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Passive cell phone repeater?

M

mc

Jan 1, 1970
0
No, I'm not talking about the gadgets that stick on glass car windows...

My home office is in an attic and is insulated with foil-coated insulation.
My cell phone doesn't work there, even though it works downstairs in the
same house.

It would be presumably be easy to build a passive repeater connecting the
interior with the outside world (or the uninsulated part of the attic).

Has anyone done this? Any experience or recommendations?

(By passive repeater I mean 2 antennas joined by a cable, one antenna inside
and the other outside the shielded area.)
 
P

Phil Allison

Jan 1, 1970
0
"mc"
No, I'm not talking about the gadgets that stick on glass car windows...


** Shame - as they actually work.

Your other idea has no hope.





......... Phil
 
F

feebo

Jan 1, 1970
0
No, I'm not talking about the gadgets that stick on glass car windows...

not the little patches right?

Get hold of two car phone aerials, one on the outside, pass a bit of
coax through to the other mounted on the inside of your attic - did
the same years back - not fantastic but a definate improvement.
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Phil said:
"mc"

** Shame - as they actually work.

Your other idea has no hope.

........ Phil

Really? Then there a lot of people making imaginary phone calls.
Typically the outside antenna is a yagi cut to the right band to get
some gain. Some systems use a pair of yagis.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 
F

Frank-Christian Kruegel

Jan 1, 1970
0
(By passive repeater I mean 2 antennas joined by a cable, one antenna inside
and the other outside the shielded area.)

Most phones have a connector for an external antenna. Just save the internal
antenna and add a suitable connector. This gives the best results.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Frank-Christian Krügel
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
mc said:
My home office is in an attic and is insulated with foil-coated insulation.
My cell phone doesn't work there, even though it works downstairs in the
same house.

It would be presumably be easy to build a passive repeater connecting the
interior with the outside world (or the uninsulated part of the attic).

Has anyone done this? Any experience or recommendations?

It's done routinely. The main limitation is that you tend to end up with
noticeably less signal strength than you think you "should." Compared to the
power received by your phone if you were out standing on the roof, due to
interconnect losses and being still somewhat within the effects of the
repeating antenna's near field, you often end up with significant losses,
e.g., 20dB worse. Still, if you're in a strong signal area to begin with and
have enough power margin, it'll work fine. Using a directional antenna (if
you know where the nearest cell tower is) can make up for some of the loss.
This waffling really amounts to saying, "Well... it'll probably work, but one
can't really say for certain until you've tried it (without test equipment to
measure signal strengths)." Worst case -- you'll try it, it doesn't work, and
you'll just end up running the cable down from the receive antenna to plug
into the back of your phone.

The guys over on rec.radio.amateur.antenna could likely point you to specific
web sites that will design directional antennas for you, such as the Yagis
that Michael mentioned.

---Joel
 
M

mc

Jan 1, 1970
0
not the little patches right?

Get hold of two car phone aerials, one on the outside, pass a bit of
coax through to the other mounted on the inside of your attic - did
the same years back - not fantastic but a definate improvement.

OK, thanks. I may make my own antennas since they are just pieces of wire
or dipoles. What frequency does Cingular GSM use near Atlanta these days?
 
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