I started this about a week before I got my iPad. I live in the country and we are not served well by any cellular provider.. The closest AT&T tower is about 6 miles thru the woods. I spent some money and time attempting to get a signal at my house...

Here is the original posting: Few bars.. :(

It has been too bloody hot and I was frustrated, so I set it aside (and fended off my wife's demands of getting Hughes Net sat. service) but at long last I got 5 bars in the house.

It turns out the line loss on long bits of RG6 coax was simply too much for the repeater. I had tried 500' .. 100' .. 50'. Nothing with either 500 or 100. I even added an inline signal booster that was to have given me an 18db signal boost - nope! 50' coax that came with the unit works.

One of the early problems may have been that the reseller sold me a plate antenna that was of another brand. It may have been B.S. but these people said I needed their gear. I got both plate and yaggi. I also get Verizon cellular service with this were before I had to be about 1/4 mile down the road before it worked. I also have pre-pay service from Net 10, but that does not work.

Here are a couple of pics before I make it fixed. I am adding some new windows to the front of the house so I will wait to do a thru-the-wall at the same time to bring the repeater inside. Perhaps because it is outside, the iPad cannot be farther than about 10 feet away before the bars drop off fast.

So save yourself some headaches .. keep the coax as short as you can! Cheers.

Jim