-GE> I hadn't read that. All the info I have on the digital
-GE> phones just says
-GE> "200 mWatt."
Yeah, I was just looking at a spec sheet for an 850 mHz tdma phone and it 
listed the power as 200 mw as well. I think it said average though. Will have 
to check it again. It's possible that the book I was reading was talking 
about cdma or was wrong.
-GE> When I had bag phone customers report ba reception with the
-GE> phone on the
-GE> seat, I told them to just move it to the dashboard. That
-GE> seemed to solve
-GE> the problems. I've also found that the little magnetic
-GE> antennas that
-GE> fasten to the portable phone's antenna help considerably,
-GE> but they only
-GE> work on skinny metal antennas like on Nokia's or some
-GE> Panasonics, but
-GE> not on the plastic coated ones like Motorola's.
Yup putting the phone on the dash helps but still not quite as good as the 
outside antenna and noticably less convenient. I don't want the three watts 
radiating inside the car, it belongs outside.
I agree with you, we tried one of those couplers on a motorola flop phone and 
it was no good. The deck was stacked against it though, the cable to the 
antenna wouldn't have made good speaker wire it was so thin and the antenna 
itself was pretty small. RG-58u is bad enough at 850 mHz, anything less is 
practically and antenna itself.
-GE> That's fine if your mobile communication needs are for a
-GE> car phone. Most
-GE> of my customers use their cell phones while they're out of
-GE> their cars at
-GE> least a third of the time, often more. One solution I push
-GE> is the 3 watt
-GE> "docking port" for the Motorola phones. Just place any
-GE> standard Motorola
-GE> portable into it, and it's a hands-free kit, battery
-GE> charger, and 3 watt
-GE> booster. While your phone is in the car, you have a
-GE> full-power car
-GE> phone with a "real" antenna. But when you get to where
-GE> you're going, you
-GE> can remove the portable and still communicate.
For most people the hand held phone is the way to go, most people don't even 
need the three watt kit. Although handsfree is great and the full power and 
external antenna of the car kits make for some very nice and clear calls.
-GE> In the past year, I've had dozens of bag and car phone
-GE> users approach me
-GE> about trading their equipment in for a portable, but no
-GE> portable user
-GE> has ever wanted to switch to a bag or built-in.
That doesn't surprise me at all, for most people, the shirt pocket phone is 
the way to go. They're easy to use, and in most places work well. I may put a 
shirt pocket phone on my account this summer, I'll use the 3 watter when in 
the car and the shirt pocket phone otherwise.
But, I will say this about them, I've got a few friends with them and I'll be 
on the phone with them and after about 20 minutes, they're sick of holding 
the phone, a few bought the cheap hands free kits which actually work very 
well.
-GE> One other point around this part of the country. The
-GE> "weaker" 3 dB
-GE> antennas work a lot better than the more "powerful" 5 dB
-GE> units. The 5's
-GE> send the signal out in a very flat pattern, which usually
-GE> just drives
-GE> the signals into the sides of the nearby hills. The 3's
-GE> radiate in more
-GE> of a spherical pattern, which is better for coping with all
-GE> of our
-GE> hills.
In our area, none of the cell sites are up that high where it would make a 
difference. If you look at the angle between the cell site antennas and the 
car most of the time it's pretty low, the only time it would be up there is 
when you're near the site.
If I had someone who could build one for me that would stand up to use on a 
car, I'd like to try a co-linear antenna made up of about 10 half waves and 
feed it with RG8M which is thin enough to get into the car without too much 
of a problem.
-GE> I was told by the BANM techies that digital towers were set
-GE> up for
-GE> dealing with nothing but portables with 200 mWatts of
-GE> power. If any
-GE> vendor ever builds a digital car phone, it will still be a
-GE> 200 mWatt
-GE> phone. I suppose there would be an advantage to a 200 mwatt
-GE> digital / 3
-GE> Watt analog hybrid phone, but on one is building one that I
-GE> know of.
You may be right, I hope they do make a transportable that's digital, for my 
type of use I think the transportable is the way to go.
Thanks for your reply.
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