Top positive review
1 people found this helpful
This kit is a major improvement on cell phone signal at my room!!
By Prime Customer on Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2016
This kit works great!! I bought this kit intending to use in my two stories home. Once I have brick walls on the ground level and steel frame/ OSB board on first floor, in which I had already a satisfactory cell phone signal strength (-96dB), I intentioned to improve the signal on my home office downstairs, where I couldn't get any signal some times (-118dB/-120dB) , what made me to go outside on my backyard to talk to clients without any privacy 8 out of 10 calls I received per day. So, I found this kit at amazon intended to solve a problem at one room of the house and that's what it is designed for. Don't buy it thinking of improving the signal for the whole house, if you mind, because it will not cover more than one room, specially if you have brick / concrete block walls like me. The installation wasn't the easy part, but with the help of an aerial guy (charged me U$80.00) , he: - Assembled the kit, with cables, external antenna, and joints on the attic before going out on the shingle roof trough one of the windows we have ( I stayed at ground floor holding the internal antenna while walking within the room for better position available); - He positioned himself near to the old aerial post I had and kept moving and re-directing the external antenna towards nearest cell phone tower, which is approx.. 1/2 mile from my home just after a little hill in between that was avoiding the signal to reach the ground floor of the house, trying to get the best signal while I was monitoring the signal numbers * on my iPhone; - Once we found the best direction for the external antenna (the one that provides strongest signal values, which was amazing -63dB !!), I started moving the internal antenna to the final position I intended to have it, it before we fix everything in place, which revealed to be in the center of one of the walls of the room; However, after having to add an extension at the original cable length used for testing, the signal went significantly down to -96dB, what made me blame the four extra joints I had to add (two in order to use the lightning surge protector , and two more to have it long enough to reach the optimal internal antenna position..), but, fortunately I was wrong, because in front of the first huge improvement on the signal achieved, I forgot to fully read the instructions on the manual... The extra joints didn't made a difference on the quality, but I missed an explanation on the manual that says an orange led on the booster panel can mean the signal captioned by external antenna is too strong, so you must redirect it to avoid overloading that causes the booster to simply block that specific band at all. After going again on the roof, (fortunately the aerial guy didn't charged twice), I solved the problem and now I'm getting even a better signal , -59dB , with four green lights on, no solid orange led on the booster anymore, except for some days (depending on the weather conditions) I get two of them blinking from green to orange but then quickly back to green again. Pros: Quality and realty of the kit, all necessary elements to install are included and are of good quality (galvanized post couplers, good insulation quality cables); including window flat cable in case you don't want to make any perforation on your external walls; internal antenna seems to be very directional , so fix it on a place it can reach the entire room; well packed kit with no missing parts; quickly shipped by seller Cons: A little bit too expensive , considering it can only improve one room or two in a 4000 sq ft home, but it works for what it was designed for; Installation needs some work to produce proper good results, and depending on the height of the roof you will need help from a pro; In general: Very satisfied with the quality and realty of the product, I hope it keeps working just perfect as it is now, for many years to come. Any changes to the functioning , or satisfaction with the kit, I will report back.
Top critical review
Three Stars
By Bruce G on Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2016
Didn't work as well as I hoped
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