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Antenna Boosters for Cell Phones?
Hollinger asks: "Earlier this summer, I bought a brand-new Samsung 8500 PCS phone. It looks great, sounds great (more on that in a sec) and is very small. However, I have one problem. I thought that my new apartment was in the middle of a PCS deadzone. However, friends with other model phones (less expensive, mind you) can get a good, clear signal. This leads me to wander about the signal strength of my own phone. I've been shopping around to see if anyone has reviewed any of the 'Internal Antenna Boosters' that I've seen ads for, but I can't find any. Has anyone on Slashdot tried one of these? Do they work, and if so, how well?"
The major telco in my country successfully lobbied the government to make boosters illegal.
Though this was widely viewed as a way to block access to cheaper less established industry players (with less coverage), there are legitimate reasons to not use these. The first very important reason is health. The second is if everyone started using them they would eventually cause problems with all the telcos spectrum allocation plans. Because spectrum is so precious, most telcos use an aggressive frequency reuse plan, reusing frequency's in a n=7 pattern. Imagine 7 hexagons on a map, fitting together in a circular pattern. One hexagon (location) on the bottom of the map would use the same frequency as one on the top. This efficiently reuses the frequency spectrum without causing interference, since both stations are far enough apart that multipath fading would have occured between their individual signals.
In other words they work, but I wouldn't reccomend using one, unless your brain needs a tan.
Maybe is the only way to describe them. I've seen passive repeaters, things you stick in a car window and are supposed to proved a boost. But only for the 800mhz cell frequencys, not the 1900 PCS band. Still they might be worth a shot if you have a regular cell phone.
My Nokia 5190 had a little rubber button you could remove and put an external antenna on. Run the external antenna up a tree, and reception was good. Often one bar better, but the real improvement was in clarity. Everytime you move without the antenna you introduce static, while with it you come breath and still hold a converstation. (always a good thing) The newer Nokias don't have this though, and I just broke my old phone. Still if you can stay within range of the cord this might get your service.
Best is to contact your provider. It takes 6 months or more, but they do take into account customer comments when they build new towers, so you might get one in your neighborhood. Make sure your local town concil isn't doing everything they can to block building a tower though, or you won't get it.