rural reception -- boosters, antennas??

It sounds like you simply live in an unserved area.
eMail me privately and maybe I can answer that question directly for you.
Did you get your booster from Verizon directly, and is it a booster or a femtocell? I wasn't aware they offered boosters directly to residential subscribers.

There are some systems for large yachts that will provide tip and ring service (like for a PBX) using only a cellular phone. I guess you could put one of these up the hill and then wire the PBX to your house... You would need an easement, or permission, if you don't own the land, etc... but it's one solution. There are others. With a better understanding of your situation, more solutions may come to mind. If you're comfortable doing so, can you send your coordinates via private email? I can at least check your expected signal strength from Verizon to see if that's a non-starter where you live.

 

Check out Wilson antennas.

Cell Phone Antennas and Cell Phone Boosters at Wilson Electronics

 

Eperous mentions a hill, so we can probably assume weak coverage beyond the hill.
If he's already got weak signal at the top, we can quess it's no better at the bottom.
In which case, a directional antenna is not likely to help him.

He really needs a better picture of how much field intensity he has to work with, before spending money on directional antennas. If there's too little signal to work with, no amount of gain is going to do the trick. It sounds to me that he's outside the CGSA (or equiv. if PCS), and may have a significant knife-edge diffraction obstacle to deal with as well.

He's a new member, so we should help him if we can....
Respectfully, it's way too early to start recommending directional antennas.
For all we know, it's GSM-only where he lives, and he's too far to connect even if he did have enough signal. ?? I wouldn't recommend an antenna, just yet -- though, yes, that certainly could be a solution, under the right conditions, etc...

You probably know that already, of course, but just letting the original poster know, in case he's not a cellphone tech-geek like the rest of us.

 

No amplifier can overcome a terrain issue . If a cell signal cannot physically get to you an amplifier cannot enhance it . Verizon does have a product known as Femtocell that does generate a signal if you have a DSL line to connect it to . We will be Carrying the New Signal Control Technology wireless amplifiers . That will make a signal if it is there no matter how low usable.

 

Again, (carry-on from an earlier post), I don't see anything special about the SCT Wireless booster product.
Please, feel free to visit the FCC's Equipment Authorization web page and download the Test Report for this product, and tell us what is so special about it, compared to all the other boosters out there.

FCC LINK: OET -- FCC ID Search
Once there, enter "XZZ" in the Grantee Code, and then click search.
Two devices show up: The (WB-198) device is the booster. The other device (3700WNR) is a Wi-Fi router.

I realize Maximum Signal is in the business of selling signal boosters, but please, let's try to use the W/A forums to dispense accurate info, and not hype. Honestly, from my reading of the Test Report, the SCT booster is likely to cause as much or more interference (not less) than other boosters currently on the market. If you want to get into the reasons why, we should discuss it via private email.

I have Epeorus' coordinates via private email, and I can assure you (and him), that this is not going to be an out-of-a-box signal booster solution from SCT Wireless, or any other manufacturer for that matter. He's essentially in a canyon, miles from the nearest tower. The signal he is seeing is at altitude, on various parts of his property. As we all know, nothing beats line-of-sight for signal strength. However, he's far enough outside the market that the signal is likely diffracting, and while he may have "bars" at some of those spots, it's not clear yet that they can be translated into a usable, reliable signal.

The best way to think about this (maybe?), is to envision a very dark room where you enter and shine a bright flashlight. A direct beam lights up the room, but many other areas experience illumination that can be scattered and diffused - still dark in the corners, and of much lower intensity. Substitute a cellular signal for the light rays and, unfortunately, that's pretty much Epeorus' current situation.

 

While I'm studying your situation, here's another approach you can research:

LINK: Ericsson W25 Fixed Wireless Terminal, 3G Fixed Wireless Terminal, EDGE, UTMS, 3G, Gateway, HSDPA

My thinking is that you might be able to install one of these in an "RF Transparent" enclosure (such as some fiberglass and/or plastic enclosure), at altitude on your property where you get a couple bars of signal, and can reliably make calls on your handset.

From there, just run an Ethernet line down to the house.
That too has issues, but they're generally easier and cheaper to overcome than 1,000 of coax (and the associated signal attenuation). Still, Ethernet will take some effort to get it working reliably.

It may not be the cellular over-the-air solution you were originally seeking, but it should work fine.

Many caveats, of course: Spolier: It's an DIY project!
You'll need to protect the cables (or be prepared to replace them every so often). The enclosure may have to be environmentally regulated. This could be a simple strip heater in the winter; maybe a muffin fan in the summer. Etc... Once you have high-speed wired to the home, you can then get fancy with a Wi-Fi hotspot, and maybe use a handset that can connect via Wi-Fi. This might then give you a solution more in line with what I think you were originally looking for.

