I phone cradles

Hi Spirit Gypsies,

We have a phone cradle that we picked up from a Telstra Shop. Have only used it once when camping out at Inskip Point for a month.
It did give better reception, one bar if I remember correctly, it was the difference between taking/making a call in the van or walking down to the beach. I don't think it would be very good when 'way out there' but is beneficial on the fringes of reception. Sat phone might be the go there!
That's our limited experience.

Cheers
Richard

We have a portable antenna with a magnetic base with a 5m lead. It does both internet and phone with the right patch lead. It originally bought for the old blue tick phone and stick modem. It now runs the 4G Advanced modem but our current blackberry phone has no antenna port.

I very dodgy reception area I have been not to hoist it 5m up a tree!

John and Jean

I like my smart phone for its uses but when camped up for a length of time in a low signal area I swap the SIM card into an old ZTE blue tick phone that accepts a patch lead. At Ningaloo for example I use a fibre glass wind surfing pole to attach a 9db aerial to get reasonable internet coverage.

Have a look at this one.


http://www.thfcomms.com.au/iPhone-cradle.html

It charges the iPhone and the external antenna cable has a standard joiner fitting that connects to your antenna.
The signal passes to the phone by having a metalic antenna paid in a possition so that when the iPhone is in the cradle it matches up with the phone antenna. There is NO direct wiring between phone and cradle.
I had an iPhone 4 and it worked good with an increase of about 2 bars.

When I bought the iPhone 5 I bought a new cradle and it was working well when I had the F250 up in the Gulf and NT where our friends with a Samsung and external antenna was travelling with us. When we compared the 2 phones the iPhone was always getting a signal and and SMS messages before the Samsung.

Unfortunately the cable size from the device to the antenna coupling is smaller than the standard size and I damaged the wire going into the coupling and the antenna no only works occassionally. Because of the wire size Daniel was not able to change it so it look like I will have to purchase another unit.

It does work with the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 5 but for some reason my wife's iPhone5S will NOT charge when placed into the cradle. So if you have an iPhone5S you would have to ask questions from the supplier.

Brian