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Those were the chit!


I bought one as soon as they were available here. It sucked going from the bag phone to the little pocket phones because the reception absolutely sucked.

Sam, go get a Wilson amplifier and relive the glory days!

BTW, folks, those Wilson units don't have to be hard wired into a specific vehicle. Use the right connectors and a magnetic mount antenna and swap the unit to any vehicle.

Ed

APDDS, when I get a chance it look up all those big words, I'll have some questions to ask.

You know where to find me

Ed

It is nice to find some semblance of a working brain on the 'fire. Mine sure ain't workin'.

It would help if ol’ Ed would speak Engrish.

Have a Wilson Pro booster here at the house. Without it, no service inside...

I may get the truck booster too.

There is no available translation from "Engineerese" to English, much less to American.
Either you geek it or you don't.

I would make pictures to go along with the words, but I'm out of crayons and they won't let me have any more. They say I eat too many of them and draw ugly pictures on the back window of the short bus that make girls blush...



Ed

Alright, Ed, it is Ed? Our Verizon flip phones stopped working in Wabigoon, Ontario a few years back. The Tbaytel cell phone company uses 4gHSPS- (is it and?), 800Mhz, and 1900MHz. My Apple smart phone works well since I got it in NW Ontario. I should add, Bell Canada has a tower near, and it is the same story.

Can you decipher that gibberish, and give an explanation in language an old hick farmer can understand??

Wabigoon, OK, I'll take a swing at it;

HSPA- (there is also a HSPA+) is a roughly 7-8 year old software system to break down your voice, data, and text(s) into what's called "packets" so they go out in pieces that can be reassembled at the other end into what you intended them to be. 4G just means that it uses a relatively newer software & hardware to move digital signals including voice, texts, and data.

Best analogy I can come up with is a stream of machine gun bullets, each one having the "from" and "to" address on them, so that when they hit the target, you and the target know who's been shot and by whom and they don't get mixed up with my stream of bullets intended for someone else.

The reason your Verizon phones quit working is that Bell Canada, and Tbaytel, are GSM based LTE phone systems which do not work with Verizon CDMA-based LTE systems or devices.

The two frequencies you gave, 800MHz and 1900MHz, are the two that will carry all of those digital signals. Remember when I mentioned that texts usually go out over a lower frequency? That would be the 800MHz band.

Best advice I can give you is to buy a Wilson amplifier. They are made for the system you have. The bad news is, it will be obsolete in about 3-4 years.

Nothing anyone can do about that but, since they cost anywhere from $100-$600US depending on vehicle mount, residential mount, number of phones being used at once, etc, you might think about the fact that you could amortize that over the next 3-4 years and how much security and safety will be affected by having it.

If you, or anyone else reading this gets a mobile unit, I would strongly suggest registering it with your carrier, that way, when it shows up on the system, grabbing cell towers, they won't shut you down.

In researching your carriers, I discovered that they are not very friendly, nor generous about their system. Tbaytel will cut off your cell access if your "roaming" fees are more than your "local" fees for any given month unless you notify them that you will be traveling and pay extra. "Customers with roaming usage consistently greater than Tbaytel home usage will have their roaming service blocked." This is found here - LINK.

Does that help, or make your head hurt like it did mine when I was trying to learn this stuff? I didn't have the luxury of having a training class or a mentor to lean on.

I walked into the office one morning and was told by my supervisor that I was the new "tech guy" for the department. I told him "NO, Sergeant, when I stick a key into an electrical outlet it hurts. That's all I know about them electron things and all I want to know.". He informed me that it was not a question nor a request... So, out of absolute necessity, I learned and am still learning.

It also helps to have friends in high and low places. A former Verizon VP is now a senior Sprint VP and he has been extremely helpful over the years.

Ed

Wilson has a dash mount that also acts as a cellphone mount for a single phone that is $99.00.

They are also offering discounts right now and coupons for different systems.

Ed

Thank you Ed!

PS, Ed, recall the "School of Hard Knocks"? Methinks it is the only real education.

I agree! I happen to have a B.S., PhD from the University of Hard Knocks, cum louder!

To paraphrase a good friend of mine; "The problem with perfessers is that they don't teach what they have learned, only what they have read. Most of 'em haven't learned much, either."

Ed

Ed, one thing about the Black, an' Blue School, the lesson is well remembered. Barked knuckles heal slowly. I've been lucky so far on bones.

I learned (yes, learned, not read) about not hitting people in the head with my bare fists. That's what God made elbows, feet, and large blunt objects for.

Have a good evening, sir!

Ed

Sounds like a plus to me...

Yessir!


Ed

I remember getting into camp and my flip phone showed "no signal" which was differenter from "searching for signal".

Could not make a voice call, but could send a text.