Krupski school me on cell bands.

[1 Patriot-of-many]

I have Verizon, I looked up the bands it operates on 3G 850/1900 4G 700 band 13, 1900 band2, 1700/2100 band4
Does the cell tower operate on all those bands at the same time? How do I know what amplifier I should get if not?
I have an S5 galaxy that says GSM:

850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz

UMTS:

[+]
850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz

Can I pick any of the frequencies that my phone supports for the amplifier, though i would have to check the other two phones in my family to see what they operate on, correct? before buying an amplifier. I see amplifier systems that are single band and multiband so this is really confusing to me.

[1 Patriot-of-many]

Okay i figured it out. My area cell is using 700 mhz band 13. I found an app for the phone, pretty cool little app, shows where the tower is, how far it is, and what frequencies your phone is using with it. It's called LTE Discovery. I found numerous amplifier kits from $70-$100 on ebay . I'm gonna go ahead and try one, They come with yagi antenna, 30 meters of coax, amplifier and indoor antenna. Didn't notice any difference just using the antennas hooked up together, mounted on my gazebo, so I'm going all the way up to rooftop with the yagi antenna. The tower 4 miles away apparently isn't the one my phone is communicating with, it's about 6-7 miles away and south instead of east as I thought. I might need more than 30 foot that comes with the kit, how much difference will it make adding more coax?

[l921428x]

Cool 1 Pat. Keep up the updates because I think I am starting
to figure out what you are talking about. Maybe......

[LAGC]

I thought Verizon and Sprint used CDMA, not GSM?

I know Verizon sells those canned signal boosters for $199 (after $50 Visa giftcard rebate):

https://www.verizonwireless.com/acce...gnal-boosters/

But if you can do it cheaper by building it yourself, more power to you.

[Krupski]

Okay i figured it out. My area cell is using 700 mhz band 13. I found an app for the phone, pretty cool little app, shows where the tower is, how far it is, and what frequencies your phone is using with it. It's called LTE Discovery. I found numerous amplifier kits from $70-$100 on ebay . I'm gonna go ahead and try one, They come with yagi antenna, 30 meters of coax, amplifier and indoor antenna. Didn't notice any difference just using the antennas hooked up together, mounted on my gazebo, so I'm going all the way up to rooftop with the yagi antenna. The tower 4 miles away apparently isn't the one my phone is communicating with, it's about 6-7 miles away and south instead of east as I thought. I might need more than 30 foot that comes with the kit, how much difference will it make adding more coax?

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I'm building new basement stairs (the old ones are a hazard to step on lately).

Amyway.... your Samsung GS5 supports GSM (a.k.a. "2G"), HSDPA (a.k.a. 3GPP or "3G plus-plus"), LTE (a.k.a. "4G") and GPRS (i.e. "data" such as watching movies or playing games).

Verizon uses CDMA (which is basically a "3G GSM"). Your phone (actually all cell phones) can communicate with any technology... it's just a matter of how the phone and/or the SIM card is programmed.

By the way, those "G" standards (like 3G and 4G) simply mean "third generation, fourth generation", etc... (the G is "generation").

All of those standards operate in the range of 800 MHz to 2100 MHz (or 0.8 to 2.1 GHz). It's interesting to know that a home microwave oven runs at around 2.4 GHz, so sometimes a microwave can interfere with or even block out cellular communications.

When you talk about an amplifier "kit", do you mean an actual kit (parts that you have to solder and assemble)? If so, I would heartily suggest NOT going that route. Microwave amplifiers are very finicky as to the actual construction and layout of parts (a lot of times, a TRACE on a circuit board is an impedance matching transformer!). A cheap-o Chinese DIY kit is likely to be a disappointment.

If the "kit" is a pre-built amplifier with an antenna, coax cable, etc... that you just have to install, that's OK. Note that a Yagi antenna is very directional. You must point it DIRECTLY at the cell tower you plan to use (withing a few degrees of left-right and up-down). You do this by using something to measure signal strength (maybe your phone itself) then move the antenna around for the strongest signal.

