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MOBILE EXTRAS
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GWD-5F LOW PROFILE CAR ANTENNA
That cell phones work at all inside a car is
a constant source of amazement. However, the fact remains that a goodly
proportion of the incoming and outgoing signals are lost due to the shielding
effect of the metal bodywork. The amount of signal loss varies from one car to
another, and it depends where the phone is mounted, but one thing is certain,
in a marginal signal area it can make the difference between a clear line, and
a dropped call. That's especially true of GSM phones, which are much less
tolerant of a weak signal.
The solution is simple, fit an external
antenna, there's plenty to choose from, with prices ranging from about £15
upwards. Most types are pretty much of a muchness -- there's a lot of guff
spouted about cellphone antenna performance -- but one thing they all have in
common is that they can be easy damaged or vandalised. That shouldn't be a
problem with this low profile antenna from Panorama. In fact it doesn't even look
like an antenna, and because there's nothing sticking out, there's nothing to
get knocked off in a car wash, or close encounter with the garage door. It also
means you're not advertising that you have a cellphone, which could help keep
your car windows intact…
It's a glass mount design and a fairly
conventional one at that, from the end of the cable that connects to the phone
or holder, to the interior coupler that sticks to the inside of a window or windscreen.
The coupler is held in place by the ubiquitious pad of double-sided sticky
tape, and the kit includes cleaning swabs, to make sure it gets a good grip.
The outside part is a thin plastic moulding that sticks to the other side of
the glass. Inside there's thin printed circuit board, etched with a coupler pad
and zig-zag radiator pattern.
The big question is does it work, without all
the usual sticking out bits? Only one way to find out, we tested it with a
Nokia 2110, in a marginal signal area, where contact inside a vehicle us
usually down to one bar and usually quite unreliable. We also compared it with
a normal 1/4 wave glass mount aerial, with a radiating element that extends
above the vehicle roofline. There was an immediate improvement in signal
strength with the new antenna, to three and four bars; the existing external
antenna produced a steady four bars pretty well all of the time.
The results were pretty much as expected with
the GWD-5F yielding a big improvement over the handset's own aerial; it's not
quite as good as a standard aerial, though not by much. If you haven't yet got
an external aerial for your hands-free installation, and you don't want to draw
attention to the fact that there's a cellphone in your car, or you've been
unlucky with regular aerials, then this one has to be worth considering.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £31.30
Features glass-mount
antenna, includes fixing kit and 6 metre cable
To fit most cars with glass windows
Contact TDC
Ltd., telephone (01256) 332800
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 88%
THE 'ARC', MOBILE PHONE HOLDER
It's obvious someone has put a lot of time
and effort into designing the Arc mobile phone holder, and at less than ten
quid it's not going to break the bank, but it's the kind of product that leaves
you wondering, why?…
Maybe that's being a bit unfair, there are
some people out there who use their mobile as a desk phone, and they might find
the Arc quite useful, that's if they can figure out how to put it together. The
bag of bits includes the curved base unit, which sits on top of your desk, or
screws to a wall, using a clip on bracket (screws are also provided). In the
desktop mode, as it were, you need to slot in an angled support arm. This has
got a V-shaped moulding that slips into the back of a phone holder or cup. The
outfit also includes a separate V-mount, with a double sided adhesive tape on
the back, so you can hang the phone, in the cup, just about anywhere you like.
On the underside of the desk/wall mount
there's some complicated-looking mouldings and holes, which we think have
something to do with an optional car cigarette-lighter socket and in-car
saver-charger.
