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LannyV's avatar
LannyV
Explorer
Nov 23, 2016

Verizon "Home Phone"

Does anyone use Verizon's or AT&T's "Home Phone" in their RV from their RV batteries and not an AC inverter? The reason I am asking is I have encountered a problem using a Verizon “home phone” along with a cordless phone. Briefly when I use the “Home Phone” (a wireless phone provided by Verizon and AT&T) connect to a cordless phone in my house with both running on their own 120 volt ac wall warts all works fine. I want to take this along with me in the RV and want to use it on the vehicles battery system. The “home phone” is 12v DC (direct plug into 12 volts in RV) and the cordless phone is 6.5v DC (convert 12v to 6.5v adapter). The “home phone” and cordless phone are tied together with the standard 4 pin RJ-11 connector. What happens when I try to run both on DC with the proper voltage adapters, is I get no dial tone. I am assuming this has to do with the tip and ring function. Now to get around this I purchased a 12v isolation power supply and use this to plug my 12v to 6v convertor into. By isolating the ground between the two it works fine, just like at home. I would like to do away with the isolation power supply and not use an inverter. I am looking for suggestions as how to do this. If you are running a similar setup on your battery system without any problems what brand of cordless phone are you using?

Thanks

18 Replies

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  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Nov 23, 2016
    LannyV wrote:
    A Home Phone is a cell phone service base unit that has the capability of connecting to a cordless phone just like your land line.


    Thanks for the update. What will they think of next...

    I will delete my out of touch with technology comment....


    Thanks again...

    Roy Ken...
  • LannyV's avatar
    LannyV
    Explorer
    Nov 23, 2016
    Hi Ed_Gee,

    I have the phone working on 12v DC as long as I use the 12v isolation power supply to separate the ground between the home phone and the cordless phone. Thanks for the suggestion though.

    Ed_Gee wrote:
    Here is one possible explanation: Those cordless phone are often duplex operations with one side of the operation going out over 900 MHz or 2.4GHz, or 5GHz...and they receive on low frequencies sent over house AC wiring. When you are running your system with 12VDC there is no AC wiring available for the low frequency antenna.
  • LannyV's avatar
    LannyV
    Explorer
    Nov 23, 2016
    Hi Dutch,
    With the Verizon Home Phone I could also set it up like you have, but the cell phones we carry are Tracfones and we try to limit how much we use them so we don't go beyond our monthly allowance. While in the RV or on the road we use the home phone but when we are riding motorcycle, shopping, hiking, and etc we use the cell phones. Our family knows if it is an emergency and they don't get us on the home phone to call us on the cell.

    Not real familiar with the VOIP but from what I understand it uses wifi or data on your cell phone and with doing a lot of boondocking wifi is almost nonexistent so that would increase our data usage on the tracfones.

    Dutch_12078 wrote:
    We have our Phone Power VOIP "home" phone service forwarded to one of our cell phones so we don't need to lug anything else along with us. The forwarding is set so if the first phone doesn't answer after several rings, the second cell phone rings. A no answer there goes to voicemail. Both cell phones have an app for the VOIP service installed that lets us make calls using the VOIP service. I don't know if the Verizon Home Phone cell service supports any of that, although I'm sure it supports basic forwarding at least. At $35/year using an ObiHai phone adapter, our Phone Power service is a lot cheaper though.
  • LannyV's avatar
    LannyV
    Explorer
    Nov 23, 2016
    A Home Phone is a cell phone service base unit that has the capability of connecting to a cordless phone just like your land line. I have the unit working on the RV's 12 volt system but have to use an isolation power supply so I can separate the ground between the home phone and the cordless phone. I would like to find a workaround so I don't have to use the isolation power supply or an inverter, both of which are inefficient and consume unneeded power when boondocking. My setup is basically the same as yours (Panasonic base with 2 remotes) but using a wireless phone instead of a hardwired landline.


    RoyB wrote:
    I guess I am not reading this good but how is this going to work on the road. The base unit in my case has to be connected to my telephone company Verizon land line connection.

    I have a setup here with one of the older Panasonic base station units that has four remote portable setup units. Here in my back yard where I have a 5th wheel trailer that is setup and never goes anywhere and the wireless portable units connected to my base unit work just fine. I have a good 50-foot range in my back yard with this setup.

    If I carry one of the wireless remotes outside the 50-foot backyard range zone then it quits working and I get no dial-tone.

    We may be talking about two different problems here... Disregard all if we are talking about two different problems here

    Roy Ken
  • Dutch_12078's avatar
    Dutch_12078
    Explorer III
    Nov 23, 2016
    We have our Phone Power VOIP "home" phone service forwarded to one of our cell phones so we don't need to lug anything else along with us. The forwarding is set so if the first phone doesn't answer after several rings, the second cell phone rings. A no answer there goes to voicemail. Both cell phones have an app for the VOIP service installed that lets us make calls using the VOIP service. I don't know if the Verizon Home Phone cell service supports any of that, although I'm sure it supports basic forwarding at least. At $35/year using an ObiHai phone adapter, our Phone Power service is a lot cheaper though.
  • SCVJeff's avatar
    SCVJeff
    Explorer
    Nov 23, 2016
    Ed_Gee wrote:
    Here is one possible explanation: Those cordless phone are often duplex operations with one side of the operation going out over 900 MHz or 2.4GHz, or 5GHz...and they receive on low frequencies sent over house AC wiring. When you are running your system with 12VDC there is no AC wiring available for the low frequency antenna.
    If you are referring to a standard cordless phone I'd like to know the make and model of any phone in the last 20 years with any operation below 72MHZ. Any digital phone these days is spread spectrum or a channel hopper at the least, and duplex operation is packet shared on exactly the same frequencies.

    OP- have you watched the off hook DC voltage as well as static? All signaling and audio should be transferred over the RJ-11. If the design is such that the electronics grounds need to be DC isolated and the manfacturer is relying on xformer isolation of the wall worts... That sux.. You can find DC-DC converters on eBay that might work but it sounds like you need to do a little research with a DVM or scope and see if ring ground is being carried through via DC ground and giving the appearance of the phone hung up :(
  • Ed_Gee's avatar
    Ed_Gee
    Explorer II
    Nov 23, 2016
    Here is one possible explanation: Those cordless phone are often duplex operations with one side of the operation going out over 900 MHz or 2.4GHz, or 5GHz...and they receive on low frequencies sent over house AC wiring. When you are running your system with 12VDC there is no AC wiring available for the low frequency antenna.

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