Is Cell Phone Booster Worthwhile?

yep, waste of money. i am in a fringe area and use a mag. ant. on top of the house. works for me.

 

It depends on the type of booster you are using. If you are using the little ones that are basically a sticker placed under the battery, forget it. Passive repeaters are also pretty much worthless. Extra long antennas (usually about $20) work on some models. Magnetic mount antennas ($30 to $50) that plug into your phone work well in fringe areas. You can add an amplifier to the magnet mount antenna for even more range ($200 - $300), or you can get an amplified repeater (anywhere from $300 & up). It just depends on how much you want to spend.

-Jay

 

It's been my experience that Wilson magnet mount antennas work best for this purpose. They are usually a 12" antenna w/ a 6' coaxial cable to plug into your phone. They sell for about $40 shipped w/ the adapter. Just google "wilson antennas" and that should help you out.

 

I have been reading about antennas and sorry to say my Samsung phones no longer have antenna jacks on them, is this the trend? I wanted to build a Yagi antenna but I fear it will be useless without an antenna jack built into the phone. I know a guy that gets 1 bar extra or even service in a no service area with his Yagi.

 

There is a company called Spotwave that has a small cell repeater system for about $400. Try looking at www.spotwave.com at the Z1900 Indoor Wireless Coverage System.it'll cover about 2500sq ft. All you need to do is put in your zip code and carrier and they'll send you the correct obne. Good Luck!

 

If you scroll down to the center of the home page on www.wpsantennas.com you will find a list by carrier of all of the current and past models that do have RF ports for use with external antennas.

 

Yugo;

You don't necessarily need an external antenna port for your phone with some of the repeater systems. They have a yagi, amp & repeater antenna that goes inside. I would recommend looking at serveral systems from Spotwave, Wilson Cellular, Digital Antenna, etc. Good Luck