Anyone used a phone booster

I've had one for 18 months.

Buy the best aerial you can afford.

Can run up to 7 devices off the one unit.

Bob

Don't forget they boost a signal. If you have no signal ( like most of inland Australia ) the aerial is only good for hanging your washing on..

I bought one a month ago (Cel fi) and just returned from a 2 week trip to Mungo NP.

I bought the mobile unit with the tiny magnetic aerial.... for use on/in my vehicle to boost signal in normal day to day use .... ($690 delivered) forGoolwa to Adelaide type trips... plus I bought a second internal aerial ($10 ebay) and a external 10db white triangle type yaggi aerial ($100).... my intent was to move the cel fi unit from vehicle to van when needed using the second lot of aerials in/on van. I intend to mount the yaggi on the van tv aerial at some stage....

Anyway, after a few weeks use.... my thoughts are..... where you have unreliable phone coms.... voice improves to reliable levels.... maybe buys you another 10km say from Pooncarie or Mildura....

With data.... and yaggi.... poor data goes to great data.... so marginal data or voice with handset outside of van.... turns onto reliable strong data in van with unit and Yaggi.... I was in this situation last night at Pink Lakes in the Mallee..... however.... about 45km from Mildura on Mungo road... signal lost. I was using the Yaggi rigged on a camera tripod for this trip. Anyway.... for near town stays where coms is week it works very well.... but think 30-40ks max from tower.... hope this helps.... just my thoughts.

I bought one of these....
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/263294675308 …….. $25 delivered. :)
Put your hotspot/modem on top and it converts an unusable signal into something reasonably reliable.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

Thankyou to each for your interest and replys .

Look up radio horizon on the net, does matter what sort of booster you have if your below the Horizon.

Had a Cel-fi on loan for one trip and was not overly impressed - especially for the ridiculous price.
Use one of these Blackhawk Marine aerials:
https://blackhawkantennas.com.au/marine_antenna/
coupled to a Telstra Nighthawk M1/Netgear MR1100 modem permanently connected.
Personally don't really care if my phone doesn't work, but can receive SMS, send and receive e-mail, and if I need to make a phone call use Google Hangouts and Dialler and have credit on that. Costs around $US0.04c min. Find the voice communication superior on Google Hangouts than poor phone connection. I do also carry a high gain Yagi, but seldom use it. Normally gaining elevation where possible will perform better than a Yagi. The other issue is setting up the Yagi and knowing where the location of the tower is. I do have all the GPS coordinates for Telstra and Optus towers. However Optus in rural areas is a bit of non-event, but do have an Optus SIM as well. On rare occasions have had Optus coverage and not Telstra.

i run one in my car and carry two antenna's depending on the location . My antenna is mounted on my bullbar and i carry a cdq2199 9dbi 2m whip , a cdq7195 7dbi 1.2m whip . Yes of course you need one bar but when in range for me in regional WA i get signal in alot of places that no-one can . We recently did a trip through the goldfields north of coolgardie and being able to pickup a minesite 70-80km away with my 2m antenna enabled us to send updates . And in the case when we needed to call southern cross hospital we were able to make a phone call . As i am in the country every week for work $800 for a unit is more than worth the money . The unit works the best if you use the right antenna for the right countryside . No point running a 2m 9dbi antenna in hilly country nor a 3dbi 40cm antenna in the outback .