Cell phone booster on the boat..?

[marty9876]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

The booster is a DA4000, ($199.99)


Bought the booster from
CellAntenna Corporation: Building Repeaters, Cellular Antennas, accessories, cellphone products.

I've got a guy I buy a ton of these from for work which sells these to me for $180.00/shipped per unit I think if anyone is interested. I originally used these for a non-marine application and he sells marine electronics on eBay oddly enough.

I forget the name of the antenna brand I use, ~ 3 DB dual band little dome antenna. I was planning on using this on my boat if I ever bought one. ~ $45.00 from a local guy. I'll post link if anyone is interested.

I make my own cables/buy the cable by the spool if anyone wants a few kits or something we could work something out. We should check with hellosailor to make sure its' low loss enough. Not sure how to do the cable terminations for a salt water environment either.

[CSY Man]

I had good signals in the middle of the Gulf stream: That would be about 25 NM from Miami.

Have some connection problems so the signal is not steady. Have to wiggle the connection to make it again..Need to find a permanent solution, but the folks at Radio Shack have no clue, and the booster dealer don't know about marine antennas...What's a guy to do..?

[hellosailor]

Marty, I'm sure a number of us would be interested. Exactly which ones, and would the $180 still apply?

CSY-
Which connections do you have to wiggle? It should be easy enough to find out what will fix things for you. Forget about Rat Shack "You got question? We got blank stares!". One of their "I been here thirty years" mean lambasted me for buying a NiMh battery for a wireless phone that "required" an older NiCad pack. (You know how many DC and battery and charging threads we've had, I suspect I've read up and hands-on with battery technology a bit more than a guy who just sells 'em in blister packs.<G>)

Wires, cables, connections...its just plumbing once you get used to it. I'll be down your way again next month and I'd offer to bring crimping tools. But you know those guys in the TSA, they're afraid that if I fly with hand tools, somehow I'll hijack the plane. (I keep telling them, I paid for someone ELSE to fly it. I've got no place to PARK it, and I certainly can't afford to FEED it, so why on earth would I want to take one of those planes?!)

Bugs the hell out of me that apparently Mint Crest and Purple Listerine can be combined to make high explosives--BUT I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW! [vbg]

[marty9876]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Marty, I'm sure a number of us would be interested. Exactly which ones, and would the $180 still apply?

The DA4000 models, includes the DC adapters (I need to buy the AC adapters for my application). I pay $860.00 for 5 units ($172.00/each)

huh, DIGITAL ANTENNA DA4000 CELL AMPLIFIER - eBay (item 270178478250 end time Apr-17-08 08:39:15 PDT) (189.00 delivered).

Same price on eBay. Little high on shipping per unit, he gives me next day air on the ones I get. AC adapters are ~ 12 bucks or something like that. These are native DC units so no worries there. The units also come with a "jumper" cable, I cut one end off and terminate as needed. These are not the highest quality devices, use the cheapest one. I've burnt out ~5% of the units, have some warranty on them I forget what.

I'll post the antenna I use Monday, I can't seem to find the one I use.

My master plan is to:

Mount a CDMA/EVDO (cell stuff) antenna on the mast head. Run the CDMA/EVDO line into one of the boosters. Run that into: Linksys Wireless-G Mobile Broadband Router (WRT54G3G-ST) [RT-LINKSYS-3G] - $249.99 : 3Gstore.com, Verizon & Sprint EVDO Modems, Antennas, Amplifiers, Routers

And blanket the whole boat in boosted Wi-Fi with the CDMA/EVDO as the Internet up link. Be nice got guests etc. Be nice to work in a mast head mounted Wi-Fi antenna for use in the marinas and such if needed (?).

I've got a guy who is pretty helpful working with me on the messes of all the different connectors out there too.