Cell Phone reception - improvement

As we sit on lakes and rivers, often somewhere in the wilderness, there is not always good cell-phone service. Now, you can start arguing if you need to have reception and all the online and social media services that come with it or if you should just enjoy the disconnect and actually concentrate on your watercraft skills etc.. but this is not what I want to discuss here.

There are reasons I want to have the ability to be connected (as well as being disconnected, but I can silence my phone and put it away while just sitting there and enjoying the scenery any time...).

Having been in more remote locations, I know you won't always have service, often it is weak down to no service at all. 

If you do not have any service at all, your chance of getting reception with the boosters I will mention in a second are very low, an Antenna high enough in the right spot might get some signal - but it is not certain. This is when you might need a Satellite Phone (pretty pricy and bulky), what might be good for emergency situations but IMO is not a real simple option.

Alternative, you can get a Signal Booster for cellular services. These booster need to have some base signal, they can't create signal for you, they need to be able to connect to some cell tower. If they reach one, they can take that signal with their bigger antenna and through the booster to the "inside" antenna re-transmit a better signal to your cell phone respective smart-phone. 

This now improves your "signal" so to say, it does not really do a miracle, as it primarily acts as a re-transmitter and due to the bigger "external" antenna has better reception. 

But it will likely speed up your connection and improve your overall signal.

Personally, I opted for a weBoost RV system, added another bigger antenna to it (external). The advantage for me was, this runs on 12V car-adapters, draws not too many amps off your car or better battery pack (be careful, do not drain your car battery!) and improves my signal enough. Yes, you need to be pretty darn close to the "internal" antenna, we talk about 2 meters / 2 yards or less, better just half a meter or one to two feet from it, especially if the cell-tower signal is still rather present.

This is, because your phone tends to use the cell tower instead of the small signal tower you create. 

You now could go and simply use your phone as a WiFi base station, leave the phone close to the internal antenna and active WiFi tethering and connect e.g. your tablet or laptop to the phones WiFi, what allows you way more radius from the internal antenna.

These systems won't work miracles, but they will improve the signal, providing your better connection speed and possibly even a connection at all, where your cell-phone might be on it's limits. Getting the external antenna on a higher, more exposed spot, will also help in certain situation, but do not extend the cable to the antenna much more than what you originally got, as this will work against the signal and have a negative effect.

Main issue for the internal antenna and radius is the allowed signal power by various authorities, these restrict the outgoing internal signal. Only a more powerful house-retransmitter might help here, but these will also draw more power besides the possible legal implications of using them outside.

Personally, the RV/car solution I started using turned out to be the best option for me. I can leave the internal antenna in the bivvy and have signal there, or I use it while driving with my car - and avoid losing the signal constantly on these long road-trips.