Advice Needed Cell Phone Reception with a beam

[Spiff]

Good afternoon from an overcast Mullion Cove Cornwall : )

My next project it to try and get a cell phone signal into the building.

Mullion Cove is surrounded by high cliffs except due West out to sea.

3 our provider at first offered WF FI talk even on PAYG, but dropped it unless you had a contract.

Bunch of crooks : )

I do not want a contract.

We hardly use the phone leaving the landline un-plugged, I do not like calls, too many years in business : )

We can use the mobile on WI FI with a web provider, its low cost and fine for making the odd call.

The problem is I cannot receive text from 3 on our mobile number for banking etc, unless I run up the cliff : )

If I stand on the building roof three storeys up and hold the phone as high as I can, it registers most providers including ours 3 on 2100mHz (3G)

The signal is going to be weak even up there.

God Bless Spiff











Nothing at ground level though, is anyone out there with experience of beams and repeaters.





Lots of repeaters advertised, but also lots of disappointed purchasers as well : )

 

[Channel Hopper]

You could fit a discone on the tallest pole you have and run the cable down to a flat plate where you might sit the mobile nearby. It will pick up the range of mobile frequencies simply by being near the end of the cable, if you make a loop of wire of around 3 inches in diameter connected to the centre conductor.

 

[Terryl]

Look into a company called "Wilson Electronics"" they have cell phone boosters,(if you can use one at your location) I use one for down in the shop, it came with a yagi and a panel antenna, the booster goes in-between the two, you put the yagi where you get a signal on one channel then the booster sends a signal out on a second channel to the panel antenna in the shop, works great for me.

Without it I get about a single bar on the signal indicator if I'm up on the roof of the shop, with it in the inside I get about 3.

The package I ordered came with 100 feet of input cable and 100 feet of output cable, so the booster would be located somewhere half way, all you would need is power for the booster.(AC 90 to 220v to DC +12 volts)

 

[Topper]

I would love to say I have an answer for you but sadly I do not, even though I can see three mobile phone masts out of my bedroom window, I have rubbish reception downstairs, leading to Norman Collier making many appearances or even just losing signal altogether. Up in the bedroom I have a stonking signal some of the time however with JCBs and 100 ft cranes constantly on the move at the back of our house on the estate they are building, maintaining a constant signal on TV radio or mobile phone is difficult to say the least. I do hope someone can advise you though

 

[Spiff]

Thank you for your replys,

ChannelHopper I feel a beam is required as the signal must be way down.

Standing on the roof it requires stretching, plus a lot of moving around to get anything.

Could I ask Terry1, which provider and the frequency you used your booster on ?

Topper I have found with WI FI that concrete walls attenuate a lot.

Our building is block for the gift shop, then the two storeys above our flat are hanging slates with a wood frame and plaster board.

The WI FI is fine all over the flat, outside and down through the wood floor into the shop, the tenants use it for phones and their card machine with no problems.

But one end wall of the flat is block, then spaced about a meter is another block wall of my radio workshop above the garage.

In there it kept dropping out, in the end I extended the cat 6 cable into the workshop for a laptop.

You need to knock the walls down : )

God Bless Spiff

 

[Channel Hopper]

A beam to where ?

You need to find out where your nearest mast is for your ISP (and that will change a number of times over the next few months/years).

Whilst you are on the coast you could do much worse than have an omni and a tall mast.

 

[Spiff]

I have two application on my phone, that when we are in Mullion Village a mile away, or half way there, give a direction on a pointer to the north, and it also has a map with lines to the mast.

The same direction shows if we walk up the path to the cliff top. about a hundred yards

It shows if it can be believed any towers in range ?

They appear to tie up with other information online as to the location of local towers

I would start in that direction and swing any beam to peak it up ?

 

[Channel Hopper]

So, how many towers that tie in with your ISP are in the vicinity ?

I doubt a mobile app will tell you the signal source in real time, just an existing map of the terrain and masts cleverly disguised as a direction finder.

 

[Terryl]

Thank you for your replys,

ChannelHopper I feel a beam is required as the signal must be way down.

Standing on the roof it requires stretching, plus a lot of moving around to get anything.

