There remains only one version of our phone system that I haven’t covered here. This one came after the amateur radio phone patch and before we had good internet for our voip phone in use now. It was the most expensive system we used, and my great hopes were to be able to use a dial up modem over it. The system worked fairly well but had a few flaws, that could be annoying.
Bleeding Edge Technology
In 2001 I purchased a microwave phone link system from Carlson Wireless**. I could bring full dial tone for 2 normal telephone lines across its wireless link up to about 7 miles. I’m embarrassed to say exactly how much I spent on the two units, but lets just say thousands of dollars. Sometimes the cost and needs of an early adopter can be quite high. My need was to be able to dial in to a banking client for some of the programing work I was doing at the time.
The Carlson “trailblazer” units as they were called, were simple 6×6 inch Grey utility boxes with a small PCB antenna on the inside lid. They operated on the 2.4GHz band now occupied by common wifi, wireless networking for computers. The most difficult part of using this “new” technology was that we needed the boxes to have line of sight to one another. Our friends who hosted the amateur radio phone patch lived a good deal below a hill without any prospects for the new system.
Solving the phone Host problem
The problem that had to be overcome before getting this phone system, was the phone host. That was, someone who lived in the right location who would let me order and pay for a 2nd phone line and hook it up to this box. I had too much anxiety over this part because it looked like there might be 2, possibly 3, houses in the right location. Really there was one for sure location. It was a beautiful expensive large log home on top of a small butte.
I asked everyone I knew in town and at church, to see if anyone knew the owner of that home. Nothing through the grapevine. I really hoped I’d get a 3rd party to introduce us. This wen on for several weeks. Finally, I was on my way home from town with my then 5 year old daughter, and thought, what the heck. Nothing to loose at least asking, that way I can get on with the project and ask the other more realistic prospects for help.
Pulled in the driveway and a gentleman was seated on the steps outside. I introduced my daughter and I as distant “neighbors” and pointed off into the national forest. I then spoke of our phone problem and the need for a little help that I be willing to pay if necessary for. That discussion is mostly lost in the nervous blur that I had over it. It felt like I explained things about three times and three different ways, until the homeowner understood that no, I’m not selling anything.
[The owner, Jim turned out to be a great person, and we've had the pleasure of working with him for many years on other business deals as well.]
Install and minor problems
Nothing like having dial tone on a normal phone. Something you take for granted on the grid, however, in 2001 across a 5 mile hop, it was amazing. I had to relocate the box at Jim’s one time as part of the tuning and adjustments to get things working. Everything seemed to work great the first few days. Then one afternoon I was using the phone and it suddenly got garbled and lost the call. Oh no! Not after all the $$ we spent.
The next day the same thing happened, but I was using the phone in the kitchen. Soon as the microwave oven went off the call resumed its normal quality. I worked trying it isolate the microwave oven from the phone system on top 
of the 2nd story. Nothing worked. I even ran an extension cord out fifty feet from the kitchen and tried the microwave, still dropped calls.
So for many months after that, you would often hear the familiar call, someone yelling; “Turn off the microwave! I’m on the phone!!” The best solution I worked on was a little LED in the corner of the kitchen ceiling. When it was ON, no one was using the phone and it was safe to microwave. If OFF, wait please.
[ ** I do not make any good or bad claims about current Carlson wireless products, they were friendly and helpful when I used their 2001 products.]
Have you ever had to create work a rounds for new technology? What were they? Tell us in the comments below!
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