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yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 07:37pm 09 May 2014

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I have finally had a gut-full of years of no mobile phone reception at my house and finally pulled the trigger on buying something to fix the problem (I hope).

On Thursday I registered for and ordered a 3G repeater that I can legally use with my high gain collinear antenna on the Telstra network (850 Mhz umts wideband cdma only).

http://www.cel-fi.com.au/

Anyone had experience with these things?

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 06:06pm 23 May 2014

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Well, I finally got my hands on it and set it up for a test run.

Because I have no signal at all, I am not using the internal antenna's, I have plugged the external antenna that I mentioned in the last post into the base station.

This has given me three bars of signal on the base station in my office. From there it is wirelessly linked to the repeater unit. The idea is to find a spot for the repeater that still gives a good wi-fi connection but is far enough away to let the mobile phone frequency power be cranked up to the max.

I have plonked the repeater in the laundry (easiest convenient spare power socket), the power output is between 7 and 8 from a possible 9 in this position, I had to use the flash to get this photo so the numbers are not visible.

So here is the result, a smart phone that I have never used due to its poor signal reception at the best of times is working flawlessly within a 130 metre radius of the repeater,
DATA
ping time 163 ms
download 2.4Mbps
upload 420 kbps
SIGNAL

That is as good as I have seen standing next to a phone tower, the signal strength (dbm) is not overly high but it is consistent and stable and so far I have not had ANY voice dropout at all

I am not sure about the ping time, I am more than 50 Kilometres from the closest visible tower and the Telstra server in my region is a bit of a plodder, it seems a bit optimistic.
The asu on this phone is a combination of signal strength and quality, 17 out of 25 is exceptional, I assume this means it is pretty clean with almost no interference.

The external antenna on a 30 foot tower gives me an added bonus, I can use the phone the other side of the base station without it cutting out, so positioning the base may not be as critical as I first thought.

I am a bit stunned, I didn't expect it to be this easy or work this well. Edited by yahoo2 2014-05-25

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

Gizmo

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Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5078

Posted: 08:26pm 23 May 2014

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Hi Yahoo

-79dBm is pretty darn good!

My reception here is pretty rubbish too. But, 50% of the house and shed has enough coverage to use the phone, and I've learnt if I get a call, to stand in a few particular places for the best results. So that will do for me. Also if I prop the phone up on a little stand, and use the headphones/mic, the phone works well at my computer desk. Hand held at the desk wont work at all.

Glenn

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ

yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 12:33am 24 May 2014

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I need to make one correction,

I meant to say 130 metres Diameter, I just re-read my own post and realised my mistake.
That is still not bad for a half deaf android phone.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

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