Could I ask Terry1, which provider and the frequency you used your booster on ?

Topper I have found with WI FI that concrete walls attenuate a lot.

Our building is block for the gift shop, then the two storeys above our flat are hanging slates with a wood frame and plaster board.

The WI FI is fine all over the flat, outside and down through the wood floor into the shop, the tenants use it for phones and their card machine with no problems.

But one end wall of the flat is block, then spaced about a meter is another block wall of my radio workshop above the garage.

In there it kept dropping out, in the end I extended the cat 6 cable into the workshop for a laptop.

You need to knock the walls down : )

God Bless Spiff

It's on Verizon, and I think its the 800 MHz band, but they carry other bands and providers.

 

[Spiff]

So, how many towers that tie in with your ISP are in the vicinity ?

I doubt a mobile app will tell you the signal source in real time, just an existing map of the terrain and masts cleverly disguised as a direction finder.

The apps are no longer on my phone due to space Channel Hopper, neither can I find anything that makes sence online now as to towers.

The app had a compass type needle, how it worked and was directional I never did figure out.

You may well be correct in suggesting it was not doing anything in real time. : )

The reason I think of a beam is the gain over an unidirectional aerial, once the correct aerial for the frequency is up high, I can turn it for maximum.

At least those are my thoughts, the UHF TV comes in on a very tall mast with a 21db preamp, even though we are way below line of sight.

The beam heading is very critical, I know it is way above the power of cell phone masts, but much wider band width.
I doubt a vertical would work.

I used to some years back receive the old WD 2m repeater on a large beam, when there was a bit of a lift, but nothing on a vertical.

That was way up in Devon.

There is some signal up above the roof, if it is enough for a repeater I do not know, most of them suggest that several bars are required outside for the devices to work.

I feel that one that worked as it should would make use of any signal.

I do not wish to flood the flat with signal, if it only worked with the phone next to the inside repeating aerial, that would be all I require for a text from the banks : )

 

[ozumo]

Some old mobile phones have an external aerial socket. Won't work with 3 but I've seen a Nokia 6310 car kit from an early 2000s Mercedes in someone's caravan, with the aerial mounted on a 3m mast. Worked surprising well for SMS despite the signal being very poor where the caravan was sited.

 

[Terryl]

Well now we come to gains and losses, at the frequency's involved and how far it is to the roof to mount an antenna,(several stories) you will see way too much coax loss to get a signal down from that location, let alone the feeble signal (200 mW) from the phone back up to the antenna, so you will need some sort of bi-directional amp/pre-amp in-line to help out.

A pre-amp to get the received signal from the antenna down to the phone, and an amp to get the signal from your phone back up to the antenna.

To do this without the amps would be difficult, you would need a very large antenna or phased array of antennas on the roof to get enough system gain to get anything down to your flat.

I have done passive systems for microwave but the antennas used were very large, and the distance from the RX antenna to the repeater antenna was very small.

Now some cell phone providers offer a cell repeater that uses a booster box connected to the internet to get you on their network, have you looked into that?

 

[Spiff]

Well now we come to gains and losses, at the frequency's involved and how far it is to the roof to mount an antenna,(several stories) you will see way too much coax loss to get a signal down from that location, let alone the feeble signal (200 mW) from the phone back up to the antenna, so you will need some sort of bi-directional amp/pre-amp in-line to help out.

A pre-amp to get the received signal from the antenna down to the phone, and an amp to get the signal from your phone back up to the antenna.

To do this without the amps would be difficult, you would need a very large antenna or phased array of antennas on the roof to get enough system gain to get anything down to your flat.

I have done passive systems for microwave but the antennas used were very large, and the distance from the RX antenna to the repeater antenna was very small.

Now some cell phone providers offer a cell repeater that uses a booster box connected to the internet to get you on their network, have you looked into that?

Hallo Terry1,

The booster box's are only supplied if you have a contract, we use PAYG, we hardly ever make calls I have got through £5 in two years : )

A contract with three also gives you WI FI calling.

A contract would be a total waste of money to us, that could be spent on more interesting things, like Satellite or radio equipment. : )

Getting the signal into the flat from the roof, especially the office which is on the top floor is a very short distance.

