cell phone antenna

[Bear]

My sister lives in Northern Ca. (Redding to be exact). Problem is that her cell phone reception is non-existent in her house which is surrounded by 60'-70'
trees. If they want to use their cell phone they have to walk approx 200'-250'
up the driveway to the highway to get reception. They have a 40' tall flagpole at the highway end of driveway.
Question, can they just take some bare copper wire "run it up the flagpole"
(no pun intended) and then down to the house & lay it over the roof to act as a antenna extension? Forgot to mention their service provider is Cingular.

Thanks in advance

Bear

[SETEC_Astronomy]

I think I spotted the problem.

their service provider is Cingular

They may have the fewest dropped calls but it's kind of hard to drop a call if it can't get through in the first place.

I'm not sure how your idea will work but I do know that a few months ago N&V answered a similar question in their Q&A section. I will look it up and let you know what they suggested if you want.

[Bear]

SETEC_Astronomy: I would certainly appreciate that.

Bear

[jollyrgr]

Usually cell phone frequencies require a short antenna. What you are suggesting is called a long wire or "random wire" antenna. This would be great for ham radio frequencies on the HF band. What you really need is coaxial cable and an antenna as close to the phone as possible. Another option might be to get a booster amplifier and a longer coax and mount the antenna outside. Something like this:

http://www.smoothtalker.com/products/bo ... peater.php

I am not sure if a "passive" antenna system would be worth trying. In a passive antenna system you would connect two antennas to the same coax but put one atop the flagpole and one inside the area of the house you want to use the phone.

Another possibility is to make a "cantenna" in the cell range and incorporate that into a satellite dish (one of the mini 18" pizza type) pointed at the closest tower. In other words make a cantenna cut to cell frequencies. Mount this in place of the LNB. Point the dish at the cell tower. Connect the cantenna coax to the cell phone or possibly a dipole cell antenna.

I have not tried any of these but if I were to bet money I'd bet against just stringing up a cable to the flagpole.

[stevech]

Verizon is the only major carrier that has a lot of their system in the lower frequency 800MHz area - except for Nextel (now owned by Sprint). The other band is at 1900MHz. The lower freq. has much better building penetratoin and outdoor range.

A few cell phones have an external antenna connector. You'll need an antenna that is the right length/tuned for 800 vs. 1900MHz.

Nextel's coverage is very limited, as is T-mobile's.

IMO, Verizon being the only major using CMDA technology, has better coverage. Sprint is the other big CDMA carrier, but their coverage is far less than Verizon's.