Anyone with repeater 1st hand experience?

For the amount of money that you would spend on a repeater, it is best to find a cellular service that works at your location and drop your old cell service. It is much cheaper than dealing with repeaters that may or may not work.

 

i live in a remote location, get one bar out side, i use a mag. ant. from wilson. works ok if you dont mind being teathered.

 

i also would perfer the wireless approach, but for me its so much cheaper to use the ant. be sure and let us know how it works out.

 

Spotwave has a new repeater coming out in November that is $399 with a $50 rebate. I've used their porducts before and they work very well. Also, it's dual banded.

 

rowdysluggins, Welcome to Wireless Advisor! I'm up in the Cottonwood Heights/Sandy area.

I've always heard good things about Wilson Products, but hillbilly's information doesn't sound bad at all and he is very knowledgable...so maybe wait till then???

What kind of phone do you have?
Verizon is 800 for voice in our area and 1900 EVDO.

~Andy

 

Andy/Rowdy:

Here's the link for the repeater I referred to in my previous post http://www.spotwave.com/zen/index.asp

 

Rowdy.....look hard at the Wilson stuff. Their in your backyard also....St. George, UT. They make a top quality amp that works as advertised. We have put in a number of their amps and also the Digital Antenna dual band kits. Just be careful when purchasing a dual band kit. 1900mhz has been harder to amplifly and using a dual band kit will most likely use an omni directional antenna which doesn't work anywhere near as well as a Yagi. In the buildings we have used the DA kit it didn't provide much enhancement in the 1900mhz range. It worked as advertised in the 800mhz range but its not the quality of system as a wilson. Wilson uses N-connectors on all of their in-building stuff where as DA uses mini-UHF connectors. Wilson also uses a much better coax over the DA stuff. Its just a more professional setup. Wilson will have a new 1900mhz only amp (801306) in about 2 weeks which we'll be doing testing on very soon. We have a waiting list on this amp like you wouldn't believe. If it works like the previous Wilson In-Building solutions it will rock.

 

Yea...the 801245 is the new small office home office amp.....it isn't gonna be very powerful. It will probably be only 40-45db on the 800mhz side. Its probably not gonna be available til this fall either. We have been waiting on this amp also. We were showing and talking about it at the Miami Boat Show back in Feb and we were expecting a May delivery:browani: You'll want a 50db or higher to do what you want to do....The only other Dual Band wireless amp Wilson has is the 801201 which is their mobile amp.

 

Interesting. I always thought the area around there has great service. Is the problem low signal or is it calls dropping/pilot pollution??? My friend's cousin also lives in the same areas and he has problems at his cousin's house somewhere close to #2 so I guess you guys must live close to each other.

 

rowdy,

I'll be testing one in September so I'll let you know how it works (I deal with Spotwave alot so I get to see things first)

 

I implore anyone deploying a repeater to coordinate with the operations/engineering folks at the carrier you are going to siphon capacity from. Let them tell you what channel/sector to grab from for optimum performance.

 

Most carriers won't give you the time of day if your telling them your wanting to install a repeater.

 

It depends on who (which functional group) you get in touch with.

 

Good luck......the "average joe" customer will have a hard time getting in contact with that person or group......

 

I apologize for bringing up an old thread. This is the only forum I found that even mentioned the 801201.
I got a 801201 for free, just the amp. Planning to ebay it. Before I do I wanted to be sure that its too weak to use for anything other than inside a car. I understand that this small amp is only made to transmit a signal a few feet. Is there any way it could be used in a small apartment? Some friends live in an apartment which has full bars outside the door but 0 reception inside. The room I was hoping to give them reception in is about 500 sq/ft. Is there any chance this could help them? Or should I not even bother, ebay this, and tell them to spend the money on a 801245?

Thanks

 

Not powerful enough for that application

 

thank you very much for the immediate reply. Awesome forum

 

Doesn't the 801201 have the capability to connect to an antenna to increase it's own coverage area capability?

 

It does connect to antennas but , It is not powerfull enough to do the area in question.

 

If the walls of the apartment are providing that much RF isolation, I'm sure this repeater, coupled with the appropriate antenna could provide adequate coverage inside the main room of the apartment. I wouldn't rely on it for more than the room it is installed in though.

 

The unit he is referring to is a low power in vehicle unit . They only have a range of 3 to 5 feet at best . It will not cover a 500 quare foot area

 

Yes, as it is designed to connect directly to a phone, so it's not going to put out much power. But, with the right antenna and a properly isolated room this amplifier could accomplish the goal they are looking for. It doesn't take that much RF power to make a successful call, the mW this unit puts out are enough to do it.

 

They just won't do it. They do not cover 3 to 5 feet very well with good antennas . Have in fact had customers have to use induction adapters connected directly to thier phone to get results.
As much as in it sholud work in theory it should this unit will not cut the mustard ifor 500 square feet that the poster is looking for . He needs to jump up to the next level from wilson one of thier SOHO units. They will not even reccomend this unit for an RV , which is hardly 500 square feet.

 

Hmmm because I had that exact model in my house for over a year and coupled with a high gain antenna it worked quite well for me. I'd wager our definition of good transmission system varies greatly.

While this unit is not designed for it, the price of free the OP paid for the unit would at least garner an attempt for me. Even if they had to upgrade units to have quality signal, they'd still have to buy the antennas so they might as well buy the antennas now, give it a whirl and then go from there. To simply say "no" is painting that BDA with a broad brush.

RF propagation is not cut and dry, nor can it's final path accurately be determined from an office. You can get a good idea, but to truly say yes or no a site visit needs to be made. From the OP post it appears they live in a very dense walled building. They aren't getting a weak signal at the source point so it won't take much at all to bring that inside. They could couple two tuned directional antennas and a piece of coax, slapping together a simple passive repeater and probably have coverage inside if they had a decent place for the donor antenna.