Cel phone reception

CT_Tree_Guy · Jan 19, 2006

Gary - Great links! Thank you, thank you, thank you. God I love this site. When I switch to Cingular, I'll get (if necessary) a Wilson "DualBand power booster made specifically for the Cingular / AT&T GSM network" and never look back. "Can you hear me now?" "YES, FINALLY!" /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

And goaliedad, welcome to TBN, and thanks for your help. People helping people, what a concept! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

John

****

Just saw the comments about the "bag" phones - it reminds me of my first cell phone. It weighed about 8 pounds, was built like a tank, and cost $1,495 (on sale). /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif I remember the day I brought it down to the "swap shack" at our town's transfer station - man, that was some expensive junk I dropped off that day. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

HGM · Jan 19, 2006

John you beat me to it.....

That was the info I have been looking for... Not sure why I havent been able to find it, but I knew you guys could help.. Thank you to all, hope some others get something out of this as well.. The Wilson repeater caught my eye, little pricy, but might just pay for itself quickly....

George2615 · Jan 19, 2006

I had a motorola bag phone years ago. They were excellent for distance. That was because there were fewer cell sites 15 years ago and they put out 3 Watts of power and you could easily connect an external antenna with a BNC connector. That compares to less than 600 MilliWatts (a little more than half a watt) of todays handhelds. Now it seems cell sites are sprouting up everywhere making the handhelds more practical to use. Another fact is bag phones are analog phones where most companies are gradually switching to digital service. I was told by two cell companies that eventually the analog systems will be eliminated. I currently have 4 cell phones. 2 Cingular personal phones (1 for me, 1 for wife), 1 Nextel phone through work, and my truck has a built in Verizon phone integrated with Onstar which came with the truck. All are used within 40 miles of Syracuse,NY so we don't have too much problem getting signal. There are a few dead spots but where one phone has no signal, another one has full strength.

roccon31 · Jan 19, 2006

( Straight from the "For what it's worth department":

I had an interesting conversation about two weeks ago with a VERY knowledegable, fairly high-level IT guy from Cingular/ATT. The most interesting thing that he told me was that when Cingular and AT&T merged, their existing technologies were much more compatible than those of Sprint and Nextel, who also recently merged. As a result, their coverage areas expanded relatively rapidly as the two systems were merged. Nextel and Sprint, on the other hand, will be much slower in merging their two systems due to the incompatibility issues.

I currently use Nextel, but not for long. I am getting sick and tired of Cingular users being able to make and receive calls in my shop, while my Nextel phone registers nary a single bar. In the meantime, maybe I'll keep looking into some sort of antenna/signal booster that I can mount on the roof of my shop, but in the past I haven't had much luck getting past the "blank stare" stage when I have broached the question to a variety of people in the industry.

It sure is frustrating not being able to place a simple phone call whenever you want to in the year 2006. Buck Rogers must be spinning in his grave. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

John )

John, i feel your pain! about 7 years ago, i had verizon, before it was verizon (bell atlantic?, i dont remember). their service was good, but their customer service was terrible. since everyone at work had nextel, i switched to nextel. BIG MISTAKE! the service is TERRIBLE constant dropped calls, hardly any signal where most of my friends have full service with cingular or verizon. i have repeatedly called and complained to nextel, and all i have ever been told was "it is going to get better with our merger with sprint, we promise" i only fell for that one time. im almost certain it has gotten WORSE after the merger, probably due to compatibility. who knows.

the only think i know for certain, is that i am following my friends to verizon (about 6 of them so far, more to come as contracts expire). in may my contract is up and i will no longer be a nextel customer. i REFUSE to pay 100$ a month for terrible service. walkie talkie or not!

sorry for the rant, but it shows how truly unhappy i, and most other folks around here are with sprint/nextel. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

HGM · Jan 19, 2006

Your not alone guys, I have a couple of friends with Nextel and the have the same issues here in Georgia too, 35mi S. of Atlanta(you'd think that would help some)...

roccon31 · Jan 19, 2006

haha, yep! i forgot to add, i am 30 miles north of Philadelphia, and i can SEE AT LEAST 5 towers from my bedroom. my house is NOT in a valley, but on top of the hill. it should be the BEST spot for service!

riptides · Jan 20, 2006

( but on top of the hill. )

Sounds like your higher than the cells and a 'tweener to boot.

I'd approach those tower operators and see if you can market them into your property. allowing them to collapse their infrastructure and relocate those towers elsewhere. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

LMTC · Jan 20, 2006

We have had Verizon for 6 years, 5 lines. I have found their coverage map is very consistent with actual coverage. If the map indicates coverage, I get a signal. Currently using a Nokia 6256i (fully bluetooth enabled), seems to pull in a signal better than the previous Samsung. Customer service---could not be happier. Over 6 years probably 5-6 issues with billing and every single issue has been resolved in a manner that was either fair or severely slanted in my favor (including one son's moronic 100+ attempt in 2 days to call girllfriend who just broke up--each call registers at least a minute even when she hangs up and I did not have free long distance then--I called to see if I could get any break from them, their rep chuckled and said every parent encounters this at least once, and they credited all but one of those calls as "mistaken calls" knocking over $100 off the bill)

rozett · Jan 20, 2006

If you have a weak signal at home, as I do, then the external antenna (with or without a booster) is the right answer. The problem with the external antenna is that you have to physically connect it to your phone. There is another solution that does not require you to connect to the phone. That is a repeater. A repeater connects to the external antenna, but also connects to an interior antenna. The repeater picks up the signal from the internal antenna, amplifies it, and transmitts it out through the external antenna. The down side... they're over $300 (on eBay). Here's an example .