Cellphone antenna booster sticker test and analysis:
Reader responses

This page contains the reader responses to the cellphone antenna booster sticker test article. See the original article for detail, or keep reading for good reader questions and debate.

Greg is an electrical engineer, and compliments the testing while adding more information about true signal boosting antennas: Those that actually plug in to something!

I really enjoyed reading about your experiment for the cell phone booster scam. I never believed these things would work, but could never come up with a viable experiment or numbers to substantiate it. I know there are antenna boosters for things like WiFi routers, but those actually attach to the antenna, not just sit next to the router. So, there's a difference. Anyway, good job on the experiment!

Doug wonders about the testing methods:

First, just measuring a change in the "bars" shown on a standard phone display misses out on a large degree of accuracy. Many cell phones allow you to see the actual decibels of the received signal (after entering certain not-so-secret codes to activate special testing modes). Nokias are especially great in this respect. Measuring the dB change and not the "bar" change would be far more scientific.

Yes, measuring in this way would add a lot of detail. However, I chose not to do that, for a couple reasons:

1) The bar measurements are what are claimed by the booster sticker companies, so I'm directly testing those claims. They give quotes like this:

"It does increase few bars on your Phone (you will see the increased bars yourself after installation)"

"On an average, it will add two -- three Bars on your Phone's Signal Strength Indicator."

Here are two photos taken from a booster sticker reseller:

They're very adamant the stickers will have a noticable increase, not just minute changes. The sticker resellers claim noticable increases in signal strength when measuring at the bar level, so this is what I tested.

2) The detailed measurements are too sporadic where I live. In my city, in multiple places, the numbers would vary by a few points every other second. I assume this is normal, but doesn't lend itself to taking a spot-measurement of signal strength. I'd have to estimate. And therefore I used the bar measurements, which (as it was less detailed) were more stable.

Doug also recommends a proven way to boost a cellhphone signal: Install an external antenna:

I purchased a true aftermarket cell phone antenna and could see an actual 20 dB improvement in my signal.

Many phones on the market today have external antenna ports built into them.  Often you find them behind a rubber plug on or near the base of the internal antenna.  These ports allow you to buy aftermarket antennas that do boost your reception and transmission range, since they are directly connected to the radio circuitry.  This could be useful knowledge for readers that *do* want a solution that works.

Robert has a question about pull-out antennas:

The nagging question I have - most cellphones have a "pull-out" extension to the antenna - does this really make a difference, or is it just psychological placebo to give consumers the feeling they are doing something to improve reception when their signal is weak?

If the antenna is tuned as you say, wouldn't the pull-out dramatically change the length and tuning of the antenna making it worse?  

I sent this question back to Matthew Fogle, one of our antenna experts. Turns out that pull-out antennas do indeed work, but not in the way you might think:

The antenna extension in MOST cell phones is entirely real and useful. While the signal strength will be about the same with it up or down, it serves one main important function. It channels the RF radiation AWAY from your head. This allow for a better safety margin with higher power RF devices. When you extend it, a little circuit connects inside the phone as it clicks up in place to switch to that section of the antenna.

I've heard a lot of those are useless, but everyone I have ever taken apart has a real conductor inside it. I'd challenge anyone claiming they have one that does nothing to check inside to see if there is in fact a tiny piece of wire.

Jim said:

You should look at this study.

I did look at the study, located at home.pacbell.net. I'm not linking to it here, though, as it contained links selling antenna booster stickers. I don't trust its objectivity. I also have a few points of contention with it:

1) The article made a lot of statements but gave no supporting evidence, no detailed data results, no additional references, no names, or any details that can be independently verified or replicated by a third party. Even the "Electrical Engineer from the University of Illinois" wasn't named. News channels were referenced, but no links were given to the stories, making verification and analysis difficult or impossible. All this kills credibility, as the reviewer is essentially saying, "They work because I say they do. You'll just have to trust me." I, because of the reasons stated, don't.

2) Statements like this: "They reported that this [a static-free conversation] was not possible before the antenna booster was installed." From this, I infer the tests done were not double-blind. This is critical, which is why I was very careful to design a double-blind environment in my own analysis. The testers must NOT know if they're testing a phone with a sticker, because subjectivity can significantly influence these types of tests.