I'm not quite to the point of saying a signal booster is out for you, but if you need to go 1,000 feet to reach a spot that has sufficient bars*, then the coax cost is likely to get pricey. That length will also cause additional problems due to attenuation of the coax and for other reasons. One advantage of going with the Ericsson unit is that you'll no longer need to worry about RF losses in the long coax run.

Disclaimer: I'm not terribly familiar with the Ericsson W25 units. I've only seen a couple of them (both on large yachts). An engineering colleage has much more experience with these, and I'll ask him next time I see him. But from what I've read, it seems like this might be the better approach (thus far). A call to Ericsson probably wouldn't hurt?

At 1,000 feet away, the Wi-Fi portion (and USB portion) of the Ericsson obviously won't help you much. However, the Ethernet output can do the trick, though it will require some engineering to get it 1,000.
Fiber is relatively cheap these days, and a couple Ethernet to fiber modems might actually be easier than trying to amplify Ethernet, or trying to use very low capacitance cable (to extend the Cat-5/5e limit).

I'm sure there are some Cat-5 cabeling experts lurking here, so maybe they'll chime in with the best/cheapest way to go 1,000 feet on twisted pair.

Anyway, this is just a thought brewing in the background at the moment.
We'll know more when I can actually get to running the studies we discussed.

 

I use Skype successfully via WildBlue to family members. Others might be less forgiving of the geo-synchronous satellite latency. If you'd like to install it and call me directly, computer to computer, I will send you my user-id via private message. We'll have double the usual latency.

For about $60/year, you can have 10,000 minutes/month on the USA/Canada plan with a phone number where you chose and voice mail.

COtech

 

Yes, voice only fits into the uplink bandwidth of up to 128 kbps. I haven't tried adding video, so I don't, unlike you, know how it fails (audible holes in the received audio?). I have no trouble receiving A/V, so both fit in the up to 512 kpbs downlink bandwidth.

I do have it ring on the PC speaker, in case I leave the earphones plugged in the powered speakers (from the sound card on motherboard). I use a desktop. If you keep your laptop from sleeping, I think you'll have no trouble. I do run SETI at Home, and that keeps things alive (not sleeping).

I considered a dedicated PC to run it at my grad student daughter's apartment in Cambridge, MA--anything with Windows 2000 or later is good enough. She used an ASUS laptop, though, and called over the campus network (wired and wireless) as needed with her local number in next door Somerville. We only bought DSL, not dial tone from Verizon Communications.

COtech

 

Yes, you'd have to run power up the hill, but you can run it as DC instead of AC.
The DC voltage drop across a cord that long (assuming 18 gauge) is only about 2-volts.
Since the Ericsson W25 can operate on anything from 10 to 28 volts, you'd don't really care.
If you used a 24-volt DC wall transformer, and lost a few volts in the cord resistance along the way, you would still have plenty of voltage left to power the device.

Obviously, you would put a fuse in-line to protect the cable, and for fire prevention reasons, etc..., but the whole approach could be done using low-power wiring techniques. (Not sure building code enforcement is even an issue for you where you live?)

Oh, and as I read the Ericsson blurb online in more detail, it occurs to me that if all you're looking for is voice, then the W25 has an RJ-11 phone jack on it! You can run 1000-feet of phone line no problem. It would likely not need any special engineering to get it to work at that distance - just plug it in. And even if it did need some minor work to equalize the audio or levels, switch-gain repeaters for telco circuits are a dime a dozen. Well, almost.

If it were me though, I'd still probably look at ways to get that Ethernet output to the house, as that would give you high-speed internet via cellular (whatever that speed happens to be in your area?), and would give you the option to drop the WildBlue service if you no longer needed it.

Your studies are running now on the engineering computer.

 

What makes the New SCT Wireless amplifiers special are a number of features . 3 built in anti oscillation fail safes( which makes the carriers happy ) . The receive sensitivity compared to other products . The gain levels compared to other products , The power consumption ( only a quarter of an amp ) plus many more . There is a big push at the FCC to outlaw cellular amplifiers right now , these amplifiers meet all new standards that are going to be implemented See the independent review at Jack and Danielle Mayer. I have invited the site owners here to test one as soon as they are available , They are also going to give a few away here on these forums.

 

This last group was very interesting, It sounda like Epeorus has the exact same problem as I do, with the exception my hills have tall trees on them and my signal is a bit closer to my house! If MaximumSignal lets us know when the new SCT booster is coming out I'd love to find out more about it. I'm amazed at how much info is on this site, As a new member, I am excited to learn more! Thanks to you all!

 

The new Maximum Signal amplifiers by SCT Wireless will be available very soon. We just stratled our last hurtle with the FCC and redesigned the case as per their request , ( even though the original case passed all testing) . Their reasoning was that they have never had a product with this much gain ,so they wanted to be sure . Cases are being manufactured now . So the product will be available shortly. Look for giveaways here at Wirelessadvisor .