Cottage Install

[Turkey99]

Hi guys

I just put an antenna up at my cottage. I have no cell signal at all. I bought a cheap solid RF booster and put up a 30 foot antenna. I have a mountain in the way of my antenna. I'm aiming at the side of the mountain. I get good signal when my phone is a foot away from the booster. I bought a better hi boost booster which didn't work at all. Does anybody have any suggestions. Should I angle my antenna upward?

Thanks

 

[ecps92]

Hi guys

I just put an antenna up at my cottage. I have no cell signal at all. I bought a cheap solid RF booster and put up a 30 foot antenna. I have a mountain in the way of my antenna. I'm aiming at the side of the mountain. I get good signal when my phone is a foot away from the booster. I bought a better hi boost booster which didn't work at all. Does anybody have any suggestions. Should I angle my antenna upward?

Thanks

Do you have Internet at the Cottage ?

If so, You may want to reach out to your carrier for options.
Back when I was on Sprint, they sent me my own site, Ran on my power and my internet

 

[Turkey99]

Do you have Internet at the Cottage ?

If so, You may want to reach out to your carrier for options.
Back when I was on Sprint, they sent me my own site, Ran on my power and my internet

I have nothing. It's pretty remote.

 

[jtwalker]

Assuming your goal is to get cell service, I was thinking similar as @ecps92. Your solution would be to use internet to have service for your cell phone.

 

[ecps92]

Assuming your goal is to get cell service, I was thinking similar as @ecps92. Your solution would be to use internet to have service for your cell phone.

The other way, if you have Wifi (Internet) at the Cottage is WiFi Calling too

 

[jtwalker]

The other way, if you have Wifi (Internet) at the Cottage is WiFi Calling too

This is what I was trying to say also. I have no cell service at my house but I have StarLink internet and use my cellphones on WiFi.

 

[Turkey99]

Starlink would be awesome but I'm only up there 10 times a year and I don't think I can move the starlink location to location

 

[ecps92]

This is what I was trying to say also. I have no cell service at my house but I have StarLink internet and use my cellphones on WiFi.

Yes that would work, but what Sprint sent me was a Mini Cellsite.
Put the GPS antenna near a window so It can see the Sat's and then connect it to my router via Cat5

 

[jtwalker]

I have one of those too, from time before Verizon allowed us to use WiFi calling.

 

[mmckenna]

Hi guys

I just put an antenna up at my cottage. I have no cell signal at all. I bought a cheap solid RF booster and put up a 30 foot antenna. I have a mountain in the way of my antenna. I'm aiming at the side of the mountain. I get good signal when my phone is a foot away from the booster. I bought a better hi boost booster which didn't work at all. Does anybody have any suggestions. Should I angle my antenna upward?

Thanks

Tell us more about the installation.
What kind of coax?
What kind of booster?

You may need to try aiming the external antenna in other directions. You might be getting some signal bouncing off the side of the hill, but you may have better luck trying to find another tower, even one farther away.

You need to have appropriate amount of isolation between the outdoor antenna and the indoor antenna. If there isn't enough, the setup can start self oscillating and it will either shut down (if it's a good one) or just wipe everything out (if it's a cheap one). Try moving the indoor part of the setup as far away from windows as you can. Ideally, opposite side of the house from where your outdoor antenna is.

 

[mikewazowski]

Sounds like my place. Bought a booster and mounted the yagi on my tv tower and got nothing. Took my spectrum analyzer up on the roof and swung the yagi around until I could see a signal. Unfortunately by the time the signal gets down to the booster, it's pretty much gone. Too much loss in the supplied coax.

At some point I might upgrade the coax but not having any cell coverage at the cottage is also kind of nice.

 

[Turkey99]

I have a solid rf booster but then got a highboost 4k which didn't work at all. Antenna is at 30 feet. I'm definitely receiving all bounce back from the only tower in the area.

 

[Turkey99]

What booster does anyone recommend

 

[mmckenna]

I have a solid rf booster but then got a highboost 4k which didn't work at all. Antenna is at 30 feet. I'm definitely receiving all bounce back from the only tower in the area.

OK.
What kind of coax are you running?
Have you tried aiming the antenna in different directions?
Have you tried relocating the base unit to eliminate self oscillation?

Buying a new one, even a different brand, may or may not fix the issue if you don't have it installed correctly.

 

[Turkey99]

Rg6 and yes I've done both

 

[mmckenna]

Rg6 and yes I've done both

OK. Those are usually designed to use RG6.

If you've relocated the base, and you are sure it's not self oscillating, then you'd need to consider some other things:
1. There just isn't enough signal for it to work. Do you have neighbors that have working systems? What are they using? Antenna height? Where is the antenna pointed?
2. The unit you have may be faulty.
3. You may need to try a different carrier.

I'd not keep throwing money at this issue until you get more information. There are better BDA systems out there, but they will not make things work if there isn't enough signal in the first place. You may want to contact your carrier directly and see if they have any input.

 

[Turkey99]

My original post said it works but the phone has to be within a couple of feet of the booster. The cottage is 12 by 16 and I can't even walk around.

 

[mmckenna]

My original post said it works but the phone has to be within a couple of feet of the booster. The cottage is 12 by 16 and I can't even walk around.

Yeah, I got that.

There's a lot going on here and they are not easy to trouble shoot remotely, especially when you don't have any test equipment.

These boosters are Bi-Directional Amplifiers, often referred to as "BDA's".
They have two amplifiers, one for downlink from the cell site, and the other is the uplink from your cell phone back to the cell site.
The BDA's are usually limited to a few bands. You need to be 100% sure that the bands that it operates with is the band your cell carrier uses.

Self oscillation, that I mentioned above, is where the antennas are too close and the uplink gets picked up by the downlink side and the system will (should) shut itself down. If you have a small cottage and the antennas are too close, it will either shut itself down, or throttle back the power to stop it from doing that. That function is required since a out of control self oscillating BDA can totally wipe out the cell site. It's entirely possible that your BDA is doing this and that is causing the reduced range inside the cottage. The only way to fix that is to increase separation between the antennas, and it may require way more than you can give it. There's no way around that if it is what is causing this. You said you tried a "high boost booster" and it "didn't work at all". That sort of reinforces this.
These things require a fair amount of antenna isolation or they'll do this. No easy solution.

 

[Turkey99]

Sounds good. The hi-boost does say when it's oscillating. The problem was the hi-boost had to log in before you could use it. So if the data speed was low it would let you log in. Bad design in my opinion. So I would like to raise the antenna but the kit came with 50 feet rg6. They warned on extending the length. Can I go 70 feet. That would help on the distance between them . The sold rf booster does turn off frequencies when it starts oscillating. And thanks for your responses. The solid RF says it does 60 Gain. I saw a booster the cel-fi go x g32 claims to do 100 gain. Is that legit.

 

[Turkey99]

Wouldn't let you log in I meant