Clearly the Arc has a number of benefits,
compared with leaving your phone lying around on the desktop, where it will get
buried under papers. Indeed, as the publicity blurb points out, having the
phone in an upright position, may even improve reception. It's a neat design, dare
we say even quite stylish, and it is well put together but we still can't help
thinking it's one of those accessories that you never realised you needed until
you've got one, and even then you're not quite sure…
THE FACTS
Typical Price £10
Features multi-purpose
wall or desk mountable mobile phone holder
To fit most popular makes and models
Contact Ball
Ltd., telephone 0181 574 0003
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 78%
BODY GLOVE BEEPSUIT PAGER CASE
Pagers are getting snazzier by the day but
what if you're stuck with one of those old black box jobbies? Worse still,
you're laying on the beach and it goes off, drawing everyone's attention to the
fact that you pager is about as trendy as a British Rail sandwich. But hang on a
minute, what's this? It's Beepsuit, a water-resistant neoprene case, made from
the same stuff as wet suits. And not just any old wet suit! It comes from Body
Glove, wet suit makers since 1953 and famous for keeping the boys and girls on
Baywatch warm and dry, as they bounce along the beach.
As a means of keeping your pager dry whilst scuba
diving Beepsuit is pretty hopeless, but they'll keep your bleeper dry if you want
to have a splash in the surf. But this isn't about water sports, Beepsuit is a lifestyle
product, and a loud one at that, with a range of bright colours (black too, if
you want it). They're designed to fit most side and top-view pagers and they
come with a wrist strap and belt loop. The quality of manufacture appears to be
very good indeed and you can use the pager without taking it out of the case,
so that's quite handy too. They're fairly cheap, bright and breezy and by all
accounts, a big hit in the 'States. Look out for Body Glove cellphone cases
too, coming to a surf shop near you soon.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £10
Features made
from water-resistant neoprene
To fit most pagers and cellphones
Contact Kondor
Ltd, telephone (01425) 474444
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 85%
RETELL 121 UNIVERSAL PHONE RECORDER
The recording of telephone conversations used
to be regarded with suspicion and concern. Nowadays it's fair to assume that
most calls to financial and commercial organisations or government offices are routinely
recorded. It's a fact of life, and in some circumstances it can be seen as a
legitimate business tool, journalists do it all the time and you could probably
think of a dozen good reasons why you should do it as well… You can, it's not
difficult and many answering machines have a two-way recording facility but
until recently, recording equipment connected to the line had to bleep every so
often, to alert the caller to the fact that their conversation is being recorded.
You can also get a gadget called a coupler, it's basically a magnetic pickup,
that sticks to the back of a phone handset and plugs into a ordinary tape
recorder. Unfortunately they don't work with a lot of cellphones, they use
piezo speakers, that the coupler can't detect.
That brings us to the Retell 121Universal
Phone Recorder. The kit is based around
a Walkman-sized cassette recorder, it's voice activated, so it is economical
with the tape. It has a built-in speaker and comes with a
plug-in mains power adaptor, earphone and two recording devices. The first is
an in-line coupler, that connects between the phone handset and the base unit.
The other one is an ingenious little widget, called a Watsonmike. It is very
simple, it's a thin tube, with a small piece of foam rubber at one end, and a microphone
capsule at the other. This is built into a 3.5mm jack plug, that plugs into the
tape recorder's microphone socket. You pop the foam rubber end of the tube into
your ear and it picks up the sound from the handset speaker and your own voice.
Very clever.
Because there's no electrical connection, and
it doesn’t rely on a magnetic coupler, it works with cellphones, any cellphone
in fact, so it really does qualify as 'Universal'. Recording quality using the
coupler is fair to middling. Our sample picked up a hum from a nearby PC,
screened versions, suitable for use near computers are available. The Watsonmike
picks up a good deal more noise and the voice activation feature is a bit hit
and miss, unless you're very quiet, but speech from both ends of the
conversation is intelligible.
If you want to be a Little Brother and tape
your phone calls -- maybe you have a good reason for doing so -- then the
ReTell 121 does the job very well, and the fact that it can record cellphone
calls as well has to be a big plus point.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £60
Features mobile
and land-line telephone tape recording equipment using handset coupler 'WatsonMike'
pickup device, voice activation
To fit any phone
Contact ReTell,
telephone (01932) 779755
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 85%
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Ó R. Maybury 1998 1305
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