Intercom to shop

[Lineman North Florida]

My sheds are metal and act like a Faraday cage.

I spent a lot of time and some of my best days in a Faraday cage.

 

[BackRoad]

BTW I have a wireless driveway alarm >1,000 feet away at one of my farm entrances and I get a signal in my all steel barn

^^^ Mr. Mikester, do you know the brand/name of your driveway alarm?

 

[mikester]

^^^ Mr. Mikester, do you know the brand/name of your driveway alarm?

eMarcos 1/2 Mile Long Range Solar Wireless Driveway Alarm Outdoor Weather Resistant Motion Sensor & Detector-NO DIY Security Alert System-Monitor & Protect Outside Property,No Need to Replace Battery

Amazon.ca

Been running it 4 years now and it still works

 

[TN8Man]

I ran Cat6 Direct Burial from the house to the barn for poe security camera's and home network. I plan on installing a long range wifi extender with an external antenna off the roof where wifi can reach all areas of the property.

 

[grsthegreat]

I ran ethernet in conduit out to my shop….failed in less than 2 years. Even in conduit. My wifi extender solved all the issues.

 

[TN8Man]

I ran ethernet in conduit out to my shop….failed in less than 2 years. Even in conduit. My wifi extender solved all the issues.

Did you find out why it failed? Normally direct burial will last a long time unless it's damaged somehow.

 

[grsthegreat]

No clue what happened. I needed it to run my plasma table. And it was in conduit. I was going to try repulling it, but a friend showed me his wireless setup, and i was impressed. Super easy install, and its been trouble free for over 5 years now.

it a radiolabs shop extender.

 

[mapper]

My metal shop building has almost no radio or cell reception in it. Only near a window, but the in the direction of the cell signal there are no windows. When we gave up our land line phone there was no way to get a hold of me in the shop.
We recently installed a wifi 6 mesh system in the house. The signal was good outside the shop but nonexistent inside. I solved this by installing a small window in the attic on the end facing the house, a small shelf inside the window and an electrical outlet completed the modifications. A mesh unit on the shelf and I now have internet and cell service (over wifi) in the shop.
This may not work for the OP depending on the distance to the house, there are wifi extenders that will work over longer distances but they are much more expensive than mesh routers.

 

[TN8Man]

No clue what happened. I needed it to run my plasma table. And it was in conduit. I was going to try repulling it, but a friend showed me his wireless setup, and i was impressed. Super easy install, and its been trouble free for over 5 years now.

it a radiolabs shop extender.

I'm familiar with radiolabs. I bought their wave magnum high power (long range) wifi adapter back almost 20 years ago. They put out good stuff!

 

[TN8Man]

What I liked about running a CAT6 cable was it's cheap, no electronics involved in the transmission point-to-point and I can get 1G data rate. It's the same as any Ethernet wall jack in the house.

 

[hiddentacocatneddih]

Fiber is so cheap you can just run it to your shop, get a network switch and access point and be set

 

[BravoXray]

Did you find out why it failed? Normally direct burial will last a long time unless it's damaged somehow.

I buried a run of plain old RG-6 coax from the house to my shop when I built it in '83 so I could watch SAT TV if I wanted to. Never used it until a couple of years ago when I wanted to have internet access in the shop. was going to run direct burial CAT6 cable, in fact I bought it, but remembered the coax. I tested it, and it showed good, so I bought a pair of transceivers that run ethernet over coax, and have been using it ever since.
They must have used pretty good material in the jacket back then.

 

[BackRoad]

eMarcos 1/2 Mile Long Range Solar Wireless Driveway Alarm Outdoor Weather Resistant Motion Sensor & Detector-NO DIY Security Alert System-Monitor & Protect Outside Property,No Need to Replace Battery

Amazon.ca

Been running it 4 years now and it still works

Thanks for that!

 

[Doofy]

We use Amazon Echo's as intercoms between the house and garage. An added benefit is that I can tell it to play my favorite tunes.

 

[CliffordK]

Thinking about wall mounted intercoms. In the modern world, that sounds terribly inconvenient. Working on something, and a BEEP demanding you stop work and run over to the intercom.

One job I worked at had push to talk Nextel phones. It seemed a bit strange when one could simply call on the cell phone, but in fact it was fairly convenient.

It looks like Nextel is long gone, but there are other push to talk phone solutions available, although primarily for businesses. I'm not sure why they don't have family plans, or perhaps it is an option.

As far as the problem with cell reception inside the shop. Many cell services will jump onto WIFI. So, if you get a good WIFI signal in the shop, then your phone should work.

 

[hiddentacocatneddih]

I just priced 300.ft of fiber and 2 switches. About $300. Less if you only need one switch or go into just an AP