Cell Signal Extender

A while back I bought a cell signal extender. It turned out that the one I bought didn't work too well in my area. I had bought a zBoost YX500PCS. This works in the upper frequencies . It escapes me what frequency it was at, but it worked well for 3G internet connections, but not for phone calls (which I cross referenced on forums and it turns out that cell carriers sometimes split data and voice to take up more power on a certain frequency). I'm on Verizon Wireless, and in my area it seems VZW works on the ~800MHz range.

At any rate, I sold it on eBay and got a YX500CEL. I tested using it and saw a bar or two more on my Droid. When i placed a call, it would jump to four bars. My data went from RTTx1 to 3G. I put it away, and spent the next couple weeks thinking how to mount it. Outside would be best, but I live in an apartment on the bottom floor, and the walls outside seem to be made of a concrete of sorts. After further reading of the manual it also seems that I would have to ground the antenna for the extender. Even after all of that, I still would have to drill a whole to bring the coax inside from the antenna to the base, or get a window cable replacement that zBoost sells. Time to hit the manual again and see what my options were.

The manual says that the easiest way to setup is inside near a window. So I tried holding the antenna near a window and did some testing. Success! Good signal, and OK coverage. Had my wife check, and she didn't like seeing the coax hanging off of the curtain rod, so i took it down, but knew what I could do. The next day, I mounted it near the window, ran the coax through conduit I've laid out for my gigabit cabling i did a while back, and voila. All good, AND concealed behind a curtain.

So far, so good. I'm getting good coverage and wrote this blog on my Droid using only Blogaway and a 3G connection. The pics are the antenna mounted (revealed, and concealed) and the base.