On Feb 7, 9:35 am, "EpsilonRho" wrote:
My mother lives in a area where the cell-phone signal is very weak.
Typically I can get only one mark on the phone field strength meter. That
forces me to go outside the house in order to have a reasonable chance of
completing a call (of course only if the weather permits).

Have you tried other carriers? At my house a Sprint only works
outside in the back yard while T-mobile and Cingular have no issues
inside. It could be that your carrier just has lousy coverage because
your house is to far away from their cell tower (or the antenna on the
tower is not pointed directly at you).

Another option is to complain to your carrier about signal strength
and hope they get around to changing it sometime soon (not likely by
the way.)

Third, is try another phone on your carrier of choice. I've seen
different phones have vastly different abilities under the exact same
circumstances even on the same carrier.

-= bob =-

I just "Happened" to run across this little article, and dog-gone
it, it looks like a lot of fun with the Cell Phone! (It'll save you
some bucks too!) I think I'll even try one for myself!!

Check this page out. Its pretty good:

http://robert.watkins.net/phone/

I would imagine that if one used PVC instead of a paper tube, this
may be plenty suitable for Outdoor work.

Cheers
FFF




On 8 Feb 2007 21:35:25 -0800, "KC4UAI" wrote:

On Feb 7, 9:35 am, "EpsilonRho" wrote:
My mother lives in a area where the cell-phone signal is very weak.
Typically I can get only one mark on the phone field strength meter. That
forces me to go outside the house in order to have a reasonable chance of
completing a call (of course only if the weather permits).

Have you tried other carriers? At my house a Sprint only works
outside in the back yard while T-mobile and Cingular have no issues
inside. It could be that your carrier just has lousy coverage because
your house is to far away from their cell tower (or the antenna on the
tower is not pointed directly at you).

Another option is to complain to your carrier about signal strength
and hope they get around to changing it sometime soon (not likely by
the way.)

Third, is try another phone on your carrier of choice. I've seen
different phones have vastly different abilities under the exact same
circumstances even on the same carrier.

-= bob =-

On Feb 9, 12:48 pm, Fred Ferrely wrote:
I just "Happened" to run across this little article, and dog-gone
it, it looks like a lot of fun with the Cell Phone! (It'll save you
some bucks too!) I think I'll even try one for myself!!

Check this page out. Its pretty good:

http://robert.watkins.net/phone/

I would imagine that if one used PVC instead of a paper tube, this
may be plenty suitable for Outdoor work.

Cheers
FFF

On 8 Feb 2007 21:35:25 -0800, "KC4UAI" wrote:



On Feb 7, 9:35 am, "EpsilonRho" wrote:
My mother lives in a area where the cell-phone signal is very weak.
Typically I can get only one mark on the phone field strength meter. That
forces me to go outside the house in order to have a reasonable chance of
completing a call (of course only if the weather permits).

Have you tried other carriers? At my house a Sprint only works
outside in the back yard while T-mobile and Cingular have no issues
inside. It could be that your carrier just has lousy coverage because
your house is to far away from their cell tower (or the antenna on the
tower is not pointed directly at you).

Another option is to complain to your carrier about signal strength
and hope they get around to changing it sometime soon (not likely by
the way.)

Third, is try another phone on your carrier of choice. I've seen
different phones have vastly different abilities under the exact same
circumstances even on the same carrier.

-= bob =-- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ive found that carboard tubes soaked with fibeglass resin make a good
boom for small antennas. I have a friend that builds boats that will
give me small quantities of fiberglass resin from time to time so
expense of the resin is no problem for me.