Cell phone help please

[LewisLegion]

I'm just asking for all sorts of help lately!

Ok, so the new house is in a very small mountain town. I was with T-Mobile but in my house and my immediate neighborhood I get no signal whatsoever (despite the fact T-Mobile has my area listed as 'full coverage'). On the advice of two coworkers who live in the same town, I switched to a new Verizon phone. They told me Verizon works 'all over' there but apparently...not. Granted, I now get reception in my neighborhood, but in the house I get one bar upstairs, no reception downstairs.

I do NOT want to get a landline if I can avoid it. I heard something about cell phone booster kits...anyone use one of these? Is it something simple that I can hook up myself and how do I go about finding the right one?

[SilverOrb]

My dad has the Air Rave (sp?) and swears by it. Signal is boosted, and doesn't use your cp mins when in range

[Evil Queen]

I heard the Air Rave works as well. I think Mom bought one (or some similar) for Dad's crappy cell. It worked wonders. So much so, The SO is supposed to be buying one soon.

[draggar]

I'm not sure where you are but you may want to look at some boating stores - some sell signal boosters (real ones, not those stickers) that pump out 6W of power (the max the FCC allows - normal cell phones are under .5W). They're not cheap - $200+.

But - if you're in a mountain town expect to have spotty coverage (from anyone) at best unless a tower is in the town and you have a good line of sight (and it's not way high up on a mountain).

[LewisLegion]

I'd rather spend $200 as a one shot than get a landline and spend 20-40 dollars extra a month for God knows how long. And with a signal booster my friends' phones will hopefully work as well (they also have T-Mobile but they're in the middle of their contract still).

I'll check out the Air Rave and some boating stores. Thanks

[Mr. Rager!]

Airave is Sprint.
T-Mo has "The HotSpot@Home"

It's basically femtocells. Talk to your provider, they may have something like Airave.

http://www.nextel.com/en/services/airave/index.shtml

I have Airave. Sprint gave me the equipment for free and they credit the monthly charge on it. I love it. It doesn't drain my batter a lot faster though...

[Eric the Grey]

Have you tried talking to your provider to see if they have any issues in your area? Enough people complaining and they may well put up a new tower in your neighborhood.

We had similar issues at our last place. Our T-Mobile phones only got 1 bar, 2 if we were lucky. After a few months of complaining, we suddenly went to full bars.


Eric the Grey

[Pedersen]

I'm in the process of getting such a device installed. This one in fact.

It is not easy, and I would expect similar problems from most other such kits. Getting the placement of the antenna coordinated with the receiver is actually very difficult in my home, especially to get the coverage in the room I need it the most.

However, I have seen it work (just could not use that placement), so I know it can, and will work, and will produce results.

Just the installation is a pain. Word of advice: Run the wires through existing openings (windows, doors, etc) until you get a setup that will work for you. Once you have that, actually install the wires in the walls.

[LewisLegion]

Pederson, I was looking at a model very similar to that and heard also that it was a big pain to install but well worth the effort. I think I'm going to get one, because their phones are t-mobile and mine is now verizon...one company is pcs and the other is cel. And if it works as well as the reviews claim it does I can handle a difficult install...I'll just make my stepdad do it *ROFL*

[Pedersen]

I figured I'd follow up on this: We finally got ours installed and working this past weekend, and it works well. Our house seems to be a cell signal killer, with many spots only able to get two bars even with this installed (though we get the full four bars when line of sight is clear, etc).

However, where we are getting two bars now we got zero bars before. Signal now seems to be quite nice throughout the home, conversations can move via the cell more easily, it's just plain better.

So, now it's time to cancel our landline finally. That's $45/month that will be nice to have back.

Oh, as for how we did it, we did something different: The nearest tower is on the north side of the house. However, all routes through the house that would provide adequate signal to the poor reception areas were incompatible with the directional antenna being on the north side of the house. We were always too close, resulting in feedback loops that basically shut off the inside transmitter.

We finally placed the directional antenna on the south side of the house, facing towards a tower in that direction, and everything just started working right away. We're quite happy with this now

[LewisLegion]

I'm glad to hear it. I still haven't got mine, it's in the 'savings' budget for next month. That makes me feel better about it. Thanks!!