Can passive repeater concept work for GSM mobile phones?

George W Gerrity g.gerrity at gwg-associates.com.au
Mon Sep 6 00:01:55 GMT 2004


On 04 Sep 2004, at 22:04, wireless-request at lists.samba.org wrote:

> .....
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Can passive repeater concept work for GSM mobile phones?
>       (Steve Jenkin)

There is a maximum distance beyond which standard GSM will not sync 
(something like 30 km from a base station, from memory), and I believe 
that this is the way the Australian GSM works. Some European telcos 
have used a kludge to extend the range. Thus, if you are beyond the 
critical lockin range, no amount of gain will work. If visibility is 
the only problem, and the base station's antennas would otherwise be in 
range, then if you equip your GSM with a high gain antenna pointed to a 
back-to-back high-gain pair that has one pointed at the base station 
(which must be visible to it) and the other pointed to your high-gain 
antenna, you will probably get a good signal. Depending on distance, 
you may even be able to get away with using the standard antenna on 
your phone.

George



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