Markus

OK, as anyone who has tried to call me will know, my reception on my mobile when I'm at home is crap. If I'm sitting in front of the computer then I can get and just about send txt msgs, but as for calls? forget it, I need to stand halfway down the garden, and I'm being serious.

Orange say there is bog all that they can do, tis just bad luck basically.

Is there anything I can do to improve signal strength? any little electronic boosters or anything? if so then what and where.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Buy a car kit (+12v adaptor) & mount the aerial on something with a ground-plane - like a radiator or pipework.

2 things potentially going for you

1) Increased power output/reception due to "fixed power" (non-battery) nature of setup = increased output wattage.

2) Potentially better reception due to more efficient aerial.

Or ask for a base station near to you

But you could also ask to have a premi-cell installed & use that instead of yur mobile - costly?

HHxx

If you can just get a signal, use a headset and hold the phone away from yourself. It might work, worth a try

H

Markus

Cheers chaps. The mobile car kit sounds groovy, might give that a go.

I do have a handset, so might give that a shot as well.

howardb

As Puff has said, get a car kit and fit a decent external antenna. The phone is probably putting out as much power as it can as it should be negotiating with the base station. If you need help getting a decent antenna let me know.

Shark

Change networks?

Get people in that you know with the other networks to try it first.

David

MarkO

Being stuck in the basement of my office means I had the same problem. I tried a long signal-booster aerial (passive, not active) but it made F-all difference. In the end I moved to Vodafone, which works slightly better (but not much).

Out of interest, don't you have a land-line? Or is the money situation really that bad?

[Edited by MarkO - 7/29/2002 8:49:44 AM]

Markus

Ok, thing is I'm in a 12 month contract with Orange, so can't move. Have emaild and explained I'm not at all happy, but tis not a lot they can/will do about it. Which I can understand.

Annyoning thing is my vodafone PAYT phone worked ace at home, go to oragne (tarrifs and other reasons) and it does not work at home, and the independant coverage guide put voda in a lower coverage range than orange (which was the highest!) go figure!

Mark - I do have a landline, but well, I use that for internet connection, and can't get ADSL at the mo hence it would be nice to use the phone at home. Plus with a mobile i could wander off if I wanted ultimate privacy, not that I don't get that.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Markus

Change your l/line to Home Highway - faster connection + spare phone line...

BigGT3Fan

Markus,

Someone told me once that Orange run on a difference frequency to the other UK networks 900 instead of 1800 Hz of some order of magnitude.

Apparently this makes little or no difference in any circumstance, except that Orange signals don't penetrate buildings as well. I live in an old, very solid walled house and have the same problem with my Orange phone, where other networks work.

This is slap bang in the centre of Bristol, so there are no coverage issues. Might be a complete red-herring but I think it is true.

HTH,




Alex

boomer

markus,

could you not put one of those "anti-radiation" covers on inside out

mb

howardb

From memory, Orange works on 1800 MHz and has half the power output of the other providers. This will explain your problems.

BigGT3Fan

OK, so I got it the wrong way round

Basically this doesn't ever cause me a problem except inside buildings....



Alex

Tinsta

what about getting a phone with a bluetooth handsfree? that way you can have the phone roughly 10-15m away... might be worth a shot.. check out ebay for any offers...

[Edited by Tinsta - 7/30/2002 2:31:26 PM]

boomer

orange use less power, but have much smaller cells - which more than compensates

mb (from an iPAQ connected to orange!)

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

mb

Are you using VNC, via VPN? If so, having some probs with getting it connected Any help would be good

boomer

Puff,

i bought a cable from The Link today (first time i have seen 'em!) - it is the "Konnect mobile PDA suite (powered by Kondor)" and cost fifty quid

They have one for the iPAQ and one for the Palm (and connect to the Nokia 6310, 6210 or 7110). It is actually two bits of wire/plugs that join, so i might try to get just the Palm bit for my other gadget.

As well as the wires, you get a CD that does all the clever stuff (drivers etc) to auto-sync with the PDA. Despite the unfriendlyness and lack of control that Pocket PC gives you, i managed to get it installed.

I tried the 07973-100666 number that Orange provide to connect directly to my ISP (Demon) via PPP, but it couldn't get it to work. It kept saying that there was no dial tone, which is no surprise when effectively connecting over ISDN!

Support (hah!! they don't support iPAQs or Orange) suggested i tried an analogue number instead, and hey presto it worked. I have no idea what speed i was going at though

However, turn of images (Pocket PC IE setting) and you can download reasonably quickly. My first attempt (when i posted above - including reading, replying then re-reading) only took 6 minutes.

I need to play some more though!!

What setup are you using?

mb

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

iPaq 3870 + T39 BT

I'm all connected to surf etc

boomer

Just to let you know that it appears that i need some special modem initialisation sequece (e.g. "AT+CBST=75,0,1") to talk down the Orange ISDN line - so time for a spot Google-ing.

No need for VPNs for me!

...and Markus only had problems with reception

mb

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Forgot to add - GPRS

All that stuff works well, connecting, speed, browsing etc but prob I have is that I can VPN into the office NP, but can't VNC to control my servers What's more is that it seems to FU my normal PC browser based VNC to boot