Comments on: The ARC Wireless Solutions Freedom Antenna Review

By: Judie Lipsett Hughes

Judie Lipsett Hughes — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:29:50 +0000

Ha! I would hug the chimney on top of a ladder in 100 mph winds if that call would really come through.

By: oops46

oops46 — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:07:58 +0000

I can see it now. Long long ago, on a dark and cold snowy night Judie gets one of the most important calls of her life! Never being deterred, she puts her trusty Sears ladder up against the house and climbs ever upward in the 60 mph winds! Undaunted, she grips the chimney with all her might waiting for “that call.” Sort of like the Statue of Liberty, she seen her duty and she did it!
The call came through, the war with Iraq is over! Thank goodness for such perseverance!

By: Lex

Lex — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 10:14:51 +0000

This company has well made external auto and home/building cell antennas and amps. A car antenna bought me one extra bar. (unamplified) See: http://www.wpsantennas.com/

By: Jerry Raia

Jerry Raia — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:11:10 +0000

You bring up a good point, however, the average user isn’t going to look at the -db reading (or even know what it is). They will look at the bars or stand in their favorite dead spot to see if the device made any difference.

By: pji

pji — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:23:58 +0000

There are a few good repeaters and signal boosters out there that act like a mini cell tower. I have a client in a 500,000 sq/ft warehouse that uses Spotwave products to increase cell reception throughout the, windowless, steel and concrete building.

A REAL signal repeater will not require direct connection to your device. They’re becoming more reasonably priced, but the last time I checked they were still $400+.

By: sixftunda

sixftunda — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 10:47:40 +0000

Using the number of bars on your screen as a measure of signal strength is misleading. I have run different programs on my phone (i730) that will display more or less bars even though my received signal was the same. Received signal is whats important. Most every phone should have some sort of field test mode you can access (**debug on my i730). There will be a number, which is the -db reading, that will refresh every few seconds and the lower it is the better reception your phone will have. Generally my phone runs in the mid 80′s, when it hits 95 or above then you will get a dropped call. When I had a xv6700 and was using custom roms there were a few roms that had my received signal up in the 90′s all the time. I couldn’t make or take a call at all. You should try getting a running average of this before and after using the antenna. Jerry is right with what he said about antennas, but there are better ways of getting a true reading of how strong the signal is you are getting.