Sprint EVDO at 6 miles?

Sexxxy Beast · EVDO Newbie Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 6

I got sprint today they have a 30 day return policy where i only pay for the days i use the service and get a full refund. It works great until i am at my house where the signal drops to nothing. I am in a valley so i kinda thought it would happen. In some areas of my property though i can get 2-3 bars of signal and connect at 470kbps. Should I get an amp or antenna and mount it up high? Also i am using the phone as a modem, do you think that I should get a card? What setup should i get to get broadband to my house?

deparson · EVDO Junkie Joined: 30 Aug 2006 Posts: 249

What about at your roof level of your house? That would be key.

If you can get a signal there (even a very week one) then a good antenna setup (and perhaps a booster) would likely do it for you.

-D

Sexxxy Beast · EVDO Newbie Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 6

I have 1 bar on top of my house with a sanyo 8400 phone. do the cards get better signal strength? if I get the card do you think one of those radioshack tombstone antennas would help.

deparson · EVDO Junkie Joined: 30 Aug 2006 Posts: 249

Was the phone in EVDO mode? There can be different signal strenths between EV and voice.

Anyway, with one bar I would say you have a very good chance of getting a good connection with a quality antenna and datacard. I have a S720 datacard and it gets a good amount better signal than my sprint phones do at the same place. That said, the enternal antenna would be the key.

Please don't buy one from Radio Shack! Make sure you get a good one and high quality low loss cable + lighning protection if you are going to install it outside. Look at this site and search for 'high gain 1900mhz antenna' or 'high gain PCS antennas'. Spend the money to do it right.

-D

Gus · EVDO Newbie Joined: 11 Mar 2007 Posts: 7

I'm using my phone as a modem as well (samsung a900) with 3 bars inside my house, I can get to 400-500k. I took my EVDO card from work last night, and I only got 2 bars without antenna, and it was slower than the phone. I also live in a challenging area (house surronded by trees) But I am in a EVDO area acording to sprint maps. I'm planning in using an external antenna as soon as I get my own card (mounted in the roof as well) If you put the mouse over the little antenna in the connection manager it will tell you your signal, mine goes from -86 to -96 inside the house.

Sexxxy Beast · EVDO Newbie Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 6

The guy at the sprint store told me the sanyo phone is the best for reception. I was thinking about getting their usb evdo card because I can buy a long usb cable, or hook it up to a router, and computers. The guy at the sprint store told me the usb card has the best reception of the 3 they sold at the time.

I get 1 bar sometimes evdo, sometimes "rrt" but at my barn i am getting 3-4 bars. Right now I have one laptop at the barn using its wifi to transmit the signal to my home. At night i am able to get almost 997kbps download, and only 50k upload.

Cingular is comming out with 3g in a few months, and i get 6 bars on my cingular phones here, do you think maybe i should wait for their network to come out??? If i were to go with sprint id end up paying 300+ for a setup to relay the signal from the barn to my house. Also the guys at cingular store say that they sometimes get upto 1.8mbps.

The good thing with sprint is they want their broadband to be used, they dont care about file sharing and downloading the hell out of the connection.

Should i send my sprint stuff back and wait for cingular???

Mephis · EVDO User Joined: 04 Feb 2007 Posts: 79

habitual · EVDO Newbie Joined: 16 Mar 2007 Posts: 5

in my opinion, it all depends on the landscape and the conditions in your area. According to antennasearch, I am just barely over 7 miles from the nextel tower in my area but because my house is on one of the highest points in the county and it is a very flat area with no trees around what so ever (live in the middle of cornfields), I usually get -68dbm (full 6 bars) with just the booster antenna from radio shack sitting outside the window glass facing the tower. I can sit on my front porch and see the tower 7 miles away with my naked eyes, so i have direct LOS to it. You may not believe that I can get the type of signals at that distance but it is true. So, I dont really think it is about the distance but more the landscape and atmospheric conditions. I have Rev A, and at that distance, i average 1200kb downloads, 300-400 up and 90 - 125ms pings, so Im very happy with sprint evdo. The only other options for me are dialup or sattelite. I had direcway for years and hated every minute of it. EVDO is such a better option than SAT. I work from home on VPN and sattelite was absolutely horrible, now that i have sprint, working from home is almost like being in the office. I can even access remote applications (citrix apps) with little to no lag on the mouse moving, and typing.
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sprint rev-a

boycott-walmart · EVDO User Joined: 12 Apr 2007 Posts: 63

According to antennasearch, I am just barely over 7 miles from the nextel tower in my area but because my house is on one of the highest points in the county and it is a very flat area with no trees around what so ever (live in the middle of cornfields), I usually get -68dbm (full 6 bars) with just the booster antenna from radio shack sitting outside the window glass facing the tower. I can sit on my front porch and see the tower 7 miles away with my naked eyes, so i have direct LOS to it. You may not believe that I can get the type of signals at that distance but it is true. So, I dont really think it is about the distance but more the landscape and atmospheric conditions. I have Rev A, and at that distance, i average 1200kb downloads, 300-400 up and 90 - 125ms pings

That's amazing.

habitual · EVDO Newbie Joined: 16 Mar 2007 Posts: 5

Yeah, I couldnt believe it either. Without the booster I am averaging -85 to -90 signals indoors which really isnt that bad either. I used to have a nextel cell phone and it barely worked at my house so I didnt think the sprint would, but I got the card with my work laptop and tried it from home thinking what the hell, its gotta be better than sat even if it is 1xrtt. to my surprise I got evdo rev0 and a decent signal, then a week later i had a 5 minute outage and when i reconnected i was on Rev A which was a huge speed increase for me. I am very happy with my choice to ditch dway and go to sprint. Out here I think there are hardly any people using it because the service is rock solid and i do not see the morning slowdowns i hear other people in more populated areas talking about. I pretty much always get 1200kb downloads and 300 - 400 uploads no matter the time of day.
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sprint rev-a

Shrek · Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:02 am Post subject:

On my setup I'm on VZW and the nearest tower is over 10 miles away. I have broadband signal in 2 sections of my house only(both upstairs). With just the usb 720 modem I got -100 to -105, with the added wilson trucker antenna mounted on side of my house(after experimenting w/location) I got -93 to -98db, and last(but most certainly not least) with the added EVDO amp I get a consistent -83 to -86db. Its very consistent and I could also notice the effects immediately on the KR1 router I had puchased as the random disconnects I had been experiencing dropped to almost none(1 every day).

Michael · Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:47 am Post subject:

Hello Shrek,

We see that you got your stuff from us, glad that everything is working.

A quick question. Are you using the amp + antenna in the same location we shipped it? I want to do some checking to see if maybe there is a closer tower or you are indeed 10 miles away. Also, what it the terrain like (guessing, the middle of Illinois is pretty flat and you have line of sight to the tower).
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Shrek · Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:20 pm Post subject:

Shrek · Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:58 pm Post subject:

Sorry I see my links didn't work

Shorty · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 25 Location: KY

I'm still six miles from any of the towers Sprint shows on their website, but now I'M IN THE REV.A ZONE Exclamation

according to their coverage map.

I still plan on waiting until the trees leaf out (flaky weather this Spring - 80F, then long, hard freeze), but I'm much more optimistic about getting a usable signal.

I'll post my progress when I get a card.

- Shorty, in KY