E61: External antennae

[BigRedBall]

Hi folks,
I'm considering an E61 - however I want the new T-Mobile unlimited data plan, but I live in a building with pretty much zero indoor coverage for T-Mobile. Immediately outside, I can get 3G reception on all networks including T-Mobile- it's just the shape of the building which prevents T-Mobile reception (Orange and 3 work quite well on 3G though).

The signal is much better immediately at the windows all around the house, though, so I thought that an external antenna which sticks to a window like this one or a similar one mounted outside and as high as I can put it might be a good choice (I can't afford a signal repeater unless it's a very cheap one).

So has anyone been able to connect and use an external aerial with the E61? Such as a car-window mount one? I presume you'd have to use the CR-47 mounting cradle (at the bottom of the linked page) in order to actually connect any aerial - or would a velcro-type attachment of a 'pad' which sticks on to the phone work?

If only they'd launch UMA, this problem would be solved...

Any ideas, or other solutions? (moving house may be a little too drastic :P )

Cheers in advance.

[bodstrup]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.1; U; en-us) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

I know it would be cool to have coverage inside your workplace, but dont you have other options there:
WLAN
your work PC - assuming you work in an office environment
I use WLAN when i need the phone at work, but my PC is the min device with better keyboard.

right now, however I am responding from my E61, waiting for my wife to get off work. I do have an unlimited data plan with 3 in Denmark.

Regards, Richael

[BigRedBall]

Originally Posted by bodstrup

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.1; U; en-us) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

I know it would be cool to have coverage inside your workplace, but dont you have other options there:
WLAN
your work PC - assuming you work in an office environment
I use WLAN when i need the phone at work, but my PC is the min device with better keyboard.

right now, however I am responding from my E61, waiting for my wife to get off work. I do have an unlimited data plan with 3 in Denmark.

Regards, Richael

Thanks for your reply, Richael. My office coverage is fine - it's my home coverage which is the problem.

I have a home WLAN, so email connectivity is not a problem, and yes I can certainly place calls over the WLAN. But I can't take incoming calls to my mobile number on T-Mobile, nor can I receive SMS messages sent to my T-Mobile number - so really I need a high-gain aerial of some kind in order to gain access to the T-Mobile network.

Does anyone know of any external aerial solution which works with the E61?

[bodstrup]

Wirelessly posted (Nokia E61: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.1; U; en-us) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

The Nokia CR47 car phone.holder is equipped with an antennae coupler. You can connect an extension cable and antennae to this. Just keep in mind that attenuation is very high at 2.1 GHZ so use a suitable cable like RG8-U (which is about 10mm in diameter..) or you will loose any gain from the antennae in a few feet of cable. Combined with a bluetooth headset you might have a working solution.

Here in Denmark, my E61 will roam to a GSM network when I move too far inside my work building, No streaming video in the bathrooms .-)

Regards, Michael

[BigRedBall]

Excellent - thanks for your advice, Michael. I think I'll give it a go.

[chapelhill]

Did you get anywhere with the Antenna's.

I have exactly the same situation with no signal in the house. Can compensate with wifi and voip, but it's not the same, cost to divert the call.

What type of aerial did you get?
Any idea what the gain is of the standard aerial and the new one.

Is it posible to get a pop port lead that has aerial termination ie adding external aerial without the CR-47 mounting cradle?

Is it possible to modify a pop port data lead, although from the standard one I have not all the connectors exist (There are 6 connectors on the data lead and there are 13 pop port terminals on the phone)

Would the extrenal aerial also improve the wifi performance?

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Chapelhill