Mobile Phone Dx

[Alex Lawler]

Yesterday whilst on the beach in Winterton in Norfolk I couldn't receive my own carrier 02 but could receive Tele 2, NL KPN, Vodafone NL, T Mobile NL and a carrier from Belgium called BASE. Has anybody else here received continental phone signals?

[Tim Bucknall]

Irish ones in Wales, frequently
it was an excellent tropo indicator

[John Faulkner, Skegness]

I have been able to access French mobile phone networks on the cliffs of Dover. Being on a ferry in the middle of the channel can also bring in networks from Holland and Belgium and (I'm sure somebody else has done this) Germany.

[Alex Cator]

I have been able to access French mobile phone networks on the cliffs of Dover. Being on a ferry in the middle of the channel can also bring in networks from Holland and Belgium and (I'm sure somebody else has done this) Germany.

I have received French networks on the cliffs of Dover too. I got Orange F, F-Bouygues Télécom and something else beginning with an S.

[Tim Bucknall]

wonder if it would be possible (without permanently trashing my phone) to connect the phone to a yagi like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/35124946 ... 108&ff19=0

and go to somewhere like suffolk and see what can is available when beaming at different countries

[Alex Lawler]

It's possible but I don't know how you would do it without trashing your phone. The best places would surely be Norfolk or Lincolnshire and beam towards Germany and Denmark.

You could by a cheap second hand phone specifically for dx.

[Catherine]

A Nokia 3310 - those things seem to be indestructible...

[Julian Hardstone]

Older phones used to have an external antenna connector, typically on a multi-pin interface for use in cars. There must be some not-too-old models you could get hold of, with the connector loom

[Peter Körner]

> Older phones used to have an external antenna connector
Correct, that was a special 50 Ohm connector.

> wonder if it would be possible (without permanently trashing my phone)
Not really, since the impedance matching network inside is designed for the built-in antenna, which isn’t necessarily 50 or 75 Ω.

Please note that you need to be within 35km distance of a mobile network base station to get functional two-way communication, since this is the limit of the timing-advance feature of the network, but you can detect signals over longer distances when doing network search.

The performance of mobile phone built-in antenna solutions vary a lot…

Peter

[Tim Bucknall]

great info, thanks Peter

[Sniffingmoose]

Last week I was on holiday in the lake district and after driving over one of the high passes in the south of the Lake district, I got a text from my phone providor about roaming charges from Ireland! My wife also got the same text. Now I think it must be 60miles plus to the Irish coast so I am really supised by this. We were problably over 1000ft above sea level at the time and RTE was booming in on the car radio. However I thought that the phone had to contact the network first before gatting a text reply back. Could a signal from a mobile phone really travel that far? We are both with Giffgaff that uses the O2 network which seemed to have poor coverage in most of the Lake district.

Chris Thomas

[Alex Cator]

I have been able to access French mobile phone networks on the cliffs of Dover. Being on a ferry in the middle of the channel can also bring in networks from Holland and Belgium and (I'm sure somebody else has done this) Germany.

I have received French networks on the cliffs of Dover too. I got Orange F, F-Bouygues Télécom and something else beginning with an S.

It really was on an iPhone - they have been said to have the worst antenna performance and Sony Ericssons are the best apparently. I mean my reception was on an iPhone, dunno about John's but I remember John F used to have a Galaxy S2 so maybe that's what his reception was on, so was it on the Galaxy?

[John Faulkner, Skegness]

Yes, I used a Galaxy S2 to access the French phone networks on the cliffs at Dover.

[Alex Cator]

Yesterday whilst on the beach in Winterton in Norfolk I couldn't receive my own carrier 02 but could receive Tele 2, NL KPN, Vodafone NL, T Mobile NL and a carrier from Belgium called BASE. Has anybody else here received continental phone signals?

On the dunes in Winterton last evening I could receive Langenberg and Steinkimmen on FM, along with Lille, Roosendaal, Hilversum, IJsselstein, Goes, Schoten, Egem, Rotterdam and Tournai. That's slightly irrelevant to mobile phone networks, but this is saying what excellent FM DX can be received in the evenings in Winterton. Conditions were as good as flat at the time, so poor that Q-music IJsselstein did not RDS on the coast and it can be received with RDS most evenings in WEST Norfolk!!! I put the emphasis on 'west' to show that reception in West Norfolk most days is better than East Norfolk this day. On the way back from King's Lynn towards Thetford, as could be experienced on the journey back from West Keal, Q-music was received with RDS, and Sky Radio was received without RDS, but that's because Q-music's RDS is of higher level than Sky Radio's.
Under less than flat conditions, with my Tecsun PL-390, German stations could be received on top of a sand dune, which is amazing.

106.7 WDR Eins Live, Langenberg
105.7 Antenne Niedersachsen, Steinkimmen
91.1 NDR 1 Niedersachsen, Steinkimmen

[John Faulkner, Skegness]

I will try a spot of mobile phone DXing next time I go up the nearby hills. I might even take a trip out this evening if the showers hold off. Conditions should be as flat as a flat thing.

Not a lot of people know that Norfolk, being on England's EAST coast, actually has WEST facing beaches. Hunstanton being the obvious example, which we can see clearly across The Wash, along with most of the North Norfolk coastline.

[daveB]

2G services use 900 MHz and 3G services use 2100 MHz. So what sort of reception would you get if you mounted your mobile phone at the focal point of a 'bog-standard' 60cm dish mounted on a sturdy tripod? You'd obviously need to use the headphones else your head will be in the way of the signals Not that intend to try it - roaming charges will eat up your credit if you accidentally dial a number.

David

[Alex Cator]

Not a lot of people know that Norfolk, being on England's EAST coast, actually has WEST facing beaches. Hunstanton being the obvious example, which we can see clearly across The Wash, along with most of the North Norfolk coastline.

My late paternal grandparents lived in Dersingham on the West Norfolk coast. It's about five miles south of Hunstanton. Most of the North Norfolk coast faces towards the Svalbard Islands! The East Norfolk coast, which Winterton, just a bit up from Great Yarmouth and actually in the local government district of 'Great Yarmouth', is on, faces towards the Netherlands. The East Lincolnshire coast faces towards Friesland and the West Frisian Islands.

[Alex Lawler]

On Beachyhead today under flat conditions I picked up Orange F, Bytel and Free.

[Tim Bucknall]

nice going!
only ever had the expected Irish networks in Wales but despite the full signal I couldn't send a text

[Alex Cator]

I have received French networks on the cliffs of Dover too. I got Orange F, F-Bouygues Télécom and something else beginning with an S.

The 'something else beginning with an S' network is F SFR.