My old cordless phone died...

[KC2UGV]

Well, not really. The battery is shot, so we went and got a new one (Phone). Good news? I now have 3 5.8GHz transceivers!

Question is: What can I do with these bad boys, that put out a whopping 100mW? I have a K(?) band dish from DishNetwork, so, there are some possibilities.

Has anyone ever modded one of these things? How hard is it to do? What can I do with it?

[KG4CGC]

What was done with cordless units back in the day, can no longer be done today. Band plans, spectrum and digitization.
The old 6m phones were great. Had an old office phone that you could manually select up to 12 channels on and if you unplugged the base unit from the power source, you had a portable device that allowed you to listen to your neighbor conduct drug deals.

[kf0rt]

If they're anything like mine, they're spread-spectrum digital, and probably encrypted. Highly integrated electronics. In other words, pretty useless for anything but their intended purpose.

Might be able to use 'em for a stand-alone intercom, but I bet your new stuff does that, too. For the money, I'da probably replaced the battery. ;)

[KG4CGC]

Yeah. The battery. That's one of the kickers.
Few years ago a batt for a Uniden model was $18 (avg)
Cost of a new phone with an extra handset was found on sale for $24.

[kf0rt]

Secret: The place to go to buy OEM batteries is (srsly) eBay. Just bought two original OEM (Motorola) batteries for my cell phone for $8 shipped. Batteries for my little Canon SD780 go for $33.95 apiece at B&H. Two for $25 on eBay including shipping and they came in original Canon retail packaging. Worth a look, anyway. So far, I've had really good luck finding the OEM originals for very little coin, and there are usually several low-price high-volume dealers for any given battery.

I'm under the impression that these specialized batteries are very high-profit items for most places that sell 'em.

Just checking the phone here (Panasonic KX-TGA542M, uses a HHR-P104 battery), eBay has gobs of aftermarket batteries starting at a buck or less and the real thing (Panasonic branded) for $9 or less.

[KC2UGV]

Damn. I was hoping it would at least be moderately easy (read "not impossible) to get the transmitter/receiver sections out of them :( Well, I guess it can't hurt now, just open em up and look.