Can You Hear Me Now?

Good article by Ben Ellison on “how the mess of gadgets and wires pictured above is actually one sensible system for getting the most out of marine cellular.” In this June 2004 column for Power & Motoryacht he talks about the actual performance of gear from, a.o., CellSocket, Shakespeare and Digital Antenna.
“I can tell you that Digital�s gear really works. I often saw 5- to 10-dBm improvements just by attaching my phone to the antenna, another 10 to 15 by adding the amplifier, which also seemed to flatten signal fluctuations. I was the strange guy repeatedly calling my own office answering machine from the boat (and pickup truck, as I also had a 3-dB car antenna) last season. I�d find a marginal reception area and then place separate calls with the cell alone and with the bidirectional booster attached. I could hear the difference both ways, first in my machine�s outgoing message and then when I got home on the messages I left.”