didn’t wrap your cordless phone in a lead shell a mile thick. Since it’s impossible to make these things perfect, the F.C.C. sets the rules for what’s “good enough”, to keep the craziness down to a minimum.
That doesn’t mean the F.C.C. won’t go after someone who’s making illegal interference, and it sounds like that’s what you have. Give 'em a ring.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Hey guys, just a clarification question:
Are you sure that the phones in question are Spread Spectrum?
What I’m referring to is:
I’m only asking because Spread Spectrum phones are very unlikely to interfere with each other. 900 MHz phones can and often do, because of
But that is why Spread Spectrum technology was developed. Spread spectrum phones constantly scan the channels the phone has available and switches to the clearest one. And if it is digital spread spectrum then phone to phone interference is almost impossible. So what has been said in the above quotes can be true, I just think that it is possible that the term “spread spectrum” is being mistakenly used here.
See. I have this friend, who used to build phones for Panasonic, and he told me all this when asked what the deal was with all these phones.
“And on the eighth day, God Created beer
to prevent the Irish from taking over
the Earth.”
~SNOOGANS~