For seeing what's going on in your local RF landscape, you can't beat one of these:
I fully concur. They're a massive PITA.
For seeing what's going on in your local RF landscape, you can't beat one of these:
I fully concur. They're a massive PITA.
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You can pick 'em up second hand a lot cheaper than that! I'm assuming the OP doesn't need coverage much beyond 1Ghz so just a few hundred bucks and Bob's your uncle.
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He said his limit was $100.
An RTL SDR dongle would do it.
Cheaper ones are available.
There's free software to turn them into rectum paralysers.
Brian
-- Brian Howie
This would have been much easier if you would have specified the maker and full model of your Tracfone. Extra credit for supplying the FCC ID number. Once those are known, I can point to you a web pile that will provide what the phone is capable of doing. However, that won't tell you which bands your service provider is actually using in your area. For that information, you'll need to put the phone into the "field service mode" which includes a page showing the frequency band and channel number. For example: Tracfone is an MVNO (multi vendor network operator) which buys and resells airtime from multiple cellular vendors (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, and various smaller regional vendors). Unfortunately, Tracfone uses all of the aforementioned:
The previous suggestion of using a spectrum analyzer is a good one, but you don't need a $50,000 instrument. An RTL-SDR (software defined radio) receiver for about $15 is sufficient: Two problems. The typical SDR receiver does not cover the new higher frequencies used by some cell phones and the bandwidth of the SDR is only 2MHz making it difficult to sweep the entire range of frequencies required (700 to 2100 MHz). To do that, you'll need a more expensive ($100-$200) SDR receiver: If you're not familiar with computahs and working with RF instruments, I suggest you ignore this suggestion.
Yep. Tracfone bought Page Plus Cellular and the phone support suddenly became useless.
No recommendation. I have yet to find one that I like.
Your current "feature phone" is probably a 3G phone. Your new phone will probably need to be 4G (LTE). There are some LTE phones available, but I don't recall seeing one on the Tracfone site. Therefore, you'll need to find out which "feature phones" Tracfone considers acceptable before you spend any money.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
In the UK if your signal was too weak at home the mobile network would either allow you to use the Internet directly via wifi or if the phone can't do that a domestic nano-cell to route your phone calls.
The number of such remote not spots in the UK is now very small indeed.
If you posted the exact model number of the phone or RTFM you would find out what bands the phone is capable of. Hidden deep in its menus under the local cell information is some info about the local node. Sometimes this is enough to find out what that node is capable of supporting.
Is retransmitting mobile phone signals like this permitted in the USA?
I can see some dodgy Chinese booster messing up adjacent coverage.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
I had a similar problem with T-Mobile, but discovered they had covered my area with 700MHz "band 12". Old phones didn't do band 12, a new phone solved my problem. I had researched booster, was getting ready to pay $400 for good one, before solving the problem with new phones.
-- Thanks, - Win
Oops! Sorry, I didn't see that.
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Yes Jan, well you know what you're doing with this SDR stuff whereas I don't. I've never looked into it. To me, being able to receive radio signals without physical, reactive components is some form of advanced black magic.
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These sticks make great test equipment, now I need to test some LNB with a build in PLL from
24 MHz * 390 = 9360 MHz and 24 MHz * 426 = 10224 MHz Integrated in one chip.... RT320M The plan is now to hold an RTL-SDR stick with antenna next to the chip and look for the (hopefully) stable 9360 MHz and 10224 MHz line.Better than hanging from a dish on the wall outside in the rain with a bluetooth audio headset listening to variation in signals while moving the thing...
Those sticks are worth gold.
Make yourself a Lecher line
FCC approved signal boosters, repeaters, and such are tolerated: The big problem with the bi-directional amplifier type is that insufficient isolation between the two antennas involved can produce an oscillatory condition. There are patented circuits that will detect such oscillations and shut down the signal booster. These are required for FCC approval. I've had the displeasure of tracking down misbehaving signal boosters. The usual problems were the lack of a circuit to detect oscillations and/or improper antenna selection or installation.
Inside photos of an older zBoost YX510-pcs-cel signal booster:
The current situation may change if the proposed new rules are enacted: "FCC Relaxes Rules for Some Signal Boosters, Announces NPRM" These rules were inspired by the addition of new frequency bands and the wide spread installation of such boosters in public outdoor locations. I haven't been following this and suspect that some rules may have already changed or been enacted.
There are also range extenders, which are miniature cell sites that use the internet for a backhaul. These are sold by the various cell phone vendors. For example, Verizon: These have very limited range (about 20 meters) and are mostly used by homes and businesses to provide or improve indoor coverage. Since the backhaul terminates at the cellular vendor, they are limited to working with the cellular vendor system. They can be further setup to only work with specific phones (IMEI/MEID/ESN filter).
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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