Dakota AlertMURS M538 Base Station - Reliable Multi-Use Radio Service Alert System with Rubber Duck Antenna & Normally Open Relay Output | Dakota Alert M538-BS Base Station Radio

I just came back to order another one of these, as we have been using them for years now, to go between the barn and the house (which is a couple hundred feet away.) The units have worked flawlessly and have been a huge time saver. We leave them on at all times, full volume, in case they need to be used. (Of course they are plugged in, so no need to deal with batteries and constant maintenance.) Very occasionally we have had someone from MILES away break through on our channel and frequency. It's kind of funny actually, but it does make you jump, if you happen to be near the intercom and some weird noises come through. But in the few years we have had them on, that's probably only happened 3 times. We made sure we picked an obscure channel and frequency. (There are so many to choose from, it's easy to find one that no one is using.) Bottom line - I highly recommend these units. I had purchased another intercomm system (another brand) previous to this and it was so hard to set up and one receiver quit working within a week, so it had to be returned. The Dakota brand is widely known as one of the more reliable systems and it definitely has proved itself in our household.

I bought one of these to serve as a base station along with my Motorola MURS portables. I was really surprised how well this little unit works out of the box. The receiver is sensitive and quiet between conversations and the transmitter puts out a strong signal with the antenna provided. You could easily set up a small network of these units in a good sized neighborhood and have instant communication to find wandering children or warn others of problems in the neighborhood such as prowlers, etc. In fact, I am going to order another one of these to put on another floor of my house. Nice unit!

Bought 2 of theses years ago and they worked well but finally they died. So, I just bought 2 more but neither one worked properly so I returned them. Can no longer recommend them.

We bought 10 of these base stations and a hand held radio for our children's ministry. I love that there is absolutely zero interference. It's easy to hear and very simple for any volunteer to use. Our 10 rooms are spread out over 3 floors and every unit works flawlessly. The units are sturdy and reliable - I'm certain they'll last for years.There are two reasons I didn't give it 5 stars. First, though it says there are many sub-channels, there is not a way to program one unit to receive more than one channel. For example, I thought we could give each classroom a different channel and let our central desk receive every classroom at once. That is not the case. Therefore, every room hears every communication every time - which is not ideal, but in our case isn't a showstopper. Secondly, the "call" button has five different tones, but they all sound so much alike that they aren't useful for announcing a major alarm. Again, I had planned to use different sounds for different messages (1: general announcement, 2: fire emergency, etc). Unfortunately, because they have similar sounds, we are just using one general sound to get everyone's attention.We used these units to replace walkie talkies and we are quite happy with the upgrade. Having a rechargeable battery (in the hand held unit) is much simpler, and the base units plug into the wall (saving money on batteries!).You can buy these with confidence that they'll work without interference, but don't count on them being too high tech.

I have 3 of these base stations, and one hand held unit. They far exceededmy expectations. In my other house, my phone system was my intercom, but because of wiring issues in this new house, my phone system couldn't be wired without having to make a mess of my dry walls. I miss my phone intercom, however, this is as close as I'm going to get, now, with that said, having the hand held unit is _really nice because if I'm out in my garage, or in my shed which is about 75 feet away from my house I can still talk to my wife without having to walk back to the house or if I'm in the basement and she's on the second floor I don't have to yell like a madman. :-) All 4 units are as clear as a bell too. I _love these babies! If i had any complaints at all, it would be that the antennas on the base stations aren't real tight when you move the antenna from front to back, moving it from side to side is ok, and, like I said, in all honesty, at least to me, this is truly no big deal. Should you decide to purchase these base stations, one thing you should know is, that the AC adaptor is quite heavy so, if you have an electrical outlet that is not tight and plugs fall out easily, be warned, the adaptor will fall right out of the outlet in an instant. I hope this helped you, and I think you will be quite happy with your purchase of this system. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great rest of your summer ok?