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?"

Comments

Snake Oil

[Chelloveck]

To quote a friend at Motorola, "If a cheap add-in would help your signal, don't you think we'd ship phones with it installed?"

But if you buy one, you might also be interested in this product for your TV.

The general EE consensus was 'snake oil'

[stienman]

In a recent discussion on an EE mailing list, the radio heads argued that since these boosters are often placed between the handset and the battery pack, then no benefit could be derived since the metal pack shielded them, effectively creating a small faraday cage.

Others noted that perhaps they could couple some RF from the inside of the unit to the edges or the antenna (which tends to be located close to the battery pack), but that that would only serve to increase the distortion of the radio transmission, even if it did increase the transmission power. Of course, if they did increase the power, then they are certianly not legal to use since nearly every phone you can buy is already at the FCC and FDA limit.

But if you want to /really/ increase your transmission inside your house then I've got some special oxygenized air I can sell you, since RF travels through oxygenized air far better than through lead. It's only $5 per can, and if you want to get in on the business, I can sell you a special oxygenator so you can make your own and make a bundle!

-Adam

Maybe

[bluGill]

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.

Repeaters, repeaters..

[terpia]

I have the same problem with my cell phone; inside the house I get 0-2 bars of signal strength and outside I get 1-3....not a significant difference unless you use my phone (which I do, of course), and then its a BIG difference. Ive been toying with the idea of placing a passive repeater on every window in the house and seeing what happens... I did a search on Ebay for repeaters ("cellular repeater" returned 0 results...) and found a bunch of passive repeaters as well as lots of repeaters that look more complex and list a bunch of specs that I dont understand... anyways heres the URL http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPIC ommand=GetResult&pb=&ht=1&st=2&query=repeater&Sort Property=MetaEndSort

and heres the url for somrthing that looks useful, but I dont know how....http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ewItem&item=1289651845