[KK20]

I'm nearing the last week of my 30 day Sprint Touch eval and for the most part I love the phone!!! I've been with VZW since, literally, day one (Airtouch or PacTel, whatever it was when I carried the old bricks they had) and their cell service has been great, however, like most of you, I'm tired of the poor phone selection and they're not the most cost effective compared to the SERO plan I'm demoing.

My HUGE problem is that where I live (in the hills of So. Cal. - Orange County), I get great VZW coverage, Sprint is at best marginal. The EVDO Sprint data signal works great but the voice signal is very poor and varies on my location in my home. Compound that with the fact that my house is steel framed which can interfere with the signal as well.

I spoke to Doug, a CSR for Sprint in OK last night (I must say, I've had ZERO issues with Sprint's "bad" customer service/tech support) who was better than any VZW tech person I ever spoke with! He's a knowledgeable ham radio guy who mapped my coverage area and said I should get coverage but the hills can play tricks on the signal. Outside of my hose, I get good reception so I asked him about the possibility of some type of external antenna/repeater system an he got my very intrigued noting that if I did that correctly, I'd get great coverage! SO here goes...

I'd like to move my family of 4 to Sprint via SERO as we'd save, literally over $1000/year in monthly service fees, but to do so, I'd need to work on the antenna repeater idea. I've googled it and found companies that sell systems but $400-$500 is a bit excessive. This forum has been a wealth of information in setting up my Touch so know I'm looking for any tips on setting up some type of inexpensive external antenna/2 way amplifier/internal relay antenna system. Also wondered about other folks success or failure at attempting this.

I'd like to kepp the Touch so any help is appreciated!!!