Improving Mobile Phone Reception in Car

Greetings,

I happily use an Orange Nokia 6310i in my Fiat Stilo, connected via a CARK-91 cradle etc. It has a 10cm rubberised roof-mounted aerial* cabled directly to the CARK-91 control unit, but this isn't always sufficient to maintain reliable signal strength in rural areas (mainly Northern England).

Is there any merit in replacing the roof aerial with a longer/better one? I know next to nothing about RF or telecoms, but it seems to me that the emergency services must use those long steel whip antennae for some reason? I'm not worried about appearances as long as it's tidy, and would consider any other affordable solution (multiple aerials, RF amplifiers, witchcraft ...?)

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    in case they mean anything to expert viewers. Was installed by Orange technicians along with the CARK-91 etc approx 3yrs ago, they told me it would give a better signal than the stick-on window version. Comments & advice would be greatly appreciated - (NB - FU's set to uk.telecom.mobile)

Many thanks - Steve

Reply to
Steve Walker
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antennae for some reason?

Salutations.

I'm not 100% about this, but the length of the aerial is to do with the wavelength of the signal travelling through it rather than for absolute signal quality, I think. By that I mean a longer aerial may not work for your request of improving reception, but some way of raising the aerial further above the car may help in low-signal areas.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Reply to
conkersack

Is the antenna adequately mounted, and did they clip the cable off, or just coil it up behind the dash?

Reply to
Abo

More to the point, is the connector correctly terminated onto the coax..? I've seen some pretty dreadful attempts to put plugs on in my time. If the aerial (not antenna please, we're British not American..!) is mounted correctly, the length of the feeder should be irrelevant.

Ivor

Reply to
Ivor Jones

I fail to see your humor, we'll call it antenna if we want...

Reply to
DervMan

What humour ? Looks to me like he's making a fair point about British culture being erroded by a generation of sheep who don't seem to realise that someone speaking US lingo, whilst actually being from the home counties/Yorkshire sounds a bit sad.. :)

Reply to
Tony Bond

There are 2 u's in humour..!

Ivor

Reply to
Ivor Jones

Except:

People consider themselves to be "English," "Welsh," or "Scottish" rather than "British." Unlike most other countries, when a UK country or composite flag is displayed, it's either taken down in case it offends somebody, "oi! Stop playing the National Anthem, it'll offend the foreign Johnnies" or because flags are usually displayed being followed by some soccer thugs.

And the above isn't me... I'm neither from Yorkshire or the home counties.

What I don't like is any one culture trying to enforce something over itself. I have no genuine problems with the so-called language degeneration, whereby expressions and phrases move from place to place, because it's a two way swap. Globalisation. Or should that be globalization? :-p

Reply to
DervMan

In the British spelling, yes, but that doesn't make it correct, just, British.

Reply to
DervMan

I should hope you can't see his body fluids. This is a family newsgroup, you know!

My OED marks "antenna" (used in the sense of "aerial") as "Chiefly US and technical". I'd suggest that the current discussion comes under the umbrella of "technical" and should be allowed to pass without further comment.

Cheers, Daniel.

Reply to
Daniel James

Nope, it makes it correct if it was spoken/typed by a Brit.

Reply to
Tony Bond

As the OP, may I respectfully say that all comments have been much appreciated, and I don't especially care what specific jargon is used as long as it's understandable to the general readership.

Reply to
Steve Walker

I just got into the habit of calling it an antenna due to working in the industry for so long. Everyone refers to them as antennae

Reply to
Abo
[snip]

No, those are the things that grow out of insects' heads.

Ivor

Reply to
Ivor Jones

Not if read by a non-Brit, surely?

Everybody else is wrong apart from me. :-p

Reply to
DervMan

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