How to Get Cell Phone Reception in Dead Zones
You thought of the funniest thing to say to your friend, and your phone is without a signal. Or worse, you’re stuck with no gas, miles from a fill up station with no way to call for assistance. Cell phones are an integral part of our modern lives, and when a so called “dead zone” takes your cell phone’s functionality, the result can be aggravating.
There are a few key tricks to maximizing your wireless signal potential: the most important of which is to avoid metal. By the nature of basic electromagnetic physics, closed conductive containers will cripple your reception. An elevator is metal, as are buildings, and everyone has witnessed the deathblow many of these structures strike against reception.
The other signal principle to keep in mind is the conductivity of one’s antenna. The old trick to boosting TV reception by creating Byzantine tin foil sculptures works for any type of signal, including that of your phone. Creatively altering the method by which your device sends and receives data can have a significant impact on its effectiveness.
Here are a few tips:
Keep the phone still. The inescapable fact that the technology is based on is that waves are an effective way to communicate data, and all waves follow rules. The diffraction pattern for your phone’s waves is complex on an immense level, but a good rule of thumb is that if you find a “sweet spot” where you can get a bar or two of service, that you shouldn’t move it more than a centimeter or two if you hope to keep it in that same pocket.
Use a headset. Keeping with the idea that moving the phone is a bad idea, using a headset to talk on can be great for finding a good reception spot, and keeping the phone there. Many music phones have ear buds with microphones built in for talking, and these can be a handy utility to have, in addition to adding to the functionality of your phone.
You love your current house, but you just switched phone carriers and you have one bar or less in every room in your house. Always having to call people back on a landline is annoying and potentially expensive, so the better approach is to try a few makeshift home improvement ideas:
Try some electronic Feng shui. Not in the conventional sense, but if your signal is a chronic problem, rearranging high interference devices (TV, Computer) together, and reducing the wave presence in the rest of the house, significant reduction of static can be achieved.
Employ third party hardware. Do some searching, and you can find accessories that have a cell phone antenna attached to a console which rebroadcasts the signal as a kind of conduit to the cell towers. These products aren’t cheap, but they will help for sure.
Tie on a twist tie. As long as no one will see you, tying a twist tie around your antenna in a tight coil allegedly boosts signal strength. I’d do it if I were desperate.
Find information about prepaid AT&T cell phones here, and more about using cell phones in dead zones here.