The repeaters that are sold on eBay etc have an amplifier at least on the down leg.

The feed back on them varies so much, I expect a lot of the problems are due to people purchasing the wrong unit for the frequency their carrier is using.

Though no doubt some of the equipment is useless to start with.

I was hoping a member who was with Three, had a repeater installed and could therefore give me a recommendation.

There is a gentleman on eBay who did offer to send me a selection of equipment on sale or return, his listing offers to help out in my kind of circumstance.

That was a while ago, if he is still there I think I shall have to go for that one, he offered several beams to try as well as cable, repeaters and the inside rebroadcast aerial.


Not being able to receive text, is becoming more and more of a problem with banking, and even buying from ScewFix requires a confirmation text so you can go and pick up the item.

Thanks to all for their suggestions : )

God Bless Spiff

 

[Spiff]

Some old mobile phones have an external aerial socket. Won't work with 3 but I've seen a Nokia 6310 car kit from an early 2000s Mercedes in someone's caravan, with the aerial mounted on a 3m mast. Worked surprising well for SMS despite the signal being very poor where the caravan was sited.

Hallo Ozumo,

Unfortunately most phones now including ours which was our daughters cast off, do not have a socket.

I was tempted to wire one in : )

God Bless Spiff

 

[Terryl]

Have you looked into the Wilson electronics site I mentioned? Mine works very well getting the signals both ways.

 

[Spiff]

Have you looked into the Wilson electronics site I mentioned? Mine works very well getting the signals both ways.

Hallo Terry1,

Yes I had a look, good to have a recommendation thank you.

The reason I waited for any others, was to see if anyone had used one on the same band as ours 2100, yours is on 800 m c/s with only just a signal.

I see that they have them for other bands.

I have been dawdling about it for ages : )

Most suppliers require 1 to 2 bars outside before they say it will work.

There is nothing at ground level here, or anywhere in the building even up stairs.

The phone just shows on one of its test pages, that it picked something up when standing on the roof reaching up and wandering around.

I shall have to do some more tests, perhaps I can get Alanna to stand on top of some step ladders on the roof : )

God Bless Spiff

 

[Terryl]

Check this one out, it will work with 2100 MHz....Here is a spec sheet on it..

https://assets.wilsonelectronics.com/m/4017b8582f7634a2/original/Home-MultiRoom-Spec-Sheet.pdf

I like their stuff and have installed it at several sites.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Try a discone that has a receive limit of more than 1500MHz and you should be OK for mobile reception.

You are not looking to push power up the cable.

 

[Adam792]

As well as 2100MHz for 3G, Three in the UK also use 800MHz (as well as other bands) for the 4G LTE signal, especially in rural areas. Being a lower frequency, it tends to carry better. I would say these days the 4G signal is more robust than the 3G one - you may get a better signal than the 2100MHz 3G one without an extra antenna.

In fact, if you look on Three's estimated coverage map here - Check your network coverage | Three they seem to reckon that the 4G signal is indeed better (well, less marginal) around your location than the 3G one.

What's the model of the phone you've got?

You can get a basic 4G capable phone for around £30-£40 these days, which may not be much different price-wise to an antenna set-up, as a first try.

I've just checked, and Three sell the Alcatel 1 (a cheap phone but running Android) for £29.99 - it's 4G capable and supports the 800MHz signal (Band 20).

I would guess around that part of Cornwall that an external mobile phone aerial would make it more likely that you end up accidentally roaming on Orange France, unless it's directional! Although the distances are probably still too far for the phone to be able to 'handshake' with the French network rather than just receive the downlink signal from a mast.

 

[2cvbloke]

You should be careful when looking into boosters and powered repeaters that aren't wired into the device, as a lot of them are not approved for use in the UK (or anywhere really!!!), owing to being problematic with adding noise onto or swamping out the already weak bands you're trying to boost, and of course, the powers that be don't take too kindly to interference with commercial bands...

Can't offer any suggestions for equipment myself, I'm on Three as well, but where I live has decent reception, so no experience with acquiring signal...