Radio Shack FM wireless Intercom / extend range

[Wayne Duvall]

Hello, I was wondering how I could extend the range of FM wireless intercom?

From what I have read the unit uses the ac lines as a antenna to transmit the signal.

I am trying to make the intercom work from my house to a garage about 100 feet away.

The garage has its own power line off the pole so that may be my issue.

I do have a conduit between the house and the garage so maybe a ground wire between the 2 units may be what is needed.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks, Wayne

 

[KTW]

Do the garage and house share the same transformer at the pole?

 

[Wayne Duvall]

Yes they share the same transformer.
Should I reverse the hot and neutral wires on one of my units?

 

[KTW]

Are you over 300 feet from the house to the pole and back to the garage?

 

[Wayne Duvall]

I only need to get the thing to go 75 feet.
Can I somehow run a ground wire from unit to unit to make it work?
I have a extra Ethernet cable running from the house to the garage.
I pulled 2 cables through the conduit.
One I am not using.
Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[KTW]

You can refer to the manual for maximum distance but I think it's less than 300 feet and the extra length of service wire to the garage is what could be causing the problem.
The Ethernet cable would work for a low voltage wired intercom unit.
A ground won't do anything.
Your electric code probably won't allow you to run an ac circuit in the same conduit with the Ethernet cable so you can't use the unit you have as it is now.

 

[Bluejets]

I have a extra Ethernet cable running from the house to the garage.
I pulled 2 cables through the conduit.
One I am not using.

Does this mean you have a seperate conduit for your cat 5 cables with 2 x cat5 cables ...???
i.e. one conduit power....another conduit 2 x cat5 ..??

 

[Wayne Duvall]

The conduit is just for Ethernet cable. There are no other connections from my house.
My garage is essentially a rear house. It has a apartment on top .
The garage has a brand new overhead service off the pole (140 feet )completely separate from my house.
My contractor had a trench open for water and sewer only.
I put a 1 inch conduit for Ethernet in the ground before he backfilled.
I ran 2 Cat6 cables through the conduit.
One of those is a spare and unused.

Can I make one function as a antenna for the intercom?
Since my circuits in the rear building share nothing in common with the front house my intercom will not work.

 

[Bluejets]

Can I make one function as a antenna for the intercom?
Since my circuits in the rear building share nothing in common with the front house my intercom will not work.

1.......No, power line is the signal carrier.
2 ......May not be strictly true but distance may be too far and signal attenuated by metering etc.

You may be better off getting yourself a wired intercom using the spare cat6 you mentioned before.

 

[Wayne Duvall]

I was thinking of maybe hooking up a wire between both neutral lines on the units.
Maybe enough signal would travel through the wire

 

[KTW]

The two units are already connected by the neutral at the transformer.
Did you try moving the house unit to different locations within the house?

 

[SpriteMeister]

I wish I would have found this a couple of months ago! I do realize it is an older thread but that may help me. I had HeathKit intercom, house to garage for many years. It worked great but then died so I replaced it with Radio Shack 43-3105 X 3, about 15 years ago. Worked great up until about 2 months ago, then started doing goofy things. It works good in the house but doesn't receive in the garage, talk from garage to house is OK. Looking back and after reading from several forums I think I have found the problem, now I need a solution. I decided to replace the 25 Fluorescent lights with LEDs as the old fixtures go bad. So far I have done only 4. After reading this today I tried them with all lights turned off. THEY WORK! New LEDs must be my problem. Does anyone know of a logical fix. I bought 100 LED 4' tubes. Figured as the Fluorescents died I would replace until all were finished, house, garage, basement, everywhere. Bad Move?