Does anyone know where I might get hold of one? I'm looking to move into a basement apartment. It has just one catch--no cellphone reception. I figured it'd be simple to find an antenna/repeater combo (or something of that ilk) but so far the cheapest I've seen was $399!
no such thing... atleast not for an individual to use. You could get an external antenna, but then your phone sill have to be connected to the thing with a cable, which means your phone, when in the house has to be teathered where ever you bring the wire in... What service do you use?
I'm with Sprint. It seems to me that it shouldn't be any harder (or more expensive) than making a wireless router and a regular antenna. What do I know, though?
And you are haveing trouble with signal reception in the new place? how old is your phone? a cell phone repeter is actually a box the size of a central air box (the part outside behind the house)... and the antenna is about five feet long by a foot...
Just the new place. It's a basement apartment in a solidly-built building. The phone is less than six months old and in perfect working condition. Oooh. There's a bit more to that than I realised, then.
interesting... another question if you don't mind... The building, describe it's construction. indeed.
You are right (though I think you're a bit off on the antenna size, I'd have pegged it at 2x3 feet), but how did you come to learn that? Not exactly the most discussed topic around.
Hmmm. I'm not completely sure, to be honest. I think it's wood framing and mainly concrete on the lower level. It's a fairly modern building, I think. I also don't get reception at work, but no-one does there. The building's filled with steel and electronics all over the place. I don't think even a set of repeaters would work in there.
Humm, typically the interfearing construction materials are Steel and concrete, but usually that's more of an office type construction than a residential one... are there alot of power wires running in the area, fuse/breaker box? Cause that would really only be the other cause from the building itself... The other problem could be your distance from the nearest tower... If there is a large distance, or if you are only hitting a single tower insted of the standard two or three, it could be why the interfearence from the building you live in is causing a total drop... No, actually a repeater within the structure would in theory work, but there are issues with putting them within a structure like that. It would be similar to the system they are using within most highly traveled in road tunels.
I know alot of things... But I first learned of them a while ago, when Verizon was trying to get their repetrs on the radio antenna towers for the Emergency COmmunications systems in my town. One of the fire componies, which put up it's own radio antenna tower behind their building, rented a space on it to verizon... when were up there once I snuck a look. Why do you ask?
You're in a basement? Yeah, good luck with cell phone signals. Not only are you likely to have a cinderblock and/or concrete foundation trying to fuck you over, but you have earth surrounding you too, which just plays all sorts of tricks on that nifty little radio signal that your phone is trying to jump onto. Incidentally, I seem to recall reading over at SA that most cell phones' antennae are actually more form than function nowadays - folk just expect them to be there. I know that when I unscrew the antenna from my three+ year old Motorola that it still has pretty much the same reception, it's just slightly more finicky when it comes to crapshoot locations like older dorms or, say, basements. Still, if you have an unscrewable antenna like mine, there might be connectors out there that match up to the threading that I'd imagine you could basically string any old antenna up to. If you don't, though, I'd imagine you're pretty much SOL - I'm pretty sure that most connection interfaces don't really support routing the signal through them.
There are alot of phones that have come out over the last three to four years which have left behind the antenna for what was being marketed as an "intenna". The two major problems with it are: one, that you reduce it's effectivness when you place fingers on the top where the antenna actually wraps over... but that really isn't anything new, as it has always been bad for signal streignth to put fingers on any of the cell phones antenna. Two, is the people... they think that haveing an external antenna means better reception, true or not... so they will pass over a non antenna phone in favor of one with an antenna... thats the main reasion for the "intenna" bit. to shift public opinion.
It's not exactly the most common knowledge. I only know because my father used to work for Ericsson, and I got a tour of a lab where they were testing that and similar things.
EVERY phone has an antenna. These days they are usually built into the body of the phone though. Some phones in the past few years have visible antennae because they have done market research that shows that many consumers THINK that a phone with an antennae will have better reception. I read an article about it 2-3 years ago but alas I cannot find it at the moment.
Your other problem is the frequency that Sprint uses. Most of their network is on the PCS Band(1900 Mhz). 1900 Mhz has much poorer building penetration than the cellular band(800-850 mhz). Now if you are roaming in one of the many areas where Sprint's service isn't native than you might be picking up an 850 band. What state are you located in?
And building on what Ted said, cellular repeaters are practical for individuals yet. They are still quite large and really expensive. Anything under $500 gives dubious performance as well.
I'm on Long Island. I'll have to check out where my nearest transmitter is. My current plan is to get a $300/$400 one from somewhere like Radioshack and try it out. If it doesn't work, I can take it back. If it does, I can take it back and buy the same product cheaper from somewhere else (that doesn't have a returns policy). I've even persuaded my landlady to go in on it!
