Evidently my house is the one dead zone that Verizon is not aware of. As such, I can't use my cellphone at home with any degree of certainty.
Having heard about home cell phone "boosters", does anyone have any experience with them? Is there anything out there that could boost the reception I get while inside my house?
No direct experience with using such but I have looked into them in the past. Here are some bookmarks that i saved.
http://www.alternativewireless.com/index.html
http://www.spotwave.com/residential/products/z1900.asp
http://www.wi-exstore.com/MyCart/FeaturedItems.aspx
Your other choice may just be to go to another carrier. Your reception is based on your relationship to the carriers tower. Seems you are too far from Verizon's tower. Another carrier may have one closer to you which will reach inside your home.
There are wired versions and unwired. The wired requires that you plug into a fixed antenna any time you wish to speak inside the house.
Wi-Ex ZBoost.
Verizon/Alltel is the big dog in Gainesville and you live off of the aptly named "Tower Road", it's nuts that you have a hard time getting ANY signal.
Call Verizon. I had a similar issue, and somehow, they fixed it.
Maybe, just maybe... All the lead protective lining you installed in the house to protect you from the black helicopters hovering overhead is causing the cellular interference.
I forget how but you can reset which cell phone tower your phone looks for through your phone. It worked well for me when I had this problem in Ocala. Where you are in G-ville, you shouldn't have that problem.
Found a link. Here ya go: http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/telecommunications/verizon-tips.html
Dr. Hess wrote:Wi-Ex ZBoost.
This is the one I've looked at so far. Any direct experience good Doctor?
John Brown wrote:Maybe, just maybe... All the lead protective lining you installed in the house to protect you from the black helicopters hovering overhead is causing the cellular interference.
I think it's the rotor wash personally.
Rangeball wrote:I forget how but you can reset which cell phone tower your phone looks for through your phone. It worked well for me when I had this problem in Ocala. Where you are in G-ville, you shouldn't have that problem.
Found a link. Here ya go: http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/telecommunications/verizon-tips.html
Hey...it's worth a try. I'll give it a shot.
Yeah, I've got one. It does work. I never set it up properly with the main antennae outside. I got it mainly to boost my cell phone internet card, but that is now 3G and the zboost doesn't support 3G. I bought an external antennae for my internet dongle and it helped a lot. The phone people re-did the network and I'm getting better signals now. Almost reliable. I plan on putting the zboost up at my second house, which is a double wide trailer. Just haven't got to it yet.
Your problem is not one of distance but one of line of sight. There's something in the way of your phone and the cell tower. I've had a similar problem before, when you're in a valley or the other side of a hill the signal won't reach you cause signals radiate out from the tower. They will bounce some but you're not in a good spot for that. So get that extender on the roof or see if verizon has something similar to tmobile where your Internet router through them will act as a cell.
Any luck?
Dr. Hess wrote:Yeah, I've got one. It does work. I never set it up properly with the main antennae outside. I got it mainly to boost my cell phone internet card, but that is now 3G and the zboost doesn't support 3G. I bought an external antennae for my internet dongle and it helped a lot. The phone people re-did the network and I'm getting better signals now. Almost reliable. I plan on putting the zboost up at my second house, which is a double wide trailer. Just haven't got to it yet.
giggle 
