Cordless phone woes

Well, there's your problem.

The most-likely cause is that the output of the base station is down. Make sure its antenna isn't dirty (!!!) or broken, and position the base station where the handsets can easily "see" it (RF-wise).

First thing I'd check is the batteries. 8 years is a very good life for rechargeable types. Swap from the good handset to a faulty one to prove this hypothesis.

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:05:15 -0800, Smitty Two

I doubt the dust affects it, but rotating it to an upright position will. And, if there is a loose connection, perhaps rotating it fixed that, too.

Thought you said two of the handsets no longer worked reliably - so how can you be sure the battery life is normal?

If the dust is conductive (and some is), it might conceivably have an effect -- "It couldn't hurt!" to clean the antenna. But I suspect it was mostly that the antenna was misadjusted, or possibly loose.

It usually makes sense to start with the obvious. If you're "out of range" on /two/ (or more) handsets, that suggests low output from the base station, not defective handsets. And the fact they operate at all -- and well enough to display an "out of range" message is likewise suggestive.

And, if each handset tends to be charged in a *particular* charging base, try changing those as well (i.e., charge handset #1 in cradle #2, etc.). We have four interchangeable handsets that routinely get circulated among the 4 charging stations (just as a consequence of our usage patterns). I rarely see a *particular* handset giving me problems.

I've found many mysterious cordless phone problems are battery related (low state of charge, etc.). The phones themselves tend to be pretty lousy at reporting their real "state".

Make sure that the Charge Contacts on the phone and base are CLEAN. Reinsert the phone in the base after cleaning. Leave in for about 10 seconds. The base communicates with the handset, and makes sure that they can talk to each other.

Colin

Considering that with most cordless phone handsets, the manufacturers pay little if any attention to 'correct' charging schemes for the type of battery being used, they are remarkably long-lived. I used to do a lot of work on first, second and third generation cordlesses, and almost all, irrespective of the manufacturer or cost, charged the batteries via a simple single current limiting resistor.

My household cordless has two handsets, and I would guess that they are probably getting on for 10 years old now, and they are both on their original sets of batteries, and are both still going strong. Sometimes, the handset in the bedroom, can sit on its charging base for days, undisturbed, with the batteries just cooking away gently, but doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

Arfa

Likely a form of diversity reception. If one aerial is in a null, the other hopefully isn't. However, it usually only stops signal interruption when moving etc rather than the overall sensitivity.