passive repeaters are a very specific application, that likely won't
work in your case.

Let's say you have a -70dBm signal at the hilltop (that's fairly
strong for either analog or digital). Even with two 10dB gain yagis
(one pointed at the cell site and the other pointed at your cabin),
the signal sent down (from the "passive repeater" is starting out at
-50dBm (-70+10+10, ignoring connecting cable loss). That's compared
to a power radiated of +50dBm at the cell site.
Anyhow, if the hill is 200' tall and 200' away, the space loss from
your "passive repeater" to your cabin is another 70dB or so, for a
final signal of -120dBm--too weak to be of any use.

On the other hand, 100' of cheap RG-58 loses about 14dB/100ft at
cellular, a 300' run would be -42dB, and if hooked to a yagi on a
hilltop gives you -70+10-42=-102dBm at the end of the cable...weak but
probably usable. Problem is, it would have to be connected directly
to the phone. Not very mobile at that point :-) The instant you hook
up an antenna (to reradiate) you will lose at least 10dB right off the
bat (the first foot of distance from an antenna at cellular is -22dB
space loss).

You could get lucky though...if the hilltop signal were -50dBm (that's
pretty damn strong) and you splurged on 15dB yagis, you'd end up with
-50+15+15-70=-90dBm which would work fine.






On 4 May 2004 17:57:01 -0700, (coyotefred)
wrote:

Hello!

I'm trying to improve the reception of my cellphone (LG LX5450) on the
alltel network in northwest Nebraska to a remote cabin. Within the
cabin itself I can only get weak analog reception with frequent call
drops. 'Hike up a nearby hill about 200 feet from the cabin, however,
and I can a very strong digital signal (the hillside faces the roof of
the cabin).

It may be that a decent yagi antenna, aimed properly and mounted on
the cabin roof, will be sufficient to get me a good signal. If not,
however, I'm looking for options. I could mount the yagi up on that
hillside, but the resulting coax run (200' or so) would, I imagine,
have me losing more signal than I gain.

I was intrigued by a couple of posts on this group as far as
reflectors, "passive repeaters," etc. I'm not exactly sure where my
signal is coming from up on that hillside, however...it could be east
or north. I guess a little experimentation/aiming with one of these
setups would be the key.

But if anyone has been in a similar situation to what I'm describing
here and discovered a decent solution, I'd sure appreciate hearing
from you.

Thank you for your time.
coyotefred