[Stockmarket]

How do you solve the problem of low reception in-home? Is there an external antenna I can hook up? Where do I purchase such? Do I have to mount it on my roof (please say no)? I've done a Tcentral search but something is wrong with the Wilson website. Any other suggestions?

Please and thank you.

[gtwo]

I have 4 bars of service in my front yard and 2 bars of service in my basement under a two story aluminum sided over original wood siding house.

Your problem may be more carrier related than Treo related. If you start with less than full bars in your front yard (or back) you will have a problem in or under the house.

Not steel framed, is it?

[Mark Bergman]

http://wilsonelectronics.com has the adapter and antennas and their web site is working. the prvious response is right on the money. If you don't have a good signal outside your home, you wont have a good signal inside. Assuming a good signal outside, you may have good luck with an antenna on the second floor (inside) or even in a window. (don't try to use a through the glass antenna on a double pane residential window- it wont work).
Mark

[NRG]

Call your carrier and complain. I did this cause at my gf apt. was cell phone pit (no service). I called sprint and told them that the reception here sucks a** and can you do something about it. Well sure enough a week later I was taking and making calls on 4 bars. So I say call the gestapo and tell them your service sucks.

[gtwo]

If they have a tower in the area, they may be able to boost it's power. If they need a new tower in the area, good luck.

[NRG]

If they have a tower in the area, they may be able to boost it's power. If they need a new tower in the area, good luck.

That's why I said call.

[Stockmarket]

Thanks to all. It's not an aluminum house. We'll try to to call Sprint first. I don't want to waste the money on an antenna if it's not going to work. I get dropped calls in the backyard, on the second floor, etc. It just seems like a weak signal to me. I thought an antenna would at least allow me to make calls out of my home office without the worry of dropping a call.

[brnz]

I have a problem with weak reception inside the house. But the reception is OK outside the house or by a window. I now leave the Treo by the window and use a bluetooth headset to make calls. The Treo is plugged into my laptop a few feet away via the USB cable. I use PDAReach to control the Treo remotely from my PC.

[jeffgibson]

You could also use phone forwarding depending on your carrier and its cost for forwarding.

CradleCare will allow you to automatically forward your phone based on many differnt triggers (time of day, seeing external power, seeing a computer connection). These triggers will also automatically unforward the phone when the trigger is removed.

So for example, if you plug your treo into a charging cable/cradle and it is 5pm mon-fri, the phone will forward to home. You can specify 5 differnt conditions with 5 different phone numbers.

If this sounds like a solution for you, give CradleCare a try.

Jeff

[TreoDaddeo6]

I have a problem with weak reception inside the house. But the reception is OK outside the house or by a window. I now leave the Treo by the window and use a bluetooth headset to make calls. The Treo is plugged into my laptop a few feet away via the USB cable. I use PDAReach to control the Treo remotely from my PC.

thats EXACTLY what i do

[Wireless_Guru]

I use one of these http://www.wpsantennas.com/index.asp...ROD&ProdID=284 with an external magnetic mount antenna (also available from the same website) and found a sweet spot in my office where reception is good with the external antenna.

[gsupp]

There's also http://www.wirelessextenders.com/ (wireless signal booster.) A little on the expensive side, but keeps your Treo wireless. http://www.solidsignal.com sells them for less than retail.

[Gaurav]

There are a bunch of products out there:

http://www.cellantenna.com/Boosters/...l_boosters.htm

http://www.wpsantennas.com/index.asp...WPROD&ProdID=2

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_disp...PROD=YX500-PCS

I haven't tried them myself, but I would be very interested in the experiences of anyone who has! tx..

[Rockon]

Sounds like a good idea for me too. What is the minimum external bar count required for thee things? I'm marginal outside.

[wktaylor]

I know the gsm 650 uses a quad band radio, but what frequency does Cingular use here in the US?

[wktaylor]

UPDATE:
I've found that Cingular uses SYSTEM: 1900 MHz GSM / GPRS (TDMA) 3G: EDGE in my area. The wireless extender says it uses the 1900mhz PCS system. Now I'm confused about the PCS moniker. I thought it was a sprint (aka cdma) thing. Is PCS something else? Where am I going astray?

[wktaylor]

I'm just having my own little conversation with myself here.
http://www.wirelessadvisor.com/cellular-phones-pcs.cfm
Info on PCS (just digital/ not analog)
and
http://www.wirelessadvisor.com/
to see what's in your area. I think I'll get one of these for my Cingular service. I have one of the Wilson antennas w/ pigtails. It works, barely, but is a pain in the a**.

[mediasi]

How do you solve the problem of low reception in-home?

I actually open the door and step outside.

Seriously, though, I get decent reception indoors - much better on the Treo than any other phone I've used. I rarely get a disconnect - it usually happens when, like and *****, I turn on the microwave and stand by it.

Pamela

[Wireless_Guru]

In most areas Cingular uses 850Mhz to listen for calls, then switches to 1900Mhz during the call if there is a strong signal. If there is a weak signal it will stay on 850Mhz. So for Cingular I think you would need a dual-band repeater.

[v3treonut]

If you have a really weak signal inside your home I doubt if your carrier will help you much no matter what they do unless they put another tower near you, like almost next door. Depending on the circumstances, that may not even help.

I have a friend near me in the Atlanta area that has always experienced this on what was Bellsouth, made a switch to AT&T, now back to Cingular as I did. I've always had fairly good signal strength. He's two miles from me and has awful signal strength inside and adequate strength outside. We have several towers near with the closest ones within five miles of us both. It was so important for him to have coverage inside his home, he went the expensive route and purchased an external antenna with dual repeaters. It all worked, but he ended up spending a considerable sum of money to get everything needed to make it work. It was far more than what he thought it would cost initially.

If you end up seriously considering an antenna solution do your homework first. If you don't, you can easily end up spending a lot of money for not much help with your signal.

It's surprising to me, but my Treo has better signal strength inside my home than any phone I've owned and it's better than my Razr or my wife's Moto v551.