“All I want is a cell signal to use my phone and air card while in my RV”.
I looked into satellites systems and different phone companies trying to find a service that would allow me to talk to my office and work on the Internet while on the road in my RV. Satellite systems are nice when stationary, but they are very costly, the Internet is slow and they are too hard to set up when traveling. You can purchase automated systems that will locate and lock onto the satellite for you but they are expensive. Phone service is available through them but is drastically affected by weather. Cellular phones fade in and out during travel and no service when out of major city areas. So what are we to do?
For the portability and cost efficiency, we chose cellular service and found a method of maintaining effective affordable service just about anywhere your travels my take you.
If you would like, you can just select an amplifier kit that easily installs and will work under most conditions, but to get the best coverage for your particular needs, you should understand a little about the product and how it works. You would need a degree in electrical engineering to understand the terminology used by manufactures while researching cellular phone booster/amplifiers. When I first started looking into cell phone boosters, I read terms like 3G, 802.2, CDMA, EV-DO, GIS, GSM, iDEN, PCS, TDMA, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, VoIP, IP. Some of these I had heard of, but most I had no clue what they were talking about. “If your signal is weak the stronger and more powerful the boosters is, the better my cell phone will operate”. This is not always true.
First, what affects the signal to your cell phone, just about everything. Trees, wet trees, weather, brick siding on houses, metal siding, hills, electrical power lines, clouds and the most common is the distance from the cell tower. If you have at least one bar on your phone or are with-in about 50 miles of a cell tower, you can get cellular reception with the proper cell phone amplifier or booster. The FCC regulates the power output allowed on amplifiers so the proper combination is important to gain the strongest cellular signal.
We will start with mobile systems. In a car, Semi or RV you have limited space to arrange components. The more powerful the amplifier the more distance is required between the external antenna and the internal antenna so there is no oscillating interference with the signals.
For the best service you should use the Omni directional or Yagi directional antennas outside. With the Yagi directional antenna, you need to point it toward the cell tower to receive the proper signal. The Omni antenna receives the signal from all directions, but it also sends in all directions. This means the inside antenna can affect the signal if it is too close to the outside omni antenna. The proper distance between the antennas depends on the power of the cellular amplifier or booster. If using a more powerful cellular amplifier, it is recommended you use directional antennas. In RVs where a strong cellular signal may be needed, you may not know where the cell tower is. In this case you should use an omni external Dual-Band antenna and a directional inside Dual-Band antenna. This allows you to pick up the signal and use a powerful cellular amplifier and direct the inside signal away from the external antenna. In a car a powerful amplifier will not work well due to the length of the vehicle. A magnetic Dual-Band Omni directional antenna is perfect for outside with a medium power cell phone booster. If more than one person is going to use the signal, a low profile ultra slim Dual-Band inside antenna should be used. Any time a wireless connection is used, signal strength is less. If only one person is going to use the signal, a direct connection to the cell phone is more efficient. This can be accomplished with either a special phone cord adapter or a universal cell phone connector.
In a house or cabin, the set up is different. A cabin is stationary so a more powerful cellular amplifier can be used with a Yagi directional outside antennas and a dual band directional inside antenna so there is no interference with each antennas signal. If the location of a cell tower is not known, most all cell phones have a signal strength meter that can be used to locate the strongest signal. When hooked up to the system, the strongest signal will determine the direction of the cell tower.
When choosing a cellular amplifier, what do you look for? First, the FCC regulates the power allowed, so not to interfere with other frequencies. Look at the amplifier’s gain and power out. Gain is the number of times the power into the amplifier is increased at the out-put of the amplifier. Gain is expressed in db’s, a way to make large numbers easier to write. The maximum power out allowed is 3 watts. If too much gain is sent into 3 watts of power, the sound is distorted and power is wasted. Since we just want a cell phone amplifier not an education, just use 40 db’s as a max for automobiles and 50 db’s to 60 db’s for houses. Motor-homes can be considered either way, vehicle or house. On a powerful amplifier the distance needed for inside and outside Dual-Band Omni directional antennas is around 20 to 25 feet. If the Motor-home is shorter than that, a less powerful amplifier should be used or a Dual-Band directional inside antenna.
After reading this, I am sure you must be completely confused. If this is true, then give us a call and we can figure it out for you.