Cell phone repeater

[gar]

101226-1416 EST

For Christmas I received a "zBOOST SOHO YX545" "Cell Phone Booster" from my son and daughter and their families.

A few years ago I had to go into the backyard to make cell phone calls. Almost impossible inside the house to make a call without an auxiliary antenna. About a half a mile away from my home in any direction was good communication.

Constantly complained and about a year ago the signal improved in the house, typically 1 to 3 bars. But the basement was still virtually still no signal. 0 or 1 bar.

Friday night I received the gift of a cell phone repeater. Yesterday I put the external antenna in the attic, made a temporary run for the coax cable, and put the repeater in the basement.

The result is 3 to 6 bars in the basement now and very good communication.

This is very little test time to prove anything about quality. But it does appear to be very effective. These appear to be selling for about $350 at the RepeaterStore.

For those of you that have the same problem I had this may be a useful solution. Also there may be competitive units.

For those looking for new business this might be an opportunity. High and outside is the best location for the antenna. Just the type of work many of you are skilled at.

Performance will be no better than what you can get with your cell phone in the location you choose to place the outside antenna. Since my attic provides very good results that will remain the antenna location for me.

There are a few limitations on what networks work with it.



.

 

[dbuckley]

What a considerate family you have, getting you a prezzie thats actually useful

Beats the hell out of a sweater and socks!

 

[GeorgeB]

Performance will be no better than what you can get with your cell phone in the location you choose to place the outside antenna.

Several years back, I assisted a friend install one with what must have been a 15 element yagi ... no signal at all without that antenna ... probably over 12 dB gain? We had to use topo maps for determining initial alignment. He was a ham and designed/built it himself. It was 900 MHz only, and all that existed then and there was analog.

 

[yanici]

I was looking at something similar for my home. The antenna needed to be placed a minimum of 50' from the base unit and I would have had to mount it on my detached garage to get it far enough away from the base. So I passed on it.

I ended up getting a used Verizon Wireless Network Extender. It actually uses my Comcast internet connection but it works great. No more having to go outside in the cold for my wife to gab on her cell phone.

 

[dereckbc]

Several years back, I assisted a friend install one with what must have been a 15 element yagi ... no signal at all without that antenna ... probably over 12 dB gain? We had to use topo maps for determining initial alignment. He was a ham and designed/built it himself. It was 900 MHz only, and all that existed then and there was analog.

Sure it was 900 Mhz? Reason I ask is because in the USA th e900 Mhz band is not available. Only cellular is 824 to 896 Mhz, and PC is 1850 to 1.990 Mhz.

As long as the amp is linear, it will work for either analog or digital modulation topologies.

FWIW most of what you know or think you know about wireless telephone will be antiquated within 5 years just like your analog phone is completely history, so will be digital as we know it today. Right now all carries are building out 4G (marketing term) aka LTE. Once the LTE network is built out, bye bye digital CDMA and GSM. LTE is a true wireless IP protocol.

 

[hurk27]

Sure it was 900 Mhz? Reason I ask is because in the USA th e900 Mhz band is not available. Only cellular is 824 to 896 Mhz, and PC is 1850 to 1.990 Mhz.

As long as the amp is linear, it will work for either analog or digital modulation topologies.

FWIW most of what you know or think you know about wireless telephone will be antiquated within 5 years just like your analog phone is completely history, so will be digital as we know it today. Right now all carries are building out 4G (marketing term) aka LTE. Once the LTE network is built out, bye bye digital CDMA and GSM. LTE is a true wireless IP protocol.

I have been reading on this, I just hate the names (3-G/4-G) they are calling them, it making people think they are saying the connection rate is 3 or 4 gigabytes per second, if that was true my 30 MPS Comcast would have been out the door a long time ago.

I have actually had to show a few persons that this is just a name (misleading one at that):roll:



Ok who has been playing with the smilies? there rearranged and I still got two and two at least they could have added some new ones like embarrassed, and crying or something

 

[LarryFine]

Ok who has been playing with the smilies? there rearranged and I still got two and two at least they could have added some new ones like embarrassed, and crying or something

You can always cut'n'paste the reply-window ones.

 

[hurk27]

You can always cut'n'paste the reply-window ones.

Yea I know

But the buttons are so handy

Wow I just found many of my old emoticons web site are dead links now

http://www.emoticons4u.com/ is about the only one I have left that still works

 

[GeorgeB]

Sure it was 900 MHz? Reason I ask is because in the USA the 900 MHz band is not available. Only cellular is 824 to 896 MHz, and PC is 1850 to 1.990 MHz.

I'm sure it was the standard cellular of the day; do we call it the arithmetic average of 824 and 896, 860 MHz?

As long as the amp is linear, it will work for either analog or digital modulation topologies.

I am sure that it would have worked with the digital, but a tower was added which eliminated the need for his system.

 

[K8MHZ]

Sure it was 900 Mhz? Reason I ask is because in the USA th e900 Mhz band is not available. Only cellular is 824 to 896 Mhz, and PC is 1850 to 1.990 Mhz.

If the guy was a ham he may have been trying to work a repeater in Brazil.

:grin:

 

[dereckbc]

making people think they are saying the connection rate is 3 or 4 gigabytes per second,

The G = Generation. Even 4G is misleading as there are 2 topologies for it. Sprint claims 4G but it is not LTE, it is Wi-Max, the high power Wi-Fi cousin which has a throughput bandwidth up to 12 mmbs, and LTE up to 100 mmbs. Verizon and ATT are building out LTE along with T-Mobile to a lessor degree.

The real winners for the technology IMO are going to be rural customers where CATV is not available and cannot obtain cable modems or the high speed that comes with it. Rural customers will be able to buy Air Cards for their computers and obtain 8 mmbs internet connections.

It will create, or I should say has created a boom for fiber optic cable installation as copper cannot handle the high bandwidth required to the cellular towers, it has to be fiber optic, or microwave Ethernet back-haul to the telephone office server.

 

[dereckbc]

I'm sure it was the standard cellular of the day; do we call it the arithmetic average of 824 and 896, 860 MHz?

Possible, but I was thinking Europe or Japan as they do operate in the 900 band.

Verizon and ATT LTE is going to be in 3 bands, 700, 800, and 1900 Mhz. If you recall a couple of years ago the FCC took the 700 Mhz band away from Broadcast TV and auctioned it off to wireless carriers. Verizon and ATT won the lion's share of the market, except for a few what they call RSA (Rural Service Area). All the MSA (Metro Service Area) is dominated by Verizon and ATT.