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Repeatedly my neighbors and friends have asked me “What can I do to improve my cell phone reception at home or in the car? This is the single, most cost effective solution. You need to use an external antenna.

For this to work, you must first have some signal present. If you are in an area where your cell phone never works, then you might be so far out of range that practical antennas won’t make a difference. But if you can see a bar or two on your phone’s signal meter, if you can occasionally make or receive a call, then an external antenna is exactly what you need. If you routinely drive through areas of weak coverage, an external antenna will make the difference between talking and saying “Huhh?”

Now when I say an external antenna, I don’t mean one of the “mickey mouse” stick-on cards. I’ve never seen one of those that work. You’ll also need a cell phone with an external antenna jack. Probably the most difficult part of this project is finding a phone with a rf jack. The wireless carriers don’t publish this info. When I went looking for a replacement phone, I had to walk into the store and look at the back of all the phones to find one with a jack. A lot of Nokias and Motorolas have them. Be aware that the Moto Razor V3XX has a very weak antenna switch. The rf jack on mine failed after about 2 months. The replacement that ATT sent didn’t have a functioning jack at all!

You might have some luck looking at the phone finder at PhoneScoop. Just check the box for your carrier and then scroll down and check the box next to extendable.
Update September 10, 2008: The fine folks at PhoneScoop enhanced their phone finder page to provide a better, more precise indication that a given phone has an external jack or not. After clicking the above link, click the “Show All Options” button. Select your carrier, and scroll down the page until you see “Data and Network. The second choice below is “External Antenna Jack”. Select “Require It” and then search. It is just that easy! Hearty thanks go to the people at PhoneScoop for this feature!

If you have a phone with an rf jack, then all you need is the antenna and an adapter. What kind of antenna you buy depends on what you want to do with it. There are antennas made with a magnetic base that is ideal for the roof of your car or pickup. These use the sheet metal roof as a ground plane. The antenna pictured above is manufactured by Wilson. This model is called the Trucker. It is designed to mount to a truck’s mirror bracket and has it’s own ground plane. I mounted it on a 15′ mast and enjoyed good cell phone coverage in an area that had marginal signal outdoors and no signal indoors.

I have bought antennas and adapters from Wpsantennas and Alternative Wireless. Both of these sites have a great deal of information available and both stores carry a lot of stock for quick shipping. Both stores provide great customer service. The wpsantennas site has a forum which is where I learned about the problem rf jacks on the V3XX.

The adapter is a short wire that takes the generic plug from the antenna coax and converts it to plug directly into your phone’s rf jack. They make induction adapters, but the one I tried didn’t work.

I believe this will get you started on doing your own site survey. Let me know if you have questions.

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