Also, it looks like you were using a "Knock-Off" of the real antenna booster. The real one should appear Gold and is not rounded. That would make it not work, since they are mostly paper.

Perhaps, but 1) my own study showed no noticeable difference in reception even if the sticker was made out of (highly conductive) aluminum foil. And 2) the stickers I had were thin metallic gold-colored tracings embossed on plastic adhesive with paper backing. The paper peeled off before applying the sticker, so when a sticker was properly installed, no paper was involved.

By the way, I was a Radar Tech. in the Air Force for 21 years, and in my opinion this can work.

What is the science supporting your opinion? [This section will be updated when I get a reply from Jim. Making a claim is fine, but for it to mean anything you have to be able to support it.]

I have ordered a few of these, from different sources, and I will conduct my own analysis.

Excellent - try to do the test "blinded", so that when you're testing, you DON'T know if what you're testing is the booster sticker, or something else (in my case, tin foil or a piece of paper). This ensures that your own opinions and preconceived notions don't get in the way of testing.

However, I only have to prove their effectiveness to myself.

If that's your intent, fine. But if the test is done correctly, their effectiveness will be proved/disproved, and you'll be able to share the results with others, and others will be able to duplicate your results.

It won't be "double-blind" but lets face it; if I normally only get two bars in my apartment, and I put this in my phone and get four bars; then it works.

No, it doesn't necessarily work. If you put the sticker on and get plus two bars, then take it off, and get minus two bars, and can repeat this sequence as long as you want, and have a stranger come over and do the same thing, then yes, it probably works. But in my own house, my cellphones often go from zero to three bars within minutes or seconds. Atmosphere, house location, additional radiation, phone position, my body position... all these things and more can affect cell phone signals. Shall I then assume that if I put a sticker on the phone and the signal improves, this is the result of the sticker? No.

I have no preconceived opinion on it working, or not. However, I hope it does, because my phone barely works in my apartment.

Your second sentence is the type of thinking that can affect test results. This is another reason to do your analysis double-blind. If you hope for certain results, you are more likely to find them than someone with the opposite opinion. Double-blind testing rules out human nature seeing what we want to see.

Brian said:

Andy,

(Direct Quote from your Test Procedure)

2) Hold pouch 'A' directly over the phone's antenna. Wait for a minimum of ten seconds. Record the phone's signal strength.
===========================================
is not the same test as:
==========================================
(Direct Quote from test procedure on http://www.antennabooster.net/ page)

Installation Instructions:

1. Remove the battery from your phone.
2. Wipe the battery compartment with a clean dry cloth to remove any fingerprints or dirt.
3. Remove the yellow backing from the antenna booster, being careful not to leave fingerprints. You may find tweezers helpful in this process.
4. Press the antenna booster onto the body of the phone toward the side of the fixed antenna enters the phone. BE CAREFUL when installing the antenna booster in the battery compartment not to let it touch any circuit boards or metal contacts on the body of the phone.
5. Replace the battery.

=====================================

I'm not saying these "antennae" do work, only that your testing is fatally flawed if it assumes that holding your pouches over the cell antenna is equivalent to proper installation of the "antennae" in the cellphone as recommended by their "manufacturer" (printer?).

To use an old saw: If green apples were the size of footballs, they'd be watermellons.

Oh, and besides current operation of a patent & invention research business, I was an electronics technician for over 20 years.

When I was designing the testing methodology, I needed to come up with a way to make the test repeatable, to have multiple antenna booster stickers be applied to multiple cellphones. Otherwise, if I mounted the booster stickers directly on phones, individual variations between phones would make the testing impossible. So I needed to have a test that had "removable stickers".

To do this, I made sure I still "mounted" the stickers in the way the distributor recommended - with the right side up, vertically aligned with the antenna. Taking a quote from AntennaBooster.net website you quoted, we also see this:

"By placing the internal antenna behind the fixed antenna of the phone you increase the surface area for sending and receiving messages."

