Our family has a ranch outside of a Nordheim, Texas – population 307. Once you arrive, there is absolutely no cell phone coverage inside the house. You have to drive up to the road to send a text message. Even outside the house, people have been known to wander around to just send a text, while humorously holding their cell phone up in the air. I’ve never been that guy, but I’ve seen it. We had an AT&T landline that went from marginal to unusable. Instead of looking to repair the landline, we opted for a @wilsoncellular dB Pro 65 amplifier and antenna kit (Amazon link) – about $350 shipped. I grabbed my buddy and handyman rockstar, @chocov and we headed to the ranch.
We tested the signal strength outside on my @BlackBerry using the Diagnostic Test -106 dB.
The test inside was awful and unusable -256 dB.
Here’s the outdoor omni-directional antenna to pull the signal in.
@chocov installs the omni-directional antenna to the side of the house while my dad has us raised in the front bucket of the tractor. Thanks for being a steady hand while raising us in the air, pap!
My mom is on the ground entertaining us while we install.
@chocov installed an ac outlet in the attic to power the amplifier.
We put the amp in the attic after running the included 50′ coax cable from the outside antenna, then the other 30′ coax cable to the inside antenna.
@chocov drills a hole in the crown molding to mount the inside antenna to the wall to distribute the signal.
The inside antenna mounted on the wall. Clean!
The outside antenna installed next by the satellite antenna.
The final Diagnostic Test run is completed.
In the end, we have good coverage in the house with phone and 3G data services all thanks to Wilson Electronics. The next step in this process will likely be to move to a directional antenna. The omni-directional antenna is sufficient at present, but we can likely boost the power with a directional. Thank you to Glen for the help at tech support at Wilson for the suggested kit.