In home cell phone signal amplifier

I just put on a tin roof on my house and have lost my good cell phone reception. Can anyone suggest a cell phone signal amplifier? I live in rural KY with lots of mountains and need something that's CDMA compatible that's maybe under $100. My phone company is Appalachian Wireless.

Cell phone Signal Booster

I just put on a tin roof on my house and have lost my good cell phone reception. Can anyone suggest a cell phone signal amplifier? I live in rural KY with lots of mountains and need something that's CDMA compatible that's maybe under $100. My phone company is Appalachian Wireless.

You can buy cheap Chinese bi-directional amplifiers off e-Bay that might work.

Then again, since it's cheap Chinese stuff, it may not work, might interfere with things, etc.

Good BDA systems will cost a few hundred bucks. Wilson, SureCall, etc.

You might also want to call your carrier and see what they recommend. If you have a decent internet connection, they may offer a device, often called a "pico-cell" that basically creates a small local cell site inside your home.

Will be watching to see how this goes. A good friend of mine did the same thing (metal roof) and despite being less than 2 miles from a tower now can barely get a call out. Line of sight goes right through his roof. It's about to drive him nuts. I've made my suggestions to him but he (like me) is a paid-up lifetime member of the Born-Again Tightwad Society, so he hasn't done anything except move his phone charger over next to a window.

If you have success with one of those el-cheapos I'll have something concrete to recommend to him.

kas1263 said:

I just put on a tin roof on my house and have lost my good cell phone reception. Can anyone suggest a cell phone signal amplifier? I live in rural KY with lots of mountains and need something that's CDMA compatible that's maybe under $100. My phone company is Appalachian Wireless.

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Your problem is more one of antenna location than needing an amplifier. You might start with a simple idea of connecting appropriate antennas to two ends of a piece of decent coax cable. Put one antenna outside and high and the other inside the house near where you will keep the cellphone. Keep the coax cable just long enough to do that. Depending on signal levels, there is a chance that might work. However, if does not, amplifiers are cheap and ~$100 on Amazon or eBay. You will need to make sure it covers the frequency band your provider and phone use (company name may not be enough to determine that). You might first ask your provider if they have a solution. Sometimes they are helpful. In any case, find out from them what band your particular cell phone operates.

ZBoost are really good boosters but are around $200 for them make sure you get one that does CDMA.

DJ11DLN said:

If you have success with one of those el-cheapos I'll have something concrete to recommend to him.

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So, as usual, there's a couple of issues that are possible with these cheap Chinese products…

None of the inexpensive (read: cheap) Chinese BDA's appear to have an FCC type certification (raise your hand if you are surprised). Like their cheap radios, the often don't meet the requirements to be sold in the USA, but that doesn't stop anyone who wants to make a quick buck.
Since -some- public safety and cellular frequencies are quite close, using a non-type accepted amplifier runs the risk of creating interference to a public safety radio system. That won't end well. Putting others lives at risk to save money is always a bad idea.

Proper BDA systems need to have a way to tell when they are "self oscillating" and shut themselves down. Good ones/type accepted ones, will have this built in. What happens is that if the donor antenna and the indoor antenna are too close (or can "see" each other), it can create a feedback loop, like getting a microphone too close to the speakers. A self oscillating BDA running unchecked can wipe out the cell site. That would impact everyone on it, not to mention any possible public safety users, other systems, etc.

The other big issue is that consumers don't always remember to read the directions. If these are set up incorrectly, they can cause all kinds of issues (see above) or just not work at all. There's some work that has to go into setting them up correctly. Using the correct antennas is a good idea. Where possible, directional antennas should be used on the donor side.

By FCC rules, these BDA's should be registered with the carrier. I'm will to bet that rarely happens.

I'd probably avoid buying one of these things, just like I'd avoid buying the Cheap Chinese Radios. Too much risk, cheap product, supports a country that doesn't value it's work force, doesn't meet regulations, etc. The FCC/public safety users won't care that you got a great deal.

BDA's can really suck.

If possible, get the internet connected pico cell from the carrier. Much better solution and can actually work better.

I'll second that. When we first moved to this house in 2009, cellular reception was awful... just a couple months later, AT&T offered us a free "MicroCell." It took about 5 minutes to set up (connect to router, activate online, tell it what phone numbers are authorized to use it)... and BAM, perfect cell reception!

mmckenna said:

If possible, get the internet connected pico cell from the carrier. Much better solution and can actually work better.

