Any trick ways to improve cell phone reception even 1/2 bar?

Sometimes you are in a fringe area. Or in a mobile home or metal building that makes it so you go in and out from only 1 bar (it's only 1 bar if you go outside, to begin with) to no bars . All I'd need is a measely 1/2 bar worth of reception to be able to talk.

I have tried holding the cell phone next to electrical outlets, metal chimney pipe, magnets, high up to ceiling, next to windows, north east south and west side of structure. All to no avail. You'd think something would be able to pull in a hair more reception.

Ideas?

 

You should have taken pictures of your efforts, sounds like something many of us could relate to. Seriously, years ago my old bag phone had an external antanna that I could put outside and get a touch more signal. Whether phones today have any external options I don't know. I have since changed carriers and the new one matches my travels much better, so no more dead spots. One used to be my house, GRRR.

GL
Bud

 

Take pictures of what efforts?

Anyway -yes, obviously one is out of range by a tad. The idea is to figure out what mihgt be available to help boost the signal even just a tad. That is all I need -a tad. I'm not greedy.

 

Yes the antics people have to go through to get a signal is humorous.

Anyway, search on "External Cell Phone Antenna Adapters" and there were multiple hits. perhaps one will help.

Bud

 

You can use a phone that supports wifi or UMA. My new phone with t-mobile automatically utilizes my home wifi network and hotspots.

 

LG VX1/VX10 Wilson Electronics External antenna Adapter - 359907 - Free Shipping.

 

If your phone is fairly new it is unfortunate that your phone will likely not have a jack to plug in an external antenna.
I have for quite some time used an external magnet mount antenna on my vehicle in my rural area and find it many cases doubles the range of the phone.

It works best on a metal surface so if you have a jack on your phone it would make a good case for this :


Image courtesy of zapatopi.net.

If your phone is older you could look for a round plug that may have a small round jack under it.
On my previous non-flip Motorola I had to remove the battery cover to access the jack on the cct board.

 

I forgot all about this thread I started!

Sounds like there might be some promise to my question. Oddly, as I got onto this thread, there is an ad for this very thing (so it sounds like) at the top of the page! Now to go see what they say!

Well, I went there and took a look. Yes. But I think I will contact my carrier or maybe Radio Shack? or somebody locally and see what they might have on hand and pricing for such units. That will sure make a happy camper out of me. I go from "no network coverage"r, to no bars, to 15 minutes late 1 bar for 30 seconds, then up to 2 bars and I hurry and dial and as soon as I dial it drops to one bar, then I talk for 5 minutes and then the phone shuts off in the middle of the conversation and I have to redial the person after roaming aound holding phone up by windows or finally giving up and standing outside, etc.

 

I saw an interesting article on cell phone boosters in the New York Times once, this might be helpful: How to amplify those fading bars