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TheSMJ
join:2009-08-19
Farmington, MI

TheSMJ

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[Need Info] Has anyone ever tried using a cell phone repeater?

My house is located in an area with very weak cell signal strength. All carriers show the area around my home as a "fair/poor" signal area about a half-mile around my house, so I'm guessing that's due to geography rather than under-performing or lack of cell towers by any one carrier.

Sprint sent me a free femtocell a while back. It works, but isn't strong enough to cover the entire house. It's also useless to friends and family who are not on Sprint's service. It's looking like my only option is to use a service-agnostic cell phone repeater, such as this one here: »cellularsolutions.com/pr ··· L40.html

Does anyone here have experience with these things?
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b_p_smith
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join:2002-02-13
Merrickville, ON

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Re: [Need Info] Has anyone ever tried using a cell phone repeate

I suspect a unit like that may be disappointing. You're going to have to get the antenna as high as possible to get decent reception, and the provided antenna looks suspiciously like the el-cheapo mini-mag antennas popular with scanner enthusiasts (I own a couple, myself). So, that means you need to consider how high you can get it, and what you're going to use to stick the magnet to. Once you've found the desired mounting spot, stand there with your cell phone. What kind of signal do you get at that position/height? If less than a strong signal on your phone, then the "booster" won't do much for you, because that's the same signal their antenna will get.

I installed a setup at my house a couple of months ago, and I love it. But mine has a 12dB directional antenna mounted 30ft up my tower (luckily, all the major carriers have towers at roughly the same spot); and cost me over three times what the one you propose would. But I get full bars everywhere in the house (and part-way down the driveway).

I could have sworn I read somewhere, probably in this forum, that in the US you now have to get "permission" to install these. You may want to look into that. I'm in Canada, where we have no such restrictions (yet).

Brad.

zBoost
@comcast.net

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I will have to agree with what b_p_smith posted because my experience has been similar. FWIW, I posted this same information yesterday, but a site mod deleted my post, so I will try again.

In my situation, I get zero bars for cell phone service inside my apartment, but outdoors at ground level I can get one or two bar service. I found that I could get three bar service from a neighbor's second floor balcony, so I installed my outdoor antenna on a mast that raised the external antenna to that height (a pic of my antenna installation which is mounted on the top of a kennel enclosure on my patio is shown below).




That arrangement has worked well for me. However, in your case (even if you can find a suitable place with a good signal for an external antenna) since you also mention that your current Sprint femtocell box does not cover your entire house, you might need to either install multiple repeaters or find a repeater with a higher signal output. There are high power repeaters available.
Org
join:2009-09-13

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I set up a wireless extender zBoost at another home we own.

Basically took 2-3bars at the antenna out side (35foot off the ground) to 1-2 bars (normaly 0) inside. I've noticed it doesn't always work (missed calls) but that's probably due to the 2-3bars out side and the antenna needs to be moved/improved.