I started a new, awesome job lately, but there is one crappy aspect: basically no Wind service inside the building (this is at Production Way and Lougheed in Burnaby). Outside, you generally get 4 bars. By the windows in the building, you can get 3 bars, at the very worst no bars but very much usable for voice, text, and data. In the main work area, yeah, ocassionally you'll pick up a zero bar connection, but that's rare, it's basically no service. Since it's always looking for a signal, it murders my battery. Sure I could turn it off, or go into airplane mode, but frankly, I'd rather just have it work.
It's not just Wind that sucks either. Rogers is pretty much non-existant for signal as well. My co-worker on Rogers for the most part holds a zero-bar connection, but it goes into no service quite often as well. I was hoping Rogers would've had a usable signal, then, as much as I love Wind and my HMP, I could get the $50 unlimited talk/text/data from Petro Canada. That's basically a no-go. Bell/Telus get a really strong signal. I looked at a tower map, both Wind and Rogers have towers in similar spots, one by Lake City and one by Lougheed mall. Bell/Telus have one two blocks away.
If one of the Bell/Telus sub-brands or MVNOs had unlimited at $50-60, I'd probably switch. Unless I'm missing something, that's not the case. I thought I might be able to get something quite usable with Virgin, $35 for Canada-wide minutes, 200 daytime, e/w at 5pm, unlimited text/picture, unlimited to 10 numbers, and, since my data use is generally under 1GB, that's basically a no-worries plan at $55. But of course, there's the *******ed $10 VM/CID charge. Screw that. Sure, that's only $60 over the year, but that's also $300 over what I'm paying with Wind for a superior plan. I love Wind, I wish I didn't have to look at other carriers, but no signal where one spends 33% of his day sucks. Nowadays it's extremely rare that I find dead spots in the GVR other than where I'm working.
That's why I'm thinking about a repeater. Whether or not they'd let me do it at work, I don't know. Me supplying the equipment would probably make it more likely to happen. Going the repeater route would pay for itself in under a year, would let me keep my HMP, and would keep my money out of Robelus' hands. The reason I'm inquiring about a repeater's ability first is due to one serious problem with this plan: the "input" side of the repeater works best outside. Being on the second floor, in rented space, an antenna outside just isn't happening. Would an antenna by a window that's getting decent signal work well as the input? The indoor antenna and the repeater itself I really don't see being an issue. There needs to be some distance between the "input" antenna and the repeater and indoor antenna, but I don't see this being an issue. We have false ceilings in the office, we could probably even hide that in the ceiling with minimal effort and no damage to the rented space.
So, with basically a 0% chance of putting the outdoor antenna outdoors, is my repeater plan dead in the water?
The indoor nipple antenna amuses me. The yagi is a directional antenna so some experimentation might be required to find the strongest signal.
I don't know enough about this tech to say how effective this repeater will be or if it will work well. Very interested in reading about your results. Good luck!
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Tough to tell if it will work. The Yagi antenna is indeed for an external mount, and sounds like from your second floor it may not be an option. I needed coverage too for my basement home office. I picked up a Cel-Fi from Nexitivity. Easy setup, reasonable wide signal spread. Guess what....I now have full bars and WIND coverage across all floors of the home including the basement. It is pricier, so only you can determine the ROI. Nextivity will also accept returns if it does not fit your bill. Failing that if you need to flip carriers, Koodo (on TELUS) or Virgin (on Bell) will give you unlimited voice plans+ VM+ 2GB Data. Yep it will cost you $85.00 per month. The payback on Cel-Fi for WIND would be 12 months based on the $85.00 alternative.
The same situation here. No service inside my building at the corner of Wireless Way and No. 6 Richmond. Luckily I called Wind during lunch break today and was told there would be a tower nearby in service soon. I did get very strong signals two weeks ago during Wind tested the tower which is just 20 meters away from my spot. Hopefully what CS @ Wind said is true.
I will update.
I started a new, awesome job lately, but there is one crappy aspect: basically no Wind service inside the building (this is at Production Way and Lougheed in Burnaby). Outside, you generally get 4 bars. By the windows in the building, you can get 3 bars, at the very worst no bars but very much usable for voice, text, and data. In the main work area, yeah, ocassionally you'll pick up a zero bar connection, but that's rare, it's basically no service. Since it's always looking for a signal, it murders my battery. Sure I could turn it off, or go into airplane mode, but frankly, I'd rather just have it work.
It's not just Wind that sucks either. Rogers is pretty much non-existant for signal as well. My co-worker on Rogers for the most part holds a zero-bar connection, but it goes into no service quite often as well. I was hoping Rogers would've had a usable signal, then, as much as I love Wind and my HMP, I could get the $50 unlimited talk/text/data from Petro Canada. That's basically a no-go. Bell/Telus get a really strong signal. I looked at a tower map, both Wind and Rogers have towers in similar spots, one by Lake City and one by Lougheed mall. Bell/Telus have one two blocks away.
If one of the Bell/Telus sub-brands or MVNOs had unlimited at $50-60, I'd probably switch. Unless I'm missing something, that's not the case. I thought I might be able to get something quite usable with Virgin, $35 for Canada-wide minutes, 200 daytime, e/w at 5pm, unlimited text/picture, unlimited to 10 numbers, and, since my data use is generally under 1GB, that's basically a no-worries plan at $55. But of course, there's the *******ed $10 VM/CID charge. Screw that. Sure, that's only $60 over the year, but that's also $300 over what I'm paying with Wind for a superior plan. I love Wind, I wish I didn't have to look at other carriers, but no signal where one spends 33% of his day sucks. Nowadays it's extremely rare that I find dead spots in the GVR other than where I'm working.
That's why I'm thinking about a repeater. Whether or not they'd let me do it at work, I don't know. Me supplying the equipment would probably make it more likely to happen. Going the repeater route would pay for itself in under a year, would let me keep my HMP, and would keep my money out of Robelus' hands. The reason I'm inquiring about a repeater's ability first is due to one serious problem with this plan: the "input" side of the repeater works best outside. Being on the second floor, in rented space, an antenna outside just isn't happening. Would an antenna by a window that's getting decent signal work well as the input? The indoor antenna and the repeater itself I really don't see being an issue. There needs to be some distance between the "input" antenna and the repeater and indoor antenna, but I don't see this being an issue. We have false ceilings in the office, we could probably even hide that in the ceiling with minimal effort and no damage to the rented space.
So, with basically a 0% chance of putting the outdoor antenna outdoors, is my repeater plan dead in the water?
Interesting, please report back your results if you go through with it.
I've been nagging Wind for months to offer a repeater or femtocel device, but they haven't gotten back to me.
Full bars outside, and between 0 and 2 bars inside.
It was a unit being shipped out of China . I wonder if it was FCC approved . FCC has said they were going to start cracking down on non approved amplifiers . JDTeck does have FCC approved AWS amplifiers.
Because bad boosters screw up the carriers network , They can lock up cell towers totally and knock other users off the network to name a few problems.
Originally Posted by killer007
um....will all these strong signal cause cancer or soemthing?
why doesn't FCC need to approve all these?
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Originally Posted by rustybob
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