wrote in message
. However, I was at a rummage
sale and someone had a baby monitor for $5. I asked them to call me
if it did not sell. They called and still have it. I suppose I
should have just gotten it, but my barn is about 200 feet away. Will
the monitor work at that great a distance? Anyone know? This would
be a cheap way to at least have soem idea whats going on in there.

Mark

You should have offered three bucks and tried it.

wrote:
Does anyone know how far a baby monitor will transmit?

If it is a power line carrier system, it should work when plugged into
two outlets fed by the same power transformer secondary. Distance
wouldn't be particularly important in this case. 200' should be no
sweat.

wrote:
This might be a little off topic, but I am not sure where else to ask.
Does anyone know how far a baby monitor will transmit?
I am asking because I have livestock in the barn and when the weather
gets bad, I often have to put too many animals in the barn, and
sometimes they get a little excitable and do some fighting. So, I
hear banging in the barn. Often the last thing I want to do in crappy
weather is go to the barn at 3am to check on them, only to find the
two ponies are wrestling and nothing is wrong. While a video camera
would be ideal, the cost is prohibitive. However, I was at a rummage
sale and someone had a baby monitor for $5. I asked them to call me
if it did not sell. They called and still have it. I suppose I
should have just gotten it, but my barn is about 200 feet away. Will
the monitor work at that great a distance? Anyone know? This would
be a cheap way to at least have soem idea whats going on in there.

Mark

Man, either you are the cheapest guy on earth, or you are very poor.
Either way I feel for you. In addition to the uncool insult I may have
just hailed at you, here are my thoughts on whether the monitor will
work for you:

I have a couple of baby monitors. One cheap one and one great model that
is no longer made. The great one was made by evenflo. It has been in use
for about 19 months now and it works great and goes through 2 floors
(2nd floor to ceiling) no sweat. I'd bet that if you could place it near
a window in your bedroom that you can view the barn from, and the barn
isn't made of dense wood or has an opening (I'm a city guy obviously, so
I don't know), then it would probably work.

But if it is a cheap model than it may not. Either way, as the other guy
said, you should have bought the thing for $3 and tried it : )

mark

There is the old empirical test - If they still have the monitor, go over
and test it. Have somebody talk to you over the base unit as you walk
away listening to the mobile unit. See how far you can walk away before
the signal gets too weak. I'm guessing that with a good, unobstructed
path you shouldn't have any trouble with 200' distance. We've bought
3 such sets at garage sells for about $3-$6 per set and they all have very
good range.

FYI - those old-style 900 mhz video baby monitor systems are extremely
cheap these days. More than $5, but still a fairly low cost option to
save going out to the barn in the rain. I'd pay $50 for the convenience.