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bbyer
Member Since: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Edmonton Alberta
Posts: 701
  
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| Patch antenna under glass roof - cellular transparent? |
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Now that I have the Bluetooth working fairly well again, I wish to install an "external" or "secondary" antenna for my BlackBerry Tour 9630.
I have mounted a Smooth Talker B96ia charger/antenna cradle to the air vent to the right of the steering wheel, (NA spec). It is a pretty good location as when the Tour is mounted, the analogue clock display comes up and stays up as long as there is power to the cradle. I have the power connected to a lighter fuse behind the glove box so the "clock" goes off with the ignition - may change that to choose an always on power tap, but I do not think that there is any great advantage to full time power.
Anyway, the second lead off the cradle is for an external antenna, and perhaps a booster if one would want that. My problem is where to mount the antenna as my LR3 has the factory Bluetooth, and that means no sharksfin with the internal roof mounted cell antenna.
I toyed with mounting a mast antenna on the roof rack, but am afraid of even an extra inch of height re parking garages, let alone the actual aerial. (I guess I am happy not to have the Sharksfin.) A glass mount on the rear compartment side window seemed the most expedient, however when I got looking on the internet for possible thru the glass antennas, I stumbled on what is called a Patch Antenna.
These are thin flat things and can be anything from about a 2" square pad with an RG58 cable coming off it to a 1/2" high rectangle maybe an inch wide and a foot long. The idea is that the pad looks up, (thru the glass in my case, and first designed mainly for GPS), but I gather the cell ones can find cellular signal sort of OK, (not as good as a mast), but they do see the cell signals somewhat.
As such, I wondered if the glass roof of the NA spec LR3 HSE was transparent to cell phone signals?
I figured that I could slip the patch antenna up somewhere near/above the ceiling mounted DVD player and somehow feed the cable above the roof liner and then down to the floor and hence to the dash.
Also has anyone any experience with cellular patch antennas? It seems like they are designed primarily for use with vehicle GPS tracking systems. Some units are GPS/Cell combos, others just GPS, and some just Cell. The GPS ones require power, (5 VDC from the GPS unit), but it appears the cell antennas do not require power. 2005 LR3 HSE 4.4L AJ-V8 petrol; Traxide Dual Battery; PIAA 2500K Yellow Ion H11 Fog Light bulbs; CounterAct LT-2 Capacitive Corrosion control; LLumar AIR80 Blue clear Infra Red blocking side window film; Liftgate manual release; Schrader Valve "air in" mod to OEM air suspension reservoir tank; Akebono ceramic pads; OEM solid vented discs; LR4 design hitch receiver; Wiggs D4 MOST bluetooth module; Clock on the Dash; 3 Flash signal light mod; Backup Camera; 2015/16 Nav Data update.
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 2nd Dec 2009 2:52 am |
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mzplcg
Member Since: 23 Jun 2009
Location: Gone
Posts: 1087
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In my last car I had one of the tax disc holder ones. Sticks to the windscreen and also holds the tax disc. With you not being in the UK I don't know what you legally have to display in the screen. But, similar technology and worked well enough for me. See link below.
Cheers
Dom
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FLEXIBLE-718-DUAL-BA...4cec33eded
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| 2nd Dec 2009 10:20 am |
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bbyer
Member Since: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Edmonton Alberta
Posts: 701
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| Tax disc and heated windshield? |
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I looked at the ebay site you referenced and the tax disc kind of looks like some sort of patch antenna - makes sense I guess.
I figured that if I tried mounting any antenna on the heated windscreen of my LR3, that probably the heating wires, at least when on, would adversly affect any antenna, glass mount, patch or otherwise.
As such, as an alternative, I wondered if there would be any problem with the glass roof of the HSE. Like the windscreen on your previous vehicle, I kind of assume not, however that is the question. 2005 LR3 HSE 4.4L AJ-V8 petrol; Traxide Dual Battery; PIAA 2500K Yellow Ion H11 Fog Light bulbs; CounterAct LT-2 Capacitive Corrosion control; LLumar AIR80 Blue clear Infra Red blocking side window film; Liftgate manual release; Schrader Valve "air in" mod to OEM air suspension reservoir tank; Akebono ceramic pads; OEM solid vented discs; LR4 design hitch receiver; Wiggs D4 MOST bluetooth module; Clock on the Dash; 3 Flash signal light mod; Backup Camera; 2015/16 Nav Data update.
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| 2nd Dec 2009 7:33 pm |
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bbyer
Member Since: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Edmonton Alberta
Posts: 701
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| Glass roof appears to be cellular transparent! |
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I have finally successfully completed installation of a cellular patch antenna, (and signal booster), that I purchased.
The patch antenna, about 2" (50mm) wide x 4.5" (115mm) long by 3/16" (5mm) thick, model SEMP1 series, low gain dual band (GSM & CDMA) by Smooth Talker), is mounted to the underside of the glass roof between about the middle and left edge at the rear; kind of above the far rear portion of the headliner and third moon roof opening.
I chose this location as I could fish the antenna cable up behind the left rear speaker and into the headliner and still get access to the underside of the glass roof thru the pull down panel related to the rear area cabin light. This may not be an ideal location, however I did not want to actually pull the head liner down, nor did I wish to run afoul of the side curtain airbags.
As to how well it works, well the best I would say is that it seems to work.
Apparently, I sound louder and more clear thru the Bluetooth than before - subjective, but I know that my voice was weak thru my BB Tour 9630; (OK with my previous Curve and no antenna etc, so the problem is the BlackBerry, not LR). The antenna is connected to a 3 watt CDMA signal booster and the Blackberry interfaces with the antenna set up thru a capacitive cradle, (Smoothtalker BTH96ia), mounted on the round air vent nearest the radio side of the steering wheel.
I now also get a "free" analogue clock with this setup, as the BB goes into sleep mode when charging in the cradle. (The default charging display on the BB is a clock.) I took power for the charger and booster from the 10 amp fuse panel ignition feed, fuse 22, Trailer Pickup, (whatever that is), but no trailer hitch so it is unused.
When a call comes in, the radio mutes, the phone wakes up, the clock disappears, and the caller / number appears on the BB screen and the call comes thru the speakers if I answer via the steering wheel side mounted flick switch. When I end the call with the flick switch, then the clock reappears on the BB.
The phone numbers etc do not show on my radio display as I have the "old" Bluetooth software on my 2005 LR3, (so I gather).
An exterior mast antenna would have been a more effective antenna, however I did not want any sort of visible antenna located on the exterior. Partly it was parking garage roof clearance concerns, and the other reasons, appearance and wind noise.
With the patch antenna, I seem to get at least one more bar of signal display, and I hope perhaps more, as without the antenna, sometimes all I would see is one to two bars. When I do some country driving, I will see if the one to two bars is a "yesterday" thing, or still common.
In summary, the primary question, "is the glass roof cell phone signal transparent", seems to be answered in the affirmative. 2005 LR3 HSE 4.4L AJ-V8 petrol; Traxide Dual Battery; PIAA 2500K Yellow Ion H11 Fog Light bulbs; CounterAct LT-2 Capacitive Corrosion control; LLumar AIR80 Blue clear Infra Red blocking side window film; Liftgate manual release; Schrader Valve "air in" mod to OEM air suspension reservoir tank; Akebono ceramic pads; OEM solid vented discs; LR4 design hitch receiver; Wiggs D4 MOST bluetooth module; Clock on the Dash; 3 Flash signal light mod; Backup Camera; 2015/16 Nav Data update.
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| 19th Dec 2009 2:48 am |
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