Create an emergency cellular antenna

To those who would like to have the peace of mind of knowing beforehand that your chance of being stranded somewhere without a cellphone signal to latch onto, make not of this antenna creation. Having been in the mobile business way back when, I remember making antennas like these for "bag phones." Those from the old mobile school will know what those are.

Anyway, this is a very simple hack that will give that handheld mobile phone some "oomph" when it comes to broadcasting and receiving in the weakest of signal environments. Requirement #1: make sure your flip or candy-bar cellphone has some kind of plug covering up an external antenna port. Requirement #2: use a piece of long metal (view video to see it) that has a thickness that will insert into the external antenna port on your particular model.

Voila! A cheap but very effective mobile antenna for your handheld celly which mimics the mobile antennas from installed car phones of the early 1990s. Get all the signal strength, but only when you really need it.

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