Customers are often surprised by how much they use their intercom system. While not as glamorous as a big projection television or music in the jacuzzi, the intercom often becomes one of the surprise pleasures of newly installed electronics.

We use Aiphone equipment for all of our installations. First of all, Aiphone systems sound great. Voice quality is crystal clear and there is no background hum or hiss. As you can see in the pictures, the units are reasonably attractive. And they're reliable. In the twenty years since our first installation, we've only had one failure and that was caused by lightning!

These systems are very versatile. Over the years we've used them in many different applications. For example:

• To monitor a baby's room from another part of the house
• As a front doorbell that can be answered from anywhere, even from a backyard patio or pool
• As a way to communicate with someone out in another building, like a pool house, a barn, or a garage workshop
• If you've finished off an attic, it's a great way to talk to people on the third floor
• “All Call” allows you to call every station simultaneously if the family is spread out. “Time for dinner.”

Most people put in a straight audio intercom, but sometimes it's worth considering a system that includes video as well as sound. An intercom like this would allow you to see as well as hear the person at the other end.

Once you begin looking at video systems a whole new world opens up. CCTV systems are strictly custom and each one is unique. Usually we build these in response to a very specific need. As examples, we've used CCTV for:

• Monitoring a gate at the bottom of a long driveway
• To keep an eye on a swimming pool from other parts of the house
• As a way to look in on horses out in the barn
• In order to see the front door from a third floor office or, in another installation, from a workshop in another building
• And in commercial installations where customers have specialized security issues

The CCTV signal is often sent to a specific monitoring location. This is what we usually do with doorbell type applications and commercial installations.

Another option would be to distribute the video to every television in the house. We can do this using your cable TV wires. So in this case, to check on your hypothetical horse, you would simply turn on any TV, and then go to a pre-arranged channel to see the barn, perhaps Channel 100 for example. If you had several cameras, we would use a different channel for each one.