Shop phone

[RedRacer74]

I am trying to find a good heavy duty industrial shop phone. There is one sold at Home Depot but it has terrible ratings from what I have seen on line.

I did find one from EnGenius. A bit pricey but excellent quality.

I wanted something industrial looking and heavy duty as it will get beat around I am sure.

Any idea's ??????

 

[TuckinToyz]

I saw a portable phone at Lowe's the other day that I thought would be perfect for a shop phone. It was rubber coated and supposed to be waterproof. It was yellow and black and shaped more like a 2-way radio. I might try it.

 

[dkn1997]

I just used an old uniden cordless that we had. It won't hold a charge for more than a couple of hours, but it works perfect for the garage.

no need to get an industrial strength phone. just how much do we intend on beating on these things? unless you are going to torque headbolts with it, a regular phone with big buttons should be ok.

 

[428]

We use a cordless Uniden 2 phone set that allows for call transfer, she answers all calls when I'm in the garage (most are for her anyway) and can transfer them to me if needed.
We also have the cheap walkie-talkies, I take one out when I'm going to be all day. Order lunch, out of beer, etc...
My detached garage is about 150' from the house and pool so the walkies get used quite a bit.
I may run an intercom wire to connect all three in the future but wireless tech will probably beat me to it anyway.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

1970s Era AT&T Slimline here. 30 foot cord. I bought an extra loud ringer to go with it at Radio Shack but ended up taking it back as the older phones still used real bells in them and when you turn it up its is loud enough for me to hear out in the middle of the lawn.

 

[rnbradford]

I've got this one. It works well. http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...EARS&sid=I0033900060001000085&pid=00327413000

 

[RedRacer74]

That Sears phone is the same as sold in Home Depot. Hows the range ? the quality ? I looked at it online and saw some dissappointed reviews but it does look cool. Function is key, durability but it would be nice to have a cool looking phone too.

 

[OH-MAN]

I had a old green rotary dial wall hung in my previous garage with a 20' coil of wire on it . Picked up the phone on a jobsite demo many years ago.
People would start to use it and look at it then look at me and look at the phone again.
Priceless

 

[Wile1Coyote]

I miss Rotary Dial!

 

[OI812]

I miss Rotary Dial!

What is that




























You know some young kids might actually not no what that is.

 

[rnbradford]

"That Sears phone is the same as sold in Home Depot. Hows the range ? the quality ? I looked at it online and saw some dissappointed reviews but it does look cool. Function is key, durability but it would be nice to have a cool looking phone too."

I have an attached garage so I never really tested the range other than from about 200 feet or so in the yard. No problem. I also have had no problem with the quality but have not subjected it to much abuse.

 

[RedRacer74]

Sears Shop Phone

Bought the Sear's version Shop Phone. The girl at the register said for an extra $12 to get the coverage as they have had many returns due to breakage when dropped. I was surprised by her saying this but thats why my initial thought was to get something heavy duty.
Seems to work fine. Still have to test the range outside. We'll see how long before one of my buddies drop the thing.

 

[NHCharger]

I just bring my Nextel to the shop with me. Wife pages me if she needs to, and I ignore all the other phone calls.

 

[avsfan733]

a while back my dad bought one of those all in one call center thing...ya know a base station that actually plugs into the phone lines and then buy as many handsets as you need...works great...bought about 6 handsets one for each of the kids...one for living room one for basement one for garage

 

[OH-MAN]

What is that :wt




























You know some young kids might actually not no what that is.

That 's the fun part .
I don't think my son could use it.

 

[Ironpile]

Hello Sara, Barney here,get me the diner. Before the high tech revolution I used a regular phone inthe shop.Phone wire has 4 wires only 2 need to operate it,used other wires to operate a buzzer /button beside inside phone,when call was for me wife would buzz . 2 longs meant feedbag was on.Jerry

 

[kartracer55]

What is that


You know some young kids might actually not no what that is.

Actually my friends got one. its so retro, I love it.


Jim

 

[kartracer55]

Oh yeah, and fpor a phone, go buy whatever wal-fart has on sale. get a cordless. Its not like your house phones where you need a good phone.

see oif you can get one for like $20. If it breaks, chuck it. The shop phone sears sells looks more or less for the "poser" garage junkie, you know, they kinda guy who gos and buys 20k in snap on tools, and gets a lift, nice floor coating, fancy craftsman cabinets all to impress his firends, but struggles to change his tires.

out of all the shops I have ever been in, icluding proffesional repair shops, none has ever used any special sort of phone. They use cheap phones and when they break, they chuck them. Put the money where its most important.... tools and equipment.

Jim

 

[OGauge4Me]

I'm with Jim.

 

[Coach James]

Good post Jim...funny too.

When I go to the shop I just pick up the cordless from the house and take it with me. There's still a corded phone in the house for my wife to use.
Coach

 

[delio]

The Engenius unit is sweet we use them in our data center because they are great at filtering out white noise from the air handlers and servers.

Extremely sweet phones, but very pricey.

 

[RedRacer74]

"Poser" garage junkie ?????

Jim,
Wow I guess I will just have to stop pretending ?? Those tires sure are hard to change

No epoxy floor here. We build and maintain racecars.

No garage queens parked here either. Trans Am Mustang vintage racecar, SCCA T2 SRT-4, SCCA ITA Neon's and SCCA T1 Z06 Corvette. Oh yeah and I also raced at the Pro level in a 95 Cobra R Mustang.

Guess you'll have to tune in to SPEED Channel for the Kohler Runoff's this fall to see our cars race, thats if you have a TV

I'll also post up some of my customer's garage's as I have designed many.

For everyone else.... The phone works great. Looks good for those that care about appearances.

 

[330Scott]

Phone? In my shop? No way!!!

My shop is 35 miles from my house and is my sanctuary. Especially from you know who...

At home & when I'm in the garage, the wifey just yells out the kitchen window when the phone's for me.

 

[kartracer55]

Ok notice how I said LOOKS more or less... I didnt call you out or anything. Whatever you want to do with your money is fine, I just gave my opinion.

Jim

 

[TOMWELDS]

I think the old rotary dial phones were the most durable!..LOL..Really, did you ever see one broken???

 

[byrdman]

I think an old pay phone would be neat in the garage.

Me, I bought a new cordless with a speakerphone function built into the handset. This way my hands stay busy if I have to talk on the phone.

 

[bmwpower]

I'd rather buy something that lasts for years than to replace a $20 phone everytime it breaks. I never thought of a shop phone, but will look into getting something heavy duty now...speakerphone is a must.

An intercom system might be nice so my wife can page me for dinner.

 

[kartracer55]

Go with a corded phone where only the earpiece and the reciever are handheld. they are cheap and you cant break them. I have dropped those kindsa phones a bunch of times and they last forever. I have a sony cordless right here that i have dropped a few times and it keeps on tickin'.

Jim

 

[RedRacer74]

For an intercom I went with a Radio Shack wireless system that came with three stations and it works great. Shop is 50+ feet from the house and the reception is excellent. I think it was $45 or so.

Yes I know most don't want anybody bothering them while in the shop but when the foods good I'll take the interuption anytime !

 

[ZRWON]

I'd rather buy something that lasts for years than to replace a $20 phone everytime it breaks. I never thought of a shop phone, but will look into getting something heavy duty now...speakerphone is a must. An intercom system might be nice so my wife can page me for dinner.

We have a Radio Shack Cat # 43-486 wireless FM 2 station intercom system. My shop is about 60' from the house. My wife can push the "TALK" button to give me orders. I easily hear her any where in the shop. I need to also push the "TALK" button to answer her.
Inexpensive; about 5 yrs old and never had a problem.
We also have Vonage as our teleph service (~$25/ month with free calling to anyplace in US and Canada 7 days week/24 hr per day. The Vonage is connected to a Panasonic KXTG2770 master phone unit and all other phone units (6) are Panasonic wireless handsets. All Panasonics have speakerphones. Very durable and well abused in my shop.
Range on the Panasonic units is about 150-200 feet.
I replaced all other phone service (kept my phone number) and now use the Panasonic/ Vonage exclusivly...Vonage works as Voice Over Internet along with my Comcast cable TV and hi speed digital Internet. We now spend less total $ than we did before the switch and make many more long distance phone calls and talk for hours!

 

[BetterDays]

I have a cordless phone from Motorola... it came as an expandable set from the home phones..

Speakerphone - Check
Intercom - Check

They can also be used as walkie-talkies (did I catch a niner in there?) if needed...

 

[Jared]

I got a rotary phone in my shop it was free and works awsome. Cordless phones piss me off cuz the batteries are always dead or they have poor reception.

 

[hguerrero]

I bought a corded phone from Dillard's this weekend. It's a Coleman Shop Phone. It's red with black rubber edging and it's odd shaped. A light goes off when it rings and it has a built in heavy duty flashlight on the bottom. Best thing is it was originally $40 bucks but it's on clearance so I picked it up for $8.

Henry

 

[gja_era]

I have the old rotary phone from my old house. It was free and it is indestructable. It is a bit a a pain to dial with in this age of long phone numbers.

 

[realz]

My land line to the shop crapped out somewhere.

So rather than rewire everything, I bought one of the expandable, wireless base sets.
Base to shop it is about 70 feet and the reception is great.

One phone can page the other phones so I don’t use the wireless intercom that I was using for the house to shop calls.

 

[sjsfire]

I use a Motorola cordless phone my wife got me for Christmas about 5 years ago. It was the one from Cabelas that is camo and has 10 different wildlife tones plus a regular ringer. Quite a conversation piece when someone calls and you hear a elk, duck, goose, or turkey call noise. Originally about $100 but I think you find them other places now for about $50

 

[stimpy]

SJS around my house that phone would get shot !! literally , at the house I don't have a phone ( use my cell) and the phoneline is for DATA , at the shop we had some weird phones over the years but the western bell rotarydialer is still ringing, we don't make to many outbounds so its not to bad . we can't use a cordless because we have a bad EFI problem coming from either in the shop or outside ( were near 100kv lines ).

 

[krooser]

cellphone.....

 

[Bill K]

I've got the base/expandable sets from GE. Good range , clear speaker, and comfortable to my ears. I really like the speaker phone and use it alot. I can keep doing what I was and still talk, as long as I'm not making too much noise. Really helps with the long winded talkers too. You know the ones they talk you listen, toss in a unhuh or right every minuite or two and you can still get your project finished. Bill

 

[gerry]

No phone in my shop! If I wanted to hear a damned phone ringing I'd stay inside the house. My shop is a retreat from that kind of stuff