Be nice to me.

I'm looking for a basic phone that has an antenna socket.

Why? Well I work in a lot of remote areas where mobile signals are very poor or non-existent, so want to use an external antenna to boost the signal and perhaps get a signal where I previously couldn't.

Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure if such a phone exists currently I'm afraid. Assuming you primarily want to be able to make calls, you might be better trawling Ebay for an old 2G Nokia with an antenna socket. Depending on how critical it is, a satellite phone might be an option.

The Motorola I owned around the turn of the century had an unscrewable antenna which I suppose could have been attached to an external aerial.

I've no idea if such a phone is still available, or what sort of condition it would be in second hand.

You might find a dedicated phone performs better than a smartphone. A Nokia 3310 or similar might be worth a punt.

Antenna sockets? Gosh, I've had a fair few phones in my time and the only ones I can remember having these were my Siemens C35i and S45i.

How I miss my S45i. Beautiful phone that was. Not very durable, though. Dropped it once and it died.

I'm sure the Nokia 3310 didn't have an external antenna connector, the 5, 6 and 7 series did though.

Ah, the nostalgia! I remember proudly clicking a selection of these phones into the car-kit in my company car - heady days!

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has an external antenna port. Cables are $20.

http://www.amazon.com/External-Anten.../dp/B009KWG0FS

It says it's for the S3 on Amazon, but it seems it will work with the S4 - I'm guessing the EU ones would have two ports. I would imagine there are enough S4 owners out there for someone to confirm...

https://youtu.be/_9pDB1kGmLY

Don't know if it's still true, but the 6310 used to reach a pretty penny on eBay even up to a few years ago. Turns out lots of people still have that Nokia car kit in their cars, or they bought an old car with it as OEM equipment. Besides, they're otherwise bombproof and have battery life measured in years

I know my dad had the kit, and he used about 4 generations of Nokia in it without having to do any modification. It's a shame he ripped it out as IIRC you could get adaptors to convert it to Bluetooth. Plus it had superior sound quality to the portable ones you get these days, and it could mute the radio

Yes this is the one for the S4:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samsung-Ga...-/370905278563

No but it might be better at picking up a marginal signal than a smartphone. In fact it *will* be better at picking up a marginal signal than a smartphone....

I'm not so sure, one of the weaknesses of the 3310 was a cheap aerial, it was one of the more common faults with the 3310 and 3330. I would say any of the older 5, 6 or 7 models would be better. Something like a 6150, 6310 or 7110.

I have the Ericsson PH338 in my car, along with the magnetic 'twirl' aerial and extension lead. That phone with that antenna works when other phones fail. having the antenna away from the phone REALLY helps with getting a good signal.

Though the likes of the old Nokia's did have a good aerial & sensitivity for their time, most newer phone these days can use a weaker signal on 2G than they could in my experience.

Enabling Netmonitor on an old 3330, I noticed that the GSM signal would drop if the signal would become unusable at a strength weaker than -100 dbm, whereas most phones I've used in the last few years can hold a 2G signal down to -105 to -110 dbm depending on the handset.

In comparison I've an old Nokia 3410, and in a couple of places where an O2 2G signal is very weak, it can't make use of it, whereas the like of the Moto G2, ZTE Blade, Nokia 808 can.

The xenon flash needs to make a comeback.

Thanks for all the post guy's.

Is there such a thing as a signal booster for mobiles? Bit like you can get for extending the range of domestic wifi and cordless home phones.

I think the EE call via WiFi app is the closest you will get to this. But that obviously depends on having wi fi in the first place.

There is Cel-Fi which are at the moment the only approved relays in the UK AFAIK, but they are not cheap and look more aimed at small businesses looking to ensure mobile coverage in their offices.

You'll likely find searching on the internets some people selling active mobile/cell signal boosters (a lot of which are made in China) - unless you are certified by the network operator to install such a system, then they are illegal to operate in the UK.

There are also "femtocells" which are mini mobile base stations that are connected to your broadband connection to provide indoor coverage where a network cannot penetrate to. Only Vodafone actively sell these, known as 'Sure Signal' - EE, O2 & 3 also have these femtocells, but don't actively sell them. Instead you have to jump through at least a couple of hoops concerning your reception problems with the respective customer services before they may send one out to you to use. These femtocells are restricted to 3G phones (i.e. 2G only phones cannot use them) and are set up to limit the phones that can use them, so an unauthorised phone on the same network can't use it.

An alternative method if you are on O2 (contract customers only) or 3 is the ability to use their call & text services using a wifi connection - O2's name for this is TuGo while 3's is In Touch. However there has been a lot of mixed reviews over how well these applications work. EE have a "WiFi Calling" service that is better integrated into handsets, but is currently only available on a few premium handsets at present and for pay monthly customers only.

Finally, another plan is to use the phone as a form of 'relay' where you place the phone in a location at home where you can receive a steady signal (e.g. a upstairs bedroom window on the side of a house facing a mobile base station, even if it's just 1-2 bars of signal strength on your phone) and use an additional gadget to assist you. For calls, this can for example be the use of a bluetooth headset paired with the phone. If you have an Andriod OS phone and a tablet also running on Android you can also download apps for both which help set up forwarding calls & SMS messages from the phone to the tablet (and vice-versa e.g. compose a message on the tablet, it forwards it to the phone which then sends it to the network). As long as you can get some sort of a signal and a link can be maintained then this can act as a compromise in tricky circumstances.

Having used the camera apparatus on the 808, I fully agree.