To your question about coax... first of all, the longer the coax, the more signal loss you get. If you need more than 30 feet, then how MUCH more? 10 or 15 feet more is no problem, but more than that will negate the benefit of the amplifier.

Secondly (and more importantly), you need to be sure that you get microwave coax (that is, the thin stuff with TEFLON insulation and silver plated wire). The reason is that the Teflon has MUCH less loss than polyethylene that cheap coax uses, and more importantly, RF travels on the outside of a wire only (look up "skin effect"). Microwave coax uses silver plated copper stranded wire so that there is better conduction (lower resistance - less loss) on the skin of the wire (where the silver plating is) and teflon insulation (for MUCH less signal loss at high frequencies).

Cheap copper and polyethylene coax is USELESS at UHF and microwave frequencies. Unfortunately, teflon microwave coax is expensive (ranges from $1 per meter to $20 per meter - the Chinese stuff as Alibaba is probably the lowest price... $0.45 to $1.00 per meter).

Sadly, if you want the thing to actually WORK, you need to use the teflon/silver cable. Don't even waste your time with polyethylene/copper cable.

Anything else you want to know, please feel free to ask.

-- Roger

[1 Patriot-of-many]

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I'm building new basement stairs (the old ones are a hazard to step on lately).

Amyway.... your Samsung GS5 supports GSM (a.k.a. "2G"), HSDPA (a.k.a. 3GPP or "3G plus-plus"), LTE (a.k.a. "4G") and GPRS (i.e. "data" such as watching movies or playing games).

Verizon uses CDMA (which is basically a "3G GSM"). Your phone (actually all cell phones) can communicate with any technology... it's just a matter of how the phone and/or the SIM card is programmed.

By the way, those "G" standards (like 3G and 4G) simply mean "third generation, fourth generation", etc... (the G is "generation").

All of those standards operate in the range of 800 MHz to 2100 MHz (or 0.8 to 2.1 GHz). It's interesting to know that a home microwave oven runs at around 2.4 GHz, so sometimes a microwave can interfere with or even block out cellular communications.

When you talk about an amplifier "kit", do you mean an actual kit (parts that you have to solder and assemble)? If so, I would heartily suggest NOT going that route. Microwave amplifiers are very finicky as to the actual construction and layout of parts (a lot of times, a TRACE on a circuit board is an impedance matching transformer!). A cheap-o Chinese DIY kit is likely to be a disappointment.

If the "kit" is a pre-built amplifier with an antenna, coax cable, etc... that you just have to install, that's OK. Note that a Yagi antenna is very directional. You must point it DIRECTLY at the cell tower you plan to use (withing a few degrees of left-right and up-down). You do this by using something to measure signal strength (maybe your phone itself) then move the antenna around for the strongest signal.

To your question about coax... first of all, the longer the coax, the more signal loss you get. If you need more than 30 feet, then how MUCH more? 10 or 15 feet more is no problem, but more than that will negate the benefit of the amplifier.

Secondly (and more importantly), you need to be sure that you get microwave coax (that is, the thin stuff with TEFLON insulation and silver plated wire). The reason is that the Teflon has MUCH less loss than polyethylene that cheap coax uses, and more importantly, RF travels on the outside of a wire only (look up "skin effect"). Microwave coax uses silver plated copper stranded wire so that there is better conduction (lower resistance - less loss) on the skin of the wire (where the silver plating is) and teflon insulation (for MUCH less signal loss at high frequencies).

Cheap copper and polyethylene coax is USELESS at UHF and microwave frequencies. Unfortunately, teflon microwave coax is expensive (ranges from $1 per meter to $20 per meter - the Chinese stuff as Alibaba is probably the lowest price... $0.45 to $1.00 per meter).

Sadly, if you want the thing to actually WORK, you need to use the teflon/silver cable. Don't even waste your time with polyethylene/copper cable.

Anything else you want to know, please feel free to ask.

-- Roger

Kit as in all the components included. I ordered an extra 15' of cable just in case I need it from the same people. My 4G and 3G run in the mid 700MHZ band 13 746mhz-756mhz Download 777mhz-787mhz UP Don't know why I can't get the ebay link to post right, but it was just over $80 shipped