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K9DAK said:

I'll second that. When we first moved to this house in 2009, cellular reception was awful... just a couple months later, AT&T offered us a free "MicroCell." It took about 5 minutes to set up (connect to router, activate online, tell it what phone numbers are authorized to use it)... and BAM, perfect cell reception!

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And, don't forget, either GPS or register the location for E-911 purposes.

Some of the older AT&T ones wouldn't work unless they had GPS lock. Not sure if they are still doing that, or they let you register the location.

All the Network Extenders offered by the carriers require the internal GPS to lock in order to work. Also keep people from taking them out of the country as well! This is part of the way the Femtocells sync on the network, but you also need a decent Internet connection that is not wireless or DSL for the Femtocell performance to be decent.

Another option depending on a few variables is a Passive Repeater. A 2 high gain Yagi antennas or a single high gain Yagi antenna pointed at the cell site with some low loss cable that then connects to the other Yagi or some other decent antenna inside the house. This take some planning and experimentation, but with proper shopping could be one of the more cost effective solutions.

I had the same issue when I moved into my new apartment recently, my cell coverage was pretty poor in certain areas of the house. T-Mobile gave me a router to connect to my existing Internet router that allows me to do VoIP with my wifi service.

Ah, yes... forgot about that... the MicroCell needed GPS lock... at least back then. Haven't used it in a couple years since AT&T built a new tower a mile from our house.

mmckenna said:

And, don't forget, either GPS or register the location for E-911 purposes.

Some of the older AT&T ones wouldn't work unless they had GPS lock. Not sure if they are still doing that, or they let you register the location.

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mmckenna said:

You might also want to call your carrier and see what they recommend. If you have a decent internet connection, they may offer a device, often called a "pico-cell" that basically creates a small local cell site inside your home.

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I second the "pico-cell" option. I have signal issues in my house and called my carrier and after a few mins on the phone with a second level support person had him approve the carrier to send me one at no cost. Now I get full bars throughout my house. Installation was simple, plug the box into an active internet connection, plug the box's power cord into a working outlet, wait for it to boot up and for the handshaking with the cell company's equipment and watch the extra bars show up on my phone.

Another advantage using the "pico-cell" solution is that you're completely legal since it belongs to the cell company and fully covered by their licenses. Using a cell booster, range extender, or some other cooked up solution could cause you and/or others serious issues and since the device belongs to you, the liability also falls in your pocketbook. For more plusses to that solution is that when the cell company makes changes that cause your "pico-cell" to stop working, they will replace it with one that works with those changes while your pieced together solution will then need to be redone using compatible devices.

Danny37 said:

I had the same issue when I moved into my new apartment recently, my cell coverage was pretty poor in certain areas of the house. T-Mobile gave me a router to connect to my existing Internet router that allows me to do VoIP with my wifi service.

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Those T-mobile microcells work pretty well. Had to install one of those at work at a remote pump site. Pretty much plug-n-play once the GPS had lock.

Simply pick up a couple cheap uhf tv antennas and connect them together via a short RG6 jumper.
.............
Newark electronics has a 2 bay bowtie antenna for $10 dollars
Part number 30-2420
Be sure to mount one outside pointed toward the tower mounted in the vertical plane.
Place the other one in the attic pointed down into the room where you want the signal.
Use a short RG6 coax jumper to connect the two.
..............
This will act as a passive repeater for all frequencies from 470- 900Mhz.

Our you could try one of these.
https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/wi...MI1umD97qB2gIVkLfACh3unAGgEAYYCSABEgLUM_D_BwE

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To the OP, RadioReference discourages posting the same question in two different forums or starting multiple threads on the same topic. This is known as cross-posting.

Your two threads have been merged into one.

Surecall 4 Home

I ended up getting the Surecall 4 Home unit from Amazon.com. So far it works great. It was a little bit more than what I wanted to spend but the money was worth it. A special thank you to Mmkenna who pointed me in the right direction.

kas1263 said:

I ended up getting the Surecall 4 Home unit from Amazon.com. So far it works great. It was a little bit more than what I wanted to spend but the money was worth it. A special thank you to Mmkenna who pointed me in the right direction.

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Glad I could help, and I'm happy to hear it's working well for you. Surecall and Wilson are the two consumer companies I'd trust. I've used Wilson, and while not super impressive in their quality, they do work. Surecall has a strong following and are generally recommended by those in the know.