In article ,
Tony VE6MVP wrote:

Folks

So I'm thinking about emergency communications and it seems to me that
an 800 Mhz Yagi antenna would be useful. I have one of those old
Motorola bag phones which I use when travelling in rural Alberta.

It works nice especially when on a 3' mag mount antenna on the vehicle
roof but it seems to me a Yagi up 20' might be useful at times.

Tony

Here in the USA, we are losing our AMPS Network next year, so all the
3Watt AMPS BagPhones will be non-functional. Most of us bush Folks have
switched to either Digital BagPhones, or handhelds with external Antenna
Ports and 3 Watt Booster Amps. I use a Nokia Handheld with external
10db Panel Antenna, mounted in an Active Cradle that simulates an RJ11
Jack, and has a Cordless Phone plugged into it. I have a "Line of Sight"
shot at our local Cellsite, which is 16 miles away, (over water) so I
don't need the Booster Amp here. Some of the neighbors need them,
however.

Bruce in alaska AL7AQ
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add a 2 before @

On Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:06:11 GMT, Bruce in Alaska
wrote:

Here in the USA, we are losing our AMPS Network next year, so all the
3Watt AMPS BagPhones will be non-functional. Most of us bush Folks have
switched to either Digital BagPhones, or handhelds with external Antenna
Ports and 3 Watt Booster Amps. I use a Nokia Handheld with external
10db Panel Antenna, mounted in an Active Cradle that simulates an RJ11
Jack, and has a Cordless Phone plugged into it. I have a "Line of Sight"
shot at our local Cellsite, which is 16 miles away, (over water) so I
don't need the Booster Amp here. Some of the neighbors need them,
however.

Ah, very interesting. To my knowledge we're not losing ours in
Canada any time soon.

But I also have two cell phones. The small tri band pocket phone and
the bag phone. I've been wondering if I wouldn't be best off figuring
out a good system of using the pocket phone with an external antenna
and only pay for one cell phone.

But also my pocket cell phone is about four years old now. And I
don't want to get stuck with some technology which requires a specific
make and model of cell phone.

Tony