Question Cell boosting

[catfishhoward]

I'm trying to get the best cell service I can at my house which is in the back of the property 50 foot down the hill, the front side of my property is the highest point if I put a antenna 35 foot in a tree I should be able to see 2 towers which are 8 miles away. One problem is the antenna would be 1000 feet from my home and I don't know if I can run cable that far to a booster. Is there not a way to have another antenna on the tree aiming at my house then I could use the booster at my house to aim at that antenna? That way I don't have to put up an 85-foot Tower at my house I can just bounce it off the tree antenna on top of the hill down to my house?

 

[bill001g]

First everything you are talking about doing is very much in the grey area of the law. Technically it is illegal for you to add any form of antenna or connect any other device. The loophole is it is allowed if the licensee ( ie the cell) company allows it. But no cell company will actual give you any paper work because they have now assumed any liability for interference you cause.

First do not use any for of electronic "booster". Most you can get are not FCC approved so you never really know if they do what they say. The ones that are FCC approved are only sold to people who have a license...ie the cell companies again.

The antenna if you get one tune to the proper cell frequencies for the tower you want might work. The problem you have in your case is the huge amount of cable you will need. The cable is extremely expensive for cable that will not lose more signal that the antenna adds.

Do you have internet in your house. It is almost a scam but you can get what is called a micro cell. This creates a mini cell tower in your house just for you and connect to the cell company with a vpn over your internet. The scam part is they use your internet to provide the service but still count phone minutes and data usage against your cell plan. Obvisouly you should use wifi and not cell data in the house. Some vendors will actually give you a mircocell if you talk to them about poor coverage. They are not extremely expensive around $150 for most and most have no activation or monthly fee.

 

[catfishhoward]

First everything you are talking about doing is very much in the grey area of the law. Technically it is illegal for you to add any form of antenna or connect any other device. The loophole is it is allowed if the licensee ( ie the cell) company allows it. But no cell company will actual give you any paper work because they have now assumed any liability for interference you cause.

First do not use any for of electronic "booster". Most you can get are not FCC approved so you never really know if they do what they say. The ones that are FCC approved are only sold to people who have a license...ie the cell companies again.

The antenna if you get one tune to the proper cell frequencies for the tower you want might work. The problem you have in your case is the huge amount of cable you will need. The cable is extremely expensive for cable that will not lose more signal that the antenna adds.

Do you have internet in your house. It is almost a scam but you can get what is called a micro cell. This creates a mini cell tower in your house just for you and connect to the cell company with a vpn over your internet. The scam part is they use your internet to provide the service but still count phone minutes and data usage against your cell plan. Obvisouly you should use wifi and not cell data in the house. Some vendors will actually give you a mircocell if you talk to them about poor coverage. They are not extremely expensive around $150 for most and most have no activation or monthly fee.

There is a landline but it's so far out in the country it's more like dial-up 1 mbs so I was trying to get better cell service to use a hotspot for my internet. I seen some modems online that you can attach 2 antennas a booster cable to and it also takes a SIM card from a carrier acting like a hotspot. So if I ran a 1000' of cable that might be okay? they just don't want signals bouncing a round off of poles? what kind of cable would I use for a thousand feet? I found a tower 2 miles away and at the ground it was a LTE -110 going through a bunch of trees so I'm guessing if I could get up 30-40 feet it might take it down to a -90. If I could get 10mbs down at the house I would be happy I just do a lot of surfing the web on a desktop

 

[bill001g]

Again the problem with antenna boosters is how do you know they don't sell you a box with nothing in it. The FCC both prevents illegal equipment but protects consumers by verifying that the devices actually do what they say.

The other problem is it is extremely expensive to make a microwave amplifier that will increase only the signals you want without also increasing background noise. The ones you see sold on sites that only sell to cell companies cost huge money compared to the junk you can direct import from china.

Microwave cable is extremely expensive. New cell technology the electronics are mounted in the antennas on top of tower rather than at the base to cut costs. You no longer see those huge black cables running up cell towers.

A example cable you would use is called LMR600. It cost around $2 per foot. It still has a db loss of 4db every 100ft at the frequencies commonly used for cell towers. It does not take much cable to eat all your antenna gains. If you are crazy you can get LMR1700 at about $20 per foot and your loss would drop to 1.5db per 100ft.

 

[catfishhoward]

Again the problem with antenna boosters is how do you know they don't sell you a box with nothing in it. The FCC both prevents illegal equipment but protects consumers by verifying that the devices actually do what they say.

The other problem is it is extremely expensive to make a microwave amplifier that will increase only the signals you want without also increasing background noise. The ones you see sold on sites that only sell to cell companies cost huge money compared to the junk you can direct import from china.

Microwave cable is extremely expensive. New cell technology the electronics are mounted in the antennas on top of tower rather than at the base to cut costs. You no longer see those huge black cables running up cell towers.

A example cable you would use is called LMR600. It cost around $2 per foot. It still has a db loss of 4db every 100ft at the frequencies commonly used for cell towers. It does not take much cable to eat all your antenna gains. If you are crazy you can get LMR1700 at about $20 per foot and your loss would drop to 1.5db per 100ft.

I actually found a spot on the property at -98 signal but I was amazed that it only had 1 mg and 300 KB. Once I put the weboost room on an antenna 10 ft high it took it down to a -85 with 3 mg and 1mg, but I could only get 10 feet from the booster at that signal I don't see how I could boost 1500 square foot inside my home since that was outside. Shouldn't the speed test be a lot better then that for LTE? The towers 2 miles away mostly open I think it's on the 13 band.