Can you Hear Me Now?

We purchased this telephone for our new home in 2002. A home with a finished basement where my husband and children spend most of their time, the yelling from the basement can be annoying, Mom can you bring me this, Honey can you bring me that. So after a few months of not being able to tolerate it any longer, my hunt began for an intercom system.

Flipping through a Fingerhut catalog, in the electronics section, the Uniden DCT 5280 caught my eye, after reading the first line of the description and the words intercom/conference feature, I read more about the phone and we decided to purchase it. We bought it for $199.99 and an extra handset for $59.99. Fingerhut is one of the pricer places to buy an electronic, shop around at
Wal-Mart etc for better deals.

The phone has many more features than just the intercom/conference feature. It also has:

A digital answering machine (no more tapes to replace);

Handset to Handset Call Transfer - this was a great feature because if a call is for someone in a different room, you can transfer the call to that handset. Another feature to avoid the yelling "TELEPHONE" at the top of the lungs.

Remote access to digital answering machine and new message waiting light - each handset has a LCD light in the upper left hand corner of the handset that will flash when a message has been left on the answering machine. I have used this feature many times while working outside, even though you carry the phone outside, the lawn mower running or a neighbors lawn mower running can cause you not to hear the phone ring. Also some people like to turn off the ringers on their phones, this light will also help them know that someone has left a message. The light will flash and indicate that you have a message and with the press of a button, you can listen to it.

4 Handset Capability and Personalized Handsets - 4 handset capability means that you can have an additional 4 handsets to one base. The additional handsets do not require the use of a phone jack, the cradle for each handset plugs directly into a regular wall outlet. Each handset is registered to the base. Once the batteries are fully charged in all the handsets, it's just a matter of taking each extra handset, placing into the main base and waiting for the registering process to be completed, maybe 2-3 seconds. It's that easy. Each handset has an intercom/hold button which allows you to call another handset. Press the intercom/hold button, using the volume up and down arrows, select the handset you wish to call, press okay from the screen and the selected handset will ring, again that easy.

It also has caller ID and the ability to have caller ID for call waiting. We currently do not have the caller ID service, and the screen just reads incoming call.

Each handset has the speaker phone option, along with the main base have a speaker phone option.

Built in ability for an address book with each person have their own personal ring. Ability to personalize banners, rings etc. for each handset.

Some things that I have noticed about this phone, the handsets seem to act at times like a traditional speaker phone, a loud noise or loud talking, will give the impression that the person on the other end is cutting out.

Also, we have DSL in our household, with DSL you put filters on all the phone jacks in the home to filter noise through the phone line. The extra handset we have in the basement is not saved with the filters. I have noticed on occasion, when talking on this phone, I can hear pops and hums which tell me that the filter cannot apply to this phone. Even though the noise is bothersome, there is not enough on the line to cause any real hearing problems.