Long-range doorbell/intercom to gate?

Depends on the number of times something trips the sending units, but typically about 6 months. 6-AA batteries.

I'm going to put a small 12v battery charged by a solar panel, and stepped down to 9v on couple of mine that get a lot of trips.

What "trips" the sending units? Is it a motion detector or someone physically pushing a button to let you know they are at your gate? In our location, we wouldn't want anything with a motion detector. The deer would be tripping it all the time!

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from what I've seen on the Dakota products, this one does use IR sensor. However, they do make some with magnetic probes to detect large metal objects (cars&trucks, maybe not ATVs) or old school gas-station airhose to detect something heavy rolling over it.

Yeah....there are motion type units, and magnetic probe type. The motion type, we only put where we can look out a window and see what is tripping them. The mag probe is buried in the driveway near the gate.

Here is a wireless doorbell intercom up to 1000ft NDIS - Wireless Doorbell & Intercom System

they are the makers of a 2 way speaker wireless driveway alarm that I don't see on their site anymore. I have the driveway alarm that when it is triggered I can respond on the speaker on the house to them & they can hear me down the driveway. Drawbacks to it if you don't hit the button quick enough to respond from when it it is triggered you can't activate it. Must be activated from the driveway not from the house.

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You could put up a deer crossing sign away from the motion detector.

Dakota makes a driveway sensor that goes underground. I believe the receiver in the house works with the 2-way radios also.

We had a problem with deer setting off the sensor, so we put 2 on our driveway, letting us know if it's really a vehicle.

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While the MURS alert equipment would work well, with the range you have you can get away with the Half-Mile Motion Detector and Receiver Kit. It doesn't transmit as far as the MURS, but it's less expensive and you don't need the range. Regarding the NDIS comment above, Chamberlain no longer carries the driveway alarm anymore and it didn't have the range you need anyway.

It's all battery powered and has a good battery life so that's not a problem.

Don't even go there with the old fashioned gas station air hose. 15 and longer years ago we used those at the small border station entries to tell when a car drove in. They were nearly impossible to find in 1995 and that hose costs nearly as much to replace as the whole unit. Do yourself a favor and go with the more modern stuff as there are a lot of things to fail on those old electromechanical devices. Also the hose gets brittle / hard over time and with cold temps and gets unreliable pretty quickly.

In testing a wire for a flow path we used to use two hand held phone receivers. There were two wires coming out of each hand set with clips. One head set had a 9 volt battery in it. There may have been some other small componets in the head sets as well, but when you made a good connection, you were able to talk to the other person. You could trace wires for a long ways. I have a set of these phone hand sets at home, but have not used them in years. You would need some kind of ringer to alert you when someone was at the gate, with a sign that said to "pushbutton to ring bell, pick up phone receiver to talk". You could probably use 18 guage doorbell wire, with several strands in it to run from the gate to the house. It would not cost as much as a full 120 volt line set up. I am posting a link to a website with info on how this and other stuff work. It is a lot of information, but if you go down where you see the picture of just the phone hand set, you will probably be in the right area of how these phones are used. I hope this helps some. http://oldphoneguy.net/images/oldtex22bw.pdf Go to page 11.

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This is what I use on a similiar set-up.

New Midland x Tra Talk GXT1000VP4 Two Way Radio | eBay

You can form a weather proof box with a hardware cloth or similiar front with a locked acces door in the rear. You turn this radio to vox---voice activated---have it locked inside your box and a sign that states to speak into the box. Then you can hear and talk back and forth without the person at your gate touching your radio. These come with rechargable batteries so a simple fix would be to hook a small cheap 9 volt solar panel to the battery of the one at the gate---recharge the one you keep on your side at night on the base charger. This one stated 36 mile. I have used mine for 5 miles and it works good, very clear.

I use mine to monitor my calls left on my Shop answering machine up to several miles away. Also my Wife and I use them regularly around the farm. These Radios are Great---so many uses.

I really like the simplicity of this! I've a handful of FRS handhelds, and forgot they had VOX! And with a "charging base", I can just cut the wire and solder in a solar panel. Hmmm, got some experimenting to do... while we wait to close on this property and wait again for possession in January (the wait is killing me!)

How so? Our house isn't visible from the gate. Someone calling from the gate would only know we aren't there if they call and I tell them.

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Well ,I would worry too.
Firstly if they are calling a land line and you're not home, or even a cell and you don't or can't answer they will most likely think you aren't home and bad people would act on that!

[QUOTE=plarkinjr;6241292]Great ideas, thanks!

So far I'm thinking driveway alert plus sign to call me is the way to go: I rarely pick up the phone on unexpected calls from unknown numbers.

Thinking start with this:
BS-KIT Dakota Alert MURS Long Range Alert System Driveway Alarm

Then if prices come down add this:
RoveTec MURS Multi-Mile Wireless Communication System


I was looking at the Dakota myself when I came across a few very discouraging remarks in the comments section.

The best written of them stated that the FCC forced them to cut their power output sometime in the last few years. The result is a unit that doesn't work any better than the cheapos.

From the Amazon comments it seems that this change took place sometime in 2010 but I'm not sure. I guess that means if you have an old one then you better take care of it or mount it under the 600' range like the literature on the new one's claim. From a couple of the reviews 600 is stretching it if there are trees involved. Myself I have no experience with the unit but I feel I should throw this out there so that anyone shopping for one is aware .

It would be no better or worse than if someone was knocking on your actual door and you did not answer. Thats what dogs are for.

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Well I too do not see where that would make a difference, but with the call forwarding I can answer my Home phone from anywhere on my cell. I also watch people knock on my door with a camera/monitor and I do Not answer the door alot of times-----Hate to see what happen to a crook breaking into my house because I do not answer the door-----hope the crook said By to All of the Family!

Bowser might be a nice first line of defense but the only real life insurance policy is a 12 guage. Think of the shotgun as the humanitarian warning. No crook except for the random tweaker will dare challenge even a kid with a shotgun. He might just think you will miss or don't really mean it if it's a handgun .
Mutts and electronics both have their pluses and minuses depending on the situation.

[QUOTE=Drizler;6269778]I checked with Dakota, and their 3000 series was the only system changed. The MURS system is still between 3 - 4 mile range.

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