According to that, my testing method should've been more effective than the battery-case mounting technique, as the stickers were actually closer to the antenna electronics.

As for removing the paper backing from the antenna, that's not needed. As I mention earlier in my page, paper doesn't affect radio transmissions.

Oh, and besides current operation of a patent & invention research business, I was an electronics technician for over 20 years.

If you're establishing credentials, I need more detailed information than that. But if your field of expertise is/was antenna theory, please share any criticism for additions you have for the antenna theory experts I interviewed. What do you disagree with what they have to say about cellphone antenna booster stickers, or the technology and science behind the theory?

Brian wrote back:

You're proving my case:

>When I was designing the testing methodology, I needed to come up with a way to make the test repeatable, to have multiple boosters be applied to multiple phones.

Designing a test to fit the convenience of the tester instead of the requirements of objective reality is just bad science.

>Otherwise, if I mounted the stickers directly on phones, individual variations between phones would make the testing impossible.

So based on this statement, you admit the possiblility (as yet unproven) that there are "individual variations between phones".

I don't have the time to look it up again, but I believe you mention, or one of your 'experts' posted that the antennae can interfere with the cell's tuned reception circuit. If interference does happen, and assuming the antennae were placed in the manufacturer's recommended location to derive this result, then by placing them in the wrong location would skew the outcome of your testing.

I never made any statement about paper having any effect on reception, which is why I hilited the statement that was relevant to my argument.

Basically, you're going beyond the advice of the manufacturer to place the antennae in a position that is more convenient to your testing, but is not backed up by any antennae theory or expert research that says you can do this and yet expect the same results. And you are relying on the same people you are trying to refute for advice on how to refute them. You should be testing ALL statements they make, and not extrapolating beyond them without verifiable cause to do so.

Finally, unlike what you are probably taught by the current irrational philosophers of science, understanding of the actual properties of the observable universe is not amenable to vote. The universe doesn't care what we think, just whether we do, and only if that thinking is comprehensive enough to understand its principles of operation. That is why it is called under-standing. We are subordinate to the universe, not the other way around.

I provided flaws in your reasoning, of which I am still willing to be proven as inconsequential, but until that happens, I will not get into any arguments of whose credentials are the biggest. Argument from authority is one of the oldest logical fallacies. The second oldest is reasoning detatched from observational evidence.

As it stands, your test is not a valid method to determine the variance you seek to prove. I have pointed out a flawed premise, which you admit exists, and this requires you bridge this loophole, or admit that your conclusions are not valid. This is the way proper science is done.

And my response to Brian:

Designing a test to fit the convenience of the tester instead of the requirements of objective reality is just bad science.

I see what you mean here. However, I wasn't able to design a way to test the stickers in a proper, controlled, double-blind, scientific manner. Having to stick the stickers on the phone means that phone gets that sticker, and I can't test the phone repeatedly with other control groups for comparison. The usage instructions put the user in a position where the sticker validity can't be objectively tested. Sneaky, that. For my test, I worked with the closest approximation I could get.

If the location of the stickers is more what you're addressing, then we can discuss that: Would you consider the test proper if I had placed the stickers in the battery compartment (though not adhered them)?

So based on this statement, you admit the possiblility (as yet unproven) that there are "individual variations between phones".

Yes. I not only admit it, I experienced it during my testing. I mentioned signal strength fluctuations in my results analysis section. The data points also show such differences between phones. That was one of the reasons I used multiple phones from multiple carriers - the booster stickers, if working, should've improved average reception over all phones.

If there was no variance between phones, I probably could've ran the test with only two phones of the same model and one sticker. From my experience, and talking to phone manufacturer tech folks, this isn't possible.

If interference does happen, and assuming the antennae were placed in the manufacturer's recommended location to derive this result, then by placing them in the wrong location would skew the outcome of your testing.

True. Though, I was hoping, not by much. See above for my question on location.

Basically, you're going beyond the advice of the manufacturer to place the antennae in a position that is more convenient to your testing, but is not backed up by any antennae theory or expert research that says you can do this and yet expect the same results.

It is supported. This is what one of the experts said:

"If incorrectly placed, the sticker would resonate at the phones operating frequency and become a source of out of phase waves that could either drown out the original signal, or cancel part of the signal, out making it effectively smaller than it would be otherwise, depending largely on the distance from the antenna the sticker is placed."

They're saying the closer to the antenna you place the sticker, the more effect it was likely to have. I had checked schematics on all my tested phones before testing: For all of them, the battery compartment is farther from the antenna than the location I was using. According to the expert, there still shoud've been an effect.

Finally, unlike what you are probably taught by the current irrational philosophers of science, understanding of the actual properties of the observable universe is not amenable to vote.

While I don't know which irrational philosophers you mean, I agree with the rest 100%. In fact, I recently said the same thing to another one of my readers about another article. This is one of the reasons I did the test in the first place. It's one thing to make a claim. But what repeatable, measurable results do you get?

Argument from authority is one of the oldest logical fallacies.

You were the one who brought up your credentials.

As it stands, your test is not a valid method to determine the variance you seek to prove. I have pointed out a flawed premise, which you admit exists, and this requires you bridge this loophole, or admit that your conclusions are not valid. This is the way proper science is done.

Fair enough. Let's discuss the testing I did. What changes would you make in order to give a double-blind, repeatable test of the stickers? As I mentioned, the antenna booster instructions themselves prevent proper objective testing. Is there a way to do a good double-blind, repeatable test? If the tester has to stick the sticker on a phone, they'll always know what it is they're testing, and could influence results. The test also wouldn't be repeatable for that phone.

I'm asking honestly here. I do appreciate your criticism, and am very willing to redo the testing under more accurate conditions. I'm open to saying I'm wrong. I know I'm not perfect. But this test was designed and implemented the best I know how, given the restrictions of the stickers and the requirements of double-blind analysis. If you think there's a better way, please let me know, or run a test yourself. I'd be extremely excited to see the results!

David said:

Darn. I just ordered a cell phone antenna "before" I read your article. So I am out $10. I live in NYC and I have AT&T and my cellphone strength is terrible. Verizon is best but I got this really cool "thinnest phone in the world". The Samsung SGH U100. It is unlocked and its a great design but the signal strength sucks. I was looking for an internal antenna that would be hidden. Oh well. Thank you for your article. It was really informative. You seem smart enough to be able to come up with a cell phone signal booster that works.

Wolfgang says:

I am sure your research on debunking antenna boosters is very good, but.....

My wife and I both have identical, cheap, unlocked Motorola V180 phones that we use with a Mobal SIM chip while traveling abroad. The SIMs connect to 130+ networks. I was given a free signal booster sticker that is affixed under the back lid above the battery, she has none. Yesterday we were sitting in a park off Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil, near the art museum. She tried to call a friend, no connection to any network, never mind waving her phone about and moving between benches. My phone connected nicely to Claro and she made her call from there.

Anecdotal, for sure. I wish I had simply swapped lids to bring you some more convincing data.

Thanks for taking the time to write!

>I was given a free signal booster sticker that is affixed under the back lid above the battery, she has none.

I specifically did *not* do this as part of my test. Here's why:

When I first planned my antenna booster sticker test, I figured I'd just purchase a bunch of identical phones, and put my stickers and test controls on a random distribution of those phones. So I started by purchasing two identical phones - these are the two TracFone Nokia 1100b phones you see as part of the antenna sticker test. And out of the box, they behaved differently - one would get say 5 bars of reception, and the other one would get 3. Both were the same model, and both had the same firmware. There were no physical differences between the phones. So I called TracFone tech support and told them of the problem. They helped me troubleshoot, with no results. So they sent me a replacement phone. And that third phone got a different signal than the other two!

The conclusion I came to was that running a test with identical phones is worthless - even though a phone may be identical to another, there is still enough physical variance to change signal reception. For the sticker test to work, the identical phones must have identical reception performance. That can not be guaranteed, so I changed the format of the test to account for it.

In your case, I expect that if you had taken the sticker off of your phone, it would have performed just the same. Similarly, if you had then put the sticker on your wife's phone, her performance would not have improved.