Antenna Spacing Question Cell Phone Booster-Receive only antennas

[JoshuaHufford]

I need to add a cell phone booster to the building that currently houses my radios/antennas. I currently have 3 antennas on the building as can be seen in the picture, the largest Omni on the left is mainly for the Railband 160-162MHz although I do use it for monitoring other frequencies, the other omni and yagi are used for 890-960MHz monitoring.

The short wall the masts are mounted to runs almost perfectly straight E-W, I need to hit an ATT tower almost straight East, slightly to the Southeast, and a T-Mobile Tower pretty much Southeast. I was thinking about coming off the wooden post with a bracket to mount the cell booster antenna to. How far below the other antennas should I mount it? How far away from the wall should I mount it?

From what I understand the cell booster puts out 1watt max. The cell phone booster antenna will be an Omni.

And just in case you are wondering I have tried WiFi calling and that has enabled me to at least make calls in the building, but it still has dropouts and I have to reboot my phones frequently to make it work. I had a cell phone booster in my previous residence and it has moved with me so I want to install it for more reliable operation.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[mmckenna]

For 1 watt, you won't need much in the way of spacing. As always, more is better, especially since you do some 800/900MHz monitoring.

I'd pay more attention to separation between the outdoor cell antenna and the indoor antenna to prevent the booster shutting down.

 

[mikewazowski]

I'd pay more attention to separation between the outdoor cell antenna and the indoor antenna to prevent the booster shutting down.

Or going into oscillation which is usually followed up by a visit from a representative of the licensee of the band the booster is oscillating in.

 

[mmckenna]

Or going into oscillation which is usually followed up by a visit from a representative of the licensee of the band the booster is oscillating in.

Yes, but I believe under the FCC rules, they must shut down if they start to self oscillate. Reputable brands do that. Cheap Chinese BDA's probably don't.

 

[JoshuaHufford]

All of my boosters are SureCall brand which I've been very happy with, and they have a very knowledgeable tech support person that actually KNOWS what he is doing and will respond to an email in a timely manner. And yes they do shut down if they go into oscillation. The model I have also has adjustable gain for each band so it can be fine tuned.

I will have better distance separation here and a large piece of metal between both antennas here which I did not have at my previous location so I'm not too worried.

 

[mmckenna]

All of my boosters are SureCall brand which I've been very happy with, and they have a very knowledgeable tech support person that actually KNOWS what he is doing and will respond to an email in a timely manner. And yes they do shut down if they go into oscillation. The model I have also has adjustable gain for each band so it can be fine tuned.

Great, sounds like you got a good one. There's some junky stuff from China sold on e-Bay and Amazon that I'm sure causes a lot of headaches for the cell carriers.

I will have better distance separation here and a large piece of metal between both antennas here which I did not have at my previous location so I'm not too worried.

That's sounding like a good setup. I installed one at my sisters place a few years ago. Used a log-periodic on one side of the house pointed at the donor site, and the indoor antenna on the far side. Worked well.

They'll run up to 1 watt, but should throttle back if you have a good signal. I doubt you'll have issues with your setup.