Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 04:30:17 PST From: Ham-Ant Mailing List and Newsgroup Errors-To: Ham-Ant-Errors@UCSD.Edu Reply-To: Ham-Ant@UCSD.Edu Precedence: Bulk Subject: Ham-Ant Digest V94 #74 To: Ham-Ant Ham-Ant Digest Mon, 21 Mar 94 Volume 94 : Issue 74 Today's Topics: CELLULAR PHONES-How increment reception? Send Replies or notes for publication to: Send subscription requests to: Problems you can't solve otherwise to brian@ucsd.edu. Archives of past issues of the Ham-Ant Digest are available (by FTP only) from UCSD.Edu in directory "mailarchives/ham-ant". We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official policies or positions of any party. Your mileage may vary. So there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Mar 1994 11:41:02 -0500 From: hp81.prod.aol.net!search01.news.aol.com!not-for-mail@uunet.uu.net Subject: CELLULAR PHONES-How increment reception? To: ham-ant@ucsd.edu Well, you don't give too much information on what your exact situation is, but I'll assume: 1. You have a portable (hand-held) phone 2. The problem is that the cell site can't hear you, and not the other way around. Issue 2 is the real question: when you activate the signal strength indicator on your phone, how many "bars" (or whatever) light up? It's most likely that you can hear the setup channels from the cell site, but on the reverse path (portable to cell) the site receiver can't pick you out. Portable phones only have 0.6W of maximum output power; mobile (car phones) are 3W. If your phone is a portable, about the only thing you can do is (1) raise transmit power or (2) improve antenna (any other "big" solution eliminates the portability of your phone). Either of these are technically possible but I can't say that I know of an accessory manufacturer that makes hi-power portables or high-gain portable antennas. The problem with increasing transmit power is that your already short-lived battery will really dissipate rapidly at the 3W output level. A higher gain antenna (similar to the coil-loaded jobs on cars) would help, but mechanically mating it to the portable would be a problem. The older Motorola series 8000-9000 phones would be easy, but the newer flip phones would be almost impossible. So in a nutshell: you're probably out of luck! ------------------------------ End of Ham-Ant Digest V94 #74 ******************************