I have a Panasonic 5.8ghz cordless phone (model TG6500). The base unit
is in the (home) office which has very thick walls, and the signal does
not reach the handsets in all rooms in the house.

Is there a way of strengthening the signal? Some kind of signal extender?

Thank you. No need to answer if the answer is NO.  :-)

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Request for Question Clarification by alienintelligence-ga on 05 Apr 2005 19:21 PDT

Hi zsl,

A couple questions for clarification.

How many stories does your house have?

Are you familiar with the type and
materials of construction of the walls?

Are you in a neighborhood that may
be causing interference with other
cordless units on the same 5.8GHz?

Have you tried different channel
settings on the base unit?

Is it necessary to have the base unit
where it is? [I know this may seem
obvious since you are asking your
question, but it's worth asking]

thanks,
-AI

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Clarification of Question by zsl-ga on 06 Apr 2005 02:36 PDT

Hi AI.

The house only has two levels. I think the problem is that I am in the
office extension of the house. This was added on to the house, so the
wall dividing the office from the main house is a thick external wall
(although it has doors in it), maybe a foot thick. Wall would be brick
or blocks.

I have heard that 5.8 ghz has less penetration power than the older
version, 2.something. Bit annoying because I bought this phone for its
range.

I am living in Ireland, so at present I don't think anyone else has
5.8 ghz phones, I brought it from the States. And the signal is fine
near the base, just as I get farther away, even downstairs, but far
from the base, the signal starts to crackle and then says "too far
from base".

There doesn't seem to be an option to change channels on this phone,
base or handset.

I kind of need the base unit here to use the speaker phone at my desk. 

I was wondering if there was some sort of unit I could buy which would
extend the signal - like you get for wireless routers..

thanx for trying. let me know if you can find something, 

thanx, 

ZSL.

I couldn't find anything like what you'd be looking for short of the
cheap signal boosters that you can stick under the battery like this
one:

<a href="http://www.gadgetsuk.com/Mobile-phone-signal-booster-p-16597.html">http://www.gadgetsuk.com/Mobile-phone-signal-booster-p-16597.html</a>

I'm skeptical of how effective things like this are, but they ARE
cheap. My only other suggestion would be to split the phone line and
run one line to a more central location and attach the base unit
there, and to have the other line go to your office where you could
just put a cheap speakerphone.

and either I did my HTML tags wrong or that's not supported. That'll
teach me to assume things...

looks interesting, thanks. agree with you about the skepticism :-) worth a try.

re moving phone. Interesting suggestion and would do that if it was
only one line, but there are two lines. So moving the base to a more
central location I would have to run a long extension for (at
least)one of the incoming lines, round doorways and stuff. I just paid
to have both lines routed to the office!

I can live with the sitch as is, it is just annoying, for example I
cannot leave a handset next to the bed, as there is no signal there.

ZSL

OK, no running more phone lines. Gotcha.

You could try this:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=5081
http://www.sendit.com/accessories/item/5000000001009

There tends to be noise in the line, especially if you use electrical
outlets that already have something plugged in. It may also be limited
to just one line, however, a standard phone cord is capable of
carrying up to three lines. I couldn't find one way or another whether
these things are multi-line capable. Either way, if you just need one
line near the bed, and some possible line noise wouldn't be a major
problem, this is another option to look into.

great idea, would def help for phone in bedroom. Thanx. Will do that
if there is no other way of strengthening base signal, and willl live
with poor reception in some areas of house.

ZSL

I too am in that same quandary. This is my second 5.8 system (I needed
to move up to a 2 line system to accommodate a VoiP line). With my
last system, moving the base unit to the exact center solved the
problem. Now, as my base needs to be in my home office so line 2 can
be hooked up to my fax, I am stuck again.
 In your case, if only the speaker phone feature is a big factor, you
might be happy with the speaker phone feature on the handset. My
Uniden 8866s have very good speakerphones. Also, you might want to use
a headset with your extension and thereby accomplish many of the same
things a speakerphone offers.
Anyway, good luck.