Home > Consumer Reviews > Wireless Extenders zBoost YX510-PCS-CELDual Band Cell Phone Signal Booster up to 2500 Square Feet of Coverage for Home or Office (800 MHz and 1900 MHz Phones)

In a nutshell:
The YX510 is the cheapest dual-band cellular signal repeater I found. It's easy to set up, easy to use, uses standard RG-6 cable and connectors, and it works very well out-of-the-box. Definitely recommended.

Long version:
At my parents' suburban CT home, the location, the terrain, and the aluminum siding all add up to zero indoor cellular reception. Even outdoors, my dual-band Cingular GSM service gives me at most 1 bar...all attempts to place a call immediately fail. My siblings' Verizon service is a bit better, but still not enough for them to place calls. Up on the roof, though, I found I would get 3 bars (up to 4, if I held the phone over my head), quite sufficient for a reliable phone call. Enter the YX510. It's easy to install, though their recommended pre-installation test procedure didn't leave me optimistic--I couldn't get the base unit's "signal" light to flash green when placing a call from nearby it on the roof (which the manual said would represent a successful test). The error code I was getting from it indicated either the signal was too strong or the interior/exterior antennas were interfering with each other. Undeterred, I installed the main signal antenna (zip-tied to the top of a length of PVC pipe strapped to our old TV antenna pole, to keep it away from metallic objects, as the manual recommends). I tried another test with the base unit placed at ground level about 35 feet away, seperated by a good chunk of the house, but I still had trouble getting a reliable signal. When I finished the installation and moved the base station indoors (about 20-25 feet almost directly below the exterior signal antenna, with the roof and two floors in between), that's when its performance started really shining. Installed in the basement, the YX510 base station gives solid reception for most of the dual-level, 2600 sqft house. My cell phone shows a full five bars most of the time, for anywhere within about about 15-20 feet of the interior antenna (the signal strength slowly drops with additional distance). Once I start a call, my phone's signal strength meter immediately drops to the strength of the signal at the roof (usually 3 bars), so it's apparent that the included omnidirectional antenna cannot "amplify" the received signal. Thus, make sure you at least have a usable signal level at the point where you plan to install the exterior signal antenna, or otherwise consider getting the directional antenna upgrade for the YX510. My siblings and I now have reliable cellular service for more than half of the house, and we can all use our phones simultaneously with no problem. Very satisfied! (Note: I installed the exterior antenna using the YX012 grounding kit, but one could easily use store-bought outdoor RG-6 cable and a grounded female-to-female RG-6 connector instead of that kit.)

For those of you having problems with this unit you must remember that the indoor unit uses the same frequency to talk to the cell phone that the outdoor antenna uses to talk to the tower. If the inside unit transmits and the outside unit picks it up the inside unit will lower its power until there is no feedback loop, degrading performance. So, if you can put the inside unit someplace where it will operate at full power and not interfere with the outside antenna then you are set. Try putting the inside unit in the basement or at the opposite end of the house. Also you will never get a better signal inside than what the outside antenna gets so put the outside antenna where it gets the best possible reception. That sounds obvious but I'm sure there are some folks that put the outside unit out a window and the inside unit next to it.

Recently we decided to do away with our telephone landline and go completely wireless. We had some trouble getting a cellular signal at certain places in the house and this product seemed like it would be a good way to bring better signal to those areas. Unfortunately we quickly found, that though this product does in fact do a fine job of repeating a stronger signal to a weak area, the range of the "Hot Spot" is not even close to what it advertises.

We found that even with the antenna pulling in 4 solid bars from outside, unless you were practically sitting on top of the wireless extender you just wouldn't get any improvement. What's more is it seems that there are certain "Blind spots" around the device that don't get any improvement. To give it a fair shot, we experimented with several different transmitter locations and found that the best we could achieve is about a 10x10 sq foot zone with the transmitter in the middle. And of course this location was about the most intrusive (smack in the middle of the kitchen counter). If you put it near a wall or a corner you lose about half of the possible output. We found no reasonably acceptable solution with this product.

I have a fairly small split level ranch home (1200 sq feet), and had hoped that I could reliably cover at least the upper level, but in reality, I was only able to get an extended signal in about half of my small 10x18 kitchen. This is not even close to the 10,000 square feet of coverage advertised in the product description

If this product were MUCH cheaper I could accept the performance for what it is, but at $300 plus it is not worth the minor improvement it offers to a limited area. We basically felt as if the limitation in range was tying us to an old corded phone, which is hardly a step forward in wireless technology. Personally I wouldn't pay more than $79 for this product. I returned mine for a refund.

From the varied reviews you can see it works for some people and does nothing for others. It is highly dependent on your particular conditions.
In other words, it works perfectly though it doesn't work everywhere. So when reviewers give it a low rating, what they are really saying is it either didn't work in their location or they couldn't make it work. There are two things to consider that may influence your purchase decision. The product manual does a good job of stating up front that your cell phone signal strength meter is a very relative measure. Some phones will operate fine on one bar though they will use more power than if they had 4 bars. Other phones will have connection problems with one bar. This is relevant because it doesn't really matter how many bars you have outside of your home, what matters is whether or not you can make and receive normal quality calls.

First, the product description makes it sound like you can just plug it in and go. While that's true in some cases be prepared for some experimentation in positioning.
One thing that's made clear in the manual is that the separation between the receiving antenna and the amplifier is very important. There needs to be VERTICAL separation, 15' at least, the more the better. If the amp and antenna are too close the amp will automatically lower its gain (it won't amplify as much) to prevent feedback (so as not to feed the amplified signal back into the antenna which in turn is amplified and etc.) You can lose a lot of performance this way. If there are walls and floors between the amp and antenna, blocking the amplified signal from