Interference from antenna and booster

jayc

Texas-South Chapter Leaders
I was surfing around on the Escapees forum and read a post there about someone that is using the Wilson antenna and booster. They did not identify the model of either.

They went on to say that they are parked in an Elks lodge parking lot using their Verizon air card and the Wilson antenna and booster when a Verizon engineer knocked on their door and said that he was trying to track down something interfering with their close by cell site. The interference was causing a lot of cell phone drops and noisy calls. He had tracked the problem to right where they were parked. He went on to tell them the problem comes up every morning around 7 am and stops every evening around 10 pm and the times coincided with when they plugged in and disconnected their booster. They disconnected it for him and the interference stopped. When they plugged it back in the interference was back. He had some high powered monitoring equipment in his car and showed them the results of the tests on his scope.

Who knew that the Wilson booster is strong enough to play havoc with Verizon cell sites and service.
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
Hmm, yea, I heard the same story from my half sisters, third cousin, One Eyed Eddie. Seems that his sister in laws, step nephews, wife had the same problem. And I believe it...........Not,

Peace
Dave
 

Ray LeTourneau

Senior Member - Past Moderator
Now you have me wondering if a router can cause a problem as well. We have Alltel for phone and Verizon for the USB modem in a cradlepoint router. We were set up in a campground near I88 in Rock Falls IL. we kept dropping calls with our Alltel phone but have never had a problem before in that area. I may test it this fall to see if there may be a difference. It might not have caused long range problems for others in the area because of the lack of the booster. But in the trailer, maybe???
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
Ray, your router opperates on the 2.4 GHz band. The cell phones opperate somewhere else. PCS 1850-1990 MHz, GSM 869-894 MHz, CDMA 824-849 MHz. Some cordless home phones, baby monitors, security cameras and microwave ovens opperate at 2.4 MHz and may cause interference within the 2.4 MHz band, but should have no influence on your cell phone. And don't forget about the city wide WIFI that some have gone to. If routers were a problem with cell phones everybody in town would be dropping calls. I have two wireless routers in the house, including one Cradlepoint and have no issues with dropped calls on either cell phone. You need to get rid of that old analog phone. :)

Peace
Dave
 

Ray LeTourneau

Senior Member - Past Moderator
Ray, your router opperates on the 2.4 GHz band. The cell phones opperate somewhere else. PCS 1850-1990 MHz, GSM 869-894 MHz, CDMA 824-849 MHz. Some cordless home phones, baby monitors, security cameras and microwave ovens opperate at 2.4 MHz and may cause interference within the 2.4 MHz band, but should have no influence on your cell phone. And don't forget about the city wide WIFI that some have gone to. If routers were a problem with cell phones everybody in town would be dropping calls. I have two wireless routers in the house, including one Cradlepoint and have no issues with dropped calls on either cell phone. You need to get rid of that old analog phone. :)

Peace
Dave
Dave, I was basically grabbing at straws because I've never had an issue in that area before this year. The only differences from past visits are the Verizon USB/Cradlepoint set-up and my NEW Alltel phone. I've had a Motorola razr for the last 2 years with US Cellular without issue. Now that I have Alltel, things have gone downhill. The Verizon is useless (slower thatn dial up) in WI Rapids and the Alltel, well that's a whole nuther story. While we were at the Dells last weekend, the Verizon was better than the campground wi-fi.
 

AlexSian

Mobile Broadband Consultant
I was surfing around on the Escapees forum and read a post there about someone that is using the Wilson antenna and booster
it turned out to be a wilson signalboost dt wireless repeater that 3gstore sold him.

after reading about his experience, i contacted wilson electronics and the owner, jim wilson, told me that earlier models of the DT did not have cell tower proximity detection, but newer ones now do.

jim wilson said to offer our customer a free reprogramming of his unit, and i'm now waiting to hear back from the customer to make those arrangements.

going forward, when i sell the signalboost dt to RVers, i'm going to remind them NOT to just automatically deploy their repeater when they get to a destination, and to first check to see if they already have good signal from a nearby cell tower. no point in deploying gear that isn't needed.
 
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