thinking about 3g & brew

"Real Estate Agent" <spamblockCaryRealtor@nc.rr.com> wrote in article
<91_Ua.353468$jp.9706852@twister.southeast.rr.com>:

The performance of any of the digital phones is limited to about 1-2
miles (less in trees, especially pine trees with 1/4 wave needle dummy
loads).  I must have telephone service in the country where the AMPS
system is designed for 3W carphones with external 3dB antennas on top.
200 mw into a bent pin antenna isn't acceptable.  I bought a 9dB
antenna and DA4000 3W linear amp (bi-directional, 800/1900 bands, full
duplex) from www.cellantenna.com.  It works when you can get that
crappy coax connector under the rubber plug to connect with the even
poorer designed connector that clamps around the dummy load on top.  I
got fed up with NO SERVICE after the CDMA carriers stupidly parted
company and turned off the in-market roaming to their partners by
writing PRLs that only connect to their partners in areas they don't
have a license for.  Verizon phones won't roam on Alltel or Sprint
PCS, here in Charleston, SC, any more...making my expensive tri-mode
phone useless.  I need a TELEPHONE that works like a TELEPHONE, not a
video game on pay-per-view.....

So, having been an AMPS customer on Cellular One then GTE Wireless on
the now Verizon system before....FCC says I can use AMPS, if I like,
with my powerful bagphone, again.

3 weeks ago 2 friends of mine and I drove a rented van to Satellite
Beach, FL to buy a 41' Amel Sharpi, French-made, cruising ketch
(sailboat).  We motored to Titusville to sleep in the
mosquito-infested swamp marina the first night (I didn't sleep much).
Then, put to sea under sail to bring her back to her new homeport here
in Charleston.  We sailed a rhumbline from Titusville's Ponce De Leon
Inlet to the Charleston outer marker in about 36 hours.  The first
part of the trip was fantastic with only widely scattered tstorms, but
we ran through a weak front which materialized as a squall line that
ripped the old mainsail quite badly as it was way past replacement
time, so we had to motor the rest of the trip under the diesel aided
by the headsail and mizzen sail.  Seas were about 12' for a
while....very exciting, even in a 41' cruiser....(c;

The bagphone performed faultlessly whenever I brought it up from the
cabin and set it on top of the Amel's cockpit hard top standing up its
rubber duckie 1/2 wave dipole antenna on the port side.  All other
little phones wouldn't even lock up, especially 49 miles off the GA/FL
border area.  To improve the signal even more, I took my Decibel
Products 800 Mhz, 11-element beam antenna a friend in the paging
business gave me.  I retuned the antenna elements for the middle of
the 800 Mhz cellular band.  It's very broadbanded with its wide
aluminum elements.  Hauling the beam up on the portside flag lanyard
trailing a line off its back end tied off to the mainmast so it would
stay pointed towards the coast, I ran the coax through the cabin top
hatch to the bagphone on the main salon table.  This made service
nothing short of phenomenal 20-50 miles to seaward.  After setting it
up and going through the squall line, the three of us all called home
to assure everyone we were fine and were dining on steaks because
David, the offshore fisherman of the group, had failed to catch dinner
on his lures over the stern.  We did, later, clean and cook a nice Red
Snapper about 30 miles off Savannah for "Fish and Grits", a favorite
Southern Coastal breakfast, which was delicious.  The fish would have
made several meals if we hadn't shared it with our entertaining
bottlenosed dolphins, one of which earned his with FIVE perfect
backflips, one right after another, along the starboard
side...Showoff....his new name.

Having the bagphone connected to whatever system it liked, not what
some company bureaucrat decided I should be allowed to connect to to
save the company revenue, was much more assuring.  I used STD A/B on
the entire trip, paying for roaming at 50c/min only three times as my
Verizon plan is only across NC/SC and doesn't cover GA/FL.  I don't
care about paying roaming as long as the PHONE WORKS!  I used to pay
from $1.50 to $3.25/minute when I was an IMTS customer with a powerful
Motorola "Carphone" on 152 Mhz, but that included a live, professional
operator at the answering company who treated my customers as if my
little electronics company were IBM Headquarters.....(c;

Now I get to spend the Summer adding Raymarine radar, 2 VHF marine
radios, GPS, autopilot, fix the Alden WEFAX receiver and install the
new Icom M802/AT-180 digital HF radio that will give us full GMDSS
emergency comms with all ships.  Luckily, the new twin air
conditioners are now installed and running fine.  It's hot in SC...

Larry W4CSC

"No, NO, Mr Spock! I said beam me down a WRENCH,
not a WENCH! KIRK OUT!"