Need one of those cell phone antenna

[cellcell]

I recently moved to alaska and my cell phone doesn't any 'bars' to make/receive calls.
I do get the signal if I go out of my home like 10ft away.
I am thinking of getting one of those cell phone antenna, which boost the signal etc.
Has any one used them? any recommendations?
Do they really work?
thanks.

[erwin 10-4]

first of all alaska use cdma and tdma service provider and if you have a gsm provider before moving to alaska you gonna have a problem about signal.

[cellcell]

I am already in alaska. I am using a gsm phone and I get good signal in the city. But the place where i live is 25miles from the city. I get 2 bars, but inside the house i dont get any signal.
If i go 10meters away from the house, I get the signal.
sometimes I get signal inside the house too, but if i try to make a call it breaks and i lose all the signal bars.

[erwin 10-4]

check this site. www.eforcity.com about antenna or www.cellphoneshop.com and search for antenna. im not sure if those antenna that you stick to your phone will works. but i think external antenna that you gonna hook up to your phone will works. i think i saw 1 to cellphone shop.

[Dr. Pasquale]

A friend of mine bought property way out in the woods of
Idaho. The locals told him regular new cell phones won't
work out there, because they are only 6/10ths of a watt.
He went into Boise and bought an original Motorola 3
watt mobil phone that works well on TDMA networks that
switch to analog.If you still can't get out and you really
need a phone you could buy a satellite phone. They are
expensive and are much bigger and heaver than cell
phones. They run on a CDMA based network and sport a
real dial tone. The service plans are starting at $60.00 a
month for bare bones 100 minutes , up to several hundred
for internet service. A must have if you live out on a
private island out in the Pacific.
As for hooking an external antenna to your house, the
only phones that I found that can do that nowadays are
Motorola phones sold by Nextel. About 6 years ago they
used to make car kits for Motorola phones that boosted
the signal to 3 watts, but since everything went digital
they don't offer them anymore to the general public any
more. I recently bought a Motorola i830 phone with a
real hard install car kit. The way I installed it was easy,
I bought a 12 volt male plug that plugs into the cigarette
lighter receptical and a magnetic mount antenna. That way
I can use the kit in both vehicles and also bring it into
the house using a 12 volt power supply from Radio
Schaque. I don't know if Nextel is in Alaska but it MAY
be possible to unlock the i830 to work on other CDMA
networks up there if you do a lot of research and pleading
with the local carrier. If you have GSM your out of luck,
because as far as I know they don't offer any phones
that can sport an external antenna. Bueno Suarte

[cellcell]

Thanks for the reply guys. I am on GSM now. I look into the local service and try a few options.

[rfzenyen]

Hi Cellcell,

I do know a company that makes a low cost cell phone signal booster. A low cost is relative so when compared to $500 or higher, this is pretty good deal. And it really works. I have a friend who has one installed in his house and now he is able to make cell phone calls inside his house. I believe the website is called www.wirelessextenders.com

rfzenyen

[eiilers]

Dr. Pasquale, how do you have an external antenna hooked up to your i830? I used to have an external antenna for my i90c but had to get rid of it because the i830 does not have the antenna plugin port like the i90c... How do you have your i830 hooked up to an antenna? Is it a different adapter or something? Is your amp that you use a wilson 3 watt?

[Dr. Pasquale]

You are right there is no antenna port on the i830, or any other phones
I have seen for the last 5 years.
What I had to do was buy car kit from Motorola (part #NNTN4846)
specifically made for Motorola phones. It was about $100.00. Basically
it consists of a junction box where you hook your 5 watt external
speaker, your power, and your microphone to. Then I had to buy a
cradle specificly made for the i830 from Motorola (part#NNTN4999).
That was about $60.00 but after I bought mine I heard you could get
for about $40.00. The external antenna hooks to the cradle, which fits
perfectly so I assume the way the antenna fits into the cradle it gets
the signal that way. I actually used to install Motorola car kits and
that is how it was done 7 years ago- antenna to the cradle. Motorola
claims a 3db gain buy using an external antenna, that is with no
amplication. My friend who was an electrical engineer told me that a 3db
gain combined with the fact that the antenna is external makes it 10
times more effective than using a radio phone inside the car where the
signal is bouncing around off of metal and bombarding your face.
I have no liner amplifier, but I have tested the from locations where I
could not get out on the handheld, but the car kit worked perfect. If
you know where to get a 3 watt booster for iDEN please let me know.
A friend of mine thought he would be cool many years ago and hooked
up a 10 watt liner amplifier to his old Cellular One phone. What happened
was the repeater sences the output from the phone, and since he hit it
with 10 watts, the controller thought he was right on top of it, and since
he was far away, the controller transmitted back at a very low power
level so he couldn't here it. Remember the old MTS mobil phones back
in the 60's. 30 watts and only 3 frequencys in the whole bay area.
How do you like the i830? I like it a lot and I have been corrected by
one of our senior members of the forum, iDEN is TDMA based, which I
from my experience is the first and formost radio phone network.

[Dr. Pasquale]

Check out this site http://www.cellantena.com/Boosters/cellphone_
signal_boosters.com. Also check with Motorola tech support. There may
actually be an antenna port located inside under the battery cover next
to the antenna. I havn't checked for mine because I have the car kit
already, and the amplifier for the iDEN/ southern network/ and
900 Mhz european GSM network costs around $250.00. Also check out
antennas and cable adapters at that site. I'm gonna get me one.