Anyone have any experience with these? I’m missing a lot of business because my cell reception is “lousy at best” where I live and many folks ignore my request for them to call my land line after work hours. US Cellular is my carrier, and they have a tower just on top of the hill from me, but I must be in some kind of dead spot. Have any of you installed one of these boosters? They can run through quite a range of prices, and they all say how well they work, but then give an disclaimer about how if you have no reception they won’t be able to improve it.
I’ve come to not trust a lot of the reviewers opinions that are in many of these sales sites, since some of them are “professional reviewers” and could be getting something from the sales or manufacturing companies (call me paranoid).
Any of you live “out” like I do? And do you have any experience with these?
Replies
Cell phone booster
I have one manufactured by Wilson. With the magnetic antenna mounted on my truck roof I get a good signal where I am now in a mountainous area in BC, Canada. Without the booster I get nothing. I believe my connection is from towers that are about 30 miles away with many mountains in between.
The one drawback is that the phone will work only in my truck. The phone needs to be held close to the "interior antenna".
The booster doesn't care which phone is near it, it boosts any cellular signal including smart phones. I paid about $300 for mine through an internet supplier of Wilson boosters. If I lost it or it quit working I would buy another one.
Thanks for the reply.
As for being close to the antennae, I've been reading that in the description of nearly all the models. I'm interested in putting one in my house, but I'd prefer to not have to go to some pain-in-the-butt location just to get a call. However, there may be no other choice. I've walked all over the house and have little luck getting a signal that I can use anywhere. The thing that steams me the most is that, my old phone got way better reception than this new one (Samsung Galaxy II), and the even older on got even better reception still. It seems like the more stuff the phone will do, the less it's able to actually make calls!!
Empty campbell soup can, std size or similar.
remove one end, cut hole in other side to fit the end you your cell phone.
Insert end of cell phone that has the antenna and extend about 7/8" into the can
Point in direction of cell tower and approx 8 dB signal gain.
You forgot to mention the long string.
We recently put this setup in my parent's farm house:
http://www.repeaterstore.com/products/repeaterkits/wi-ex/zboost-yx-545.php
We put the antenna on top of the 2 story house, and ran coax down to the repeater inside. Reception in the house went from zero bars to maxed out. You can use a cell phone or air card anywhere in the house.
In their case, I think the reception inside the house was particularly bad due to the aluminum siding on the house. There was a decent signal outside, but nothing inside unless you were near a window on the north side of the house.
It's the only one I've ever tried. Kind of expensive, but it seems to work great.