Do these things work? (reception boosters for cellphone.)

[Walking Man]

Do the small, flat, copperish looking things work that help improve reception for cellphones? I've seen them on eBay for as little as .99, and they all seem to be the same thing.
One more thing, I would have pasted the eBay link, but for some reason it appears that I can no longer paste things into my posts???? help?

 

[ErikD]

I have never tried one as I have always been ahppy enough with my cell phone reception. I don't really ever remember reading anything defenitive either way though. One point that I really seem to remember though is that if they worked so well why wouldn't the phone manufacturers put them into the phones in the first place?

Anyway I have seen them pretty cheap in local stores too, as in under $10. So it would seem pretty silly to me to get one from Ebay unless it comes out to a significant amount less than you could get one for locally with shipping.

 

[TiberiusBkirk]

It worked in seeing my $10 or so disappear from my wallet.
In fact, it made my reception worse on my old Nokia type phone that has an internal antenna.

 

[Bob W]

I doubt it. If you need better reception, get a booster and "truckers antenna" from Wilson Electronics. They work, for real.

-Bob

 

[Gollnick]

One point that I really seem to remember though is that if they worked so well why wouldn't the phone manufacturers put them into the phones in the first place?

And there is your answer.

Mr. ErikD is this week's winner of the Thinking Man Award.

 

[Ryan8]

If they worked, yeah they probably would.

I wouldn't ever use any kind of signal booster on a cellular phone whether it worked or not. In fact I wouldn't mess with the antenna in any way. There are reasons why we have legal radiation output limits on these things.

You can build some very powerful antennas for 802.11 (wireless) networks as well. Like cellular radiation, this radiation isn't particularly good for you either. Reportedly when you get up to just 1/4 watt with a 14db antenna, you can experience some serious health problems.

 

[Nimick]

I got one for free when I bought my leatherman. My friend and I have the same phone and service and I usually got a better signal than she did. I can also say that my old phone with one got better reception than my new phone without one.

I have sprint

old phone was sanyo 8100
new phone is sanyo mm-740

 

[mycroftt]

I got one for free when I "won" a center punch for $.01 on eBay (actually it was a pair of center punches). I threw the POS away. Then I tried to use the center punch and I threw those POS's away too.