OBI and Portable Phones?

[DavidW]

Hello. I am still quite new to this. I have a new model 110 using GV. Initially, I set it up with a standard, hard-wired phone. It seems to work fine in that configuration with very acceptable sound, few drop-outs, and little static/scratchiness.

Ideally, however, I would like to use a portable phone on the OBI. I have a 900Mhz unit that works great when plugged into the POTS jack. I have tried it a couple times with the OBI and am not very happy with the results. Call quality really seems to suffer for some reason. Many more drop-outs. Significantly less clear with more static and scratchiness. The first time I tried this, I had the phone base station, the OBI, and the wireless router basically all quite close to each other (within 1 foot). I guessed that the issue might be due to RF interference with all the devices in the same locale. So I moved the phone's base station about 3.5-4 feet away from the router and OBI and tried again. Despite my hypothesis, this did not make much, if any, difference.

So is the OBI just not going to work well with a portable phone? Do I need more distance? If so, how far? Thanks for your tips.

[MB..]

It works OK on my portable phone (Panasonic - Dect 6.0 - 1.9GHz).

Could be some interaction with the automatic gain control on the phone rather than an RF interference issue.

Might also be worth checking you are running the latest firmware.

Hopefully somebody who knows the Obi better than me can comment on any possible tweaks for the PHONE port.

[LeftRight]

Many of us have been using cordless phones, and voice quality is just as good as the corded phones. However, to the problem that you are experiencing, your cordless phone might cause some interference to the power source, and one thing you might try is to find an alternative power supply, 12 V, 1 A rating, and use it to power up OBi.

Also, if possible, use a long telephone line so that you can move the phone base station along with its power supply further away from OBi, and see if that mitigates the problem ...

[DavidW]

Hi and thanks for your responses/suggestions. I have implemented some changes (both suggested here and not). First, I tried a longer phone cord and increased the distance between the OBI and the portable phone's base station. That alone did not seem to work much magic. Then I moved the OBI so that it could connect to the router directly instead of over a wireless (G) link. I am not sure I can say that this is the cause, but the phone quality is distinctly better now. Perhaps it is because the OBI and portable phone are now further away from the wireless signals. Perhaps it is just that the change in location yields better portable phone reception. Perhaps it is sun spots or something. But it is working now without troubles. Cheers!