From Dick's Gadget Warehouse: The Long Range Cordless Phone With “A Five Mile Range”.

Dick’s Gadget Warehouse Friday, September 3^rd, 2010, Netcast 1170 

This gizmo won a CES Innovations Award back in 1999. The EnGenius SN-900 900MHz Ultra Long Range Cordless Phone and Two Way Radio claimed a range up to Five Miles (8km) in open terrain for both the telephone and the two-way radio. A big selling point for business was Digital Security Hopping. Using military designed technology this phone was said frequency hop more than 200 times per second for complete privacy. The thing I was most interested in was the range. Again, here’s what the company said: The EnGenius SN 900 Ultra has a range in excess of 5.5 miles. Wyle Laboratories Inc, an independent testing laboratory, in an open field environment, tested the product. The phone operated at up to 630 milliwatts. Most 900-megahertz digital cordless phones transmit at no more than 100 milliwatts; 2.4-gigihertz phones transmit at 260 milliwatts; and family-radio service phones at 500 milliwatts. The place I wanted to use this cordless phone met their criterion for open field environment. I was hoping to be able to talk from the handset from a marina across the river from my houseboat where the base unit was. The distance was about 4 miles, but all outdoors with no obstructions. I did the test by making a call the EnGenius SN-900 while I slowly motored away from my marina in an open boat. I lost the signal when I was about 1.5 miles away. I decided to add an outdoor antenna on a pole to the houseboat base station. That increased the distance a bit more, to about 2 miles. So it seemed at least to me that 5 miles was a bit optimistic, but the phone did offer the longest range of any cordless phones I had ever used. Pitched mainly at business customers, the phones were expensive. About $500 each! EnGenius is still in business producing long-range cordless phones, but they now claim the range is 3,000 acres of property, open land coverage. And they cost about $500. 

www.engeniustech.com 

Hear or SEE this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1170

Here's An April Fool's Joke That Turned Real!

Thursday, September 2^nd, 2010, Netcast 1169 

Dr. Mom brought a guest (Joe) when she stopped by the Gizneyland Studio. (She also brought a LOT of baked good, including two boxes of Hamantashen.)  Joe wore the perfect shirt for a visit to Gizneyland Studio, the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt from Think Geek. This high tech shirt was originally a joke product for April Fool's day. But so many people wanted one, Think Geek went ahead and made them. The Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt features a working speaker embedded into the front of the shirt. When you push the appropriate button on the pocketable wired remote you get music or sound effects appropriate for any situation... everything from drum roll, to cat call whistle, to western showdown. Check out the chart on their website to see the extensive list of built in sounds and suggestions on using them for dramatic punctuation in your everyday life. But wait there’s more! You can add your own sounds. Pop in your own SD memory card loaded with MP3 files to use your own sound effects and music. The Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt remote has buttons from 1 to 20 and each can play a different sound. You can also play sounds from your portable audio player through the speaker on the front of the shirt. Simply connect your portable audio player to the audio "input" jack on the battery box of the shirt and power it on (you will need a male-to-male headphone cable, not included). The Soundtrack Shirt amplifies your music and you can use the volume control on your portable audio player to control the volume level of the shirt! Pretty amazing. The speaker and electronics are removable when you want to wash the shirt. Runs on four AAA batteries. When this was written, the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt was on sale for $29.95, 25% off the regular $39.95 price. (Price checked on August 30^th, 2010) 

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/interactive/a5bf/ 

Hear or SEE this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1169