Shitty Cell Phone Service

[Havoc737903]

I have a sprint Motorola Q. My room is in the basement (get all the basement dweller jokes out of your system now) and as such gets little to no service depending on where I am in my room. This is causing me great trouble and I'd rather be able to move freely in my room rather than be tethered to the window so I can get a bit of service.

Seeing as the Motorola Q has no external antenna connection, am I fuxored for getting any decent service in my room? I know of signal extenders that cost up wards of $300, but if I had $300 I wouldn't be making this post, or having this problem. I've seen people make their own external antenna for their cell phones before, but I believe that in their situation they had ext. ant. options.

Ideas?

[smokeymcpot420 2]

Call sprint?

[Havoc737903]

I hate talking to dot heads.

[oddballz194]

I've heard of do-it-yourself passive cell extenders intended to get a signal around an obstruction. It's a POSSIBLE option, although you might want to consider other options first.

Basically, you take two antennae and connect them with a length of cable -- mesh antennae preferred for the side that's going to be the "extension" (basically sorta like a wire mesh -- almost like window screen material). One of the antennae is in a place where you get a decent signal and the other is where you want signal. This works decently if you just need to move signals around obstructions (like concrete or steel walls), but it's useless for more than small range modifications since it doesn't increase signal power -- you'd need a bidirectional amplifier system for that.

However, if there's a place with moderate signal available in the area, it might just be sufficient -- signal strength usually drops more slowly in the cable than in air. Basically, you'd put one antenna outside through the window (preferably using the phone to find a spot where you get a strong signal) and the other somewhere else inside the room. If you have one stick antenna and a mesh antenna, the mesh would go inside and the stick outside -- point the mesh towards where you're most likely to want to use the phone.

(Note that you need the correct type of cable for the frequency range involved, and the correct type of antennae, of course. You also want the cable to be as close to an exact multiple of the wavelength of the signal as possible, in order to produce the least strain on your transmitters and provide the best signal propagation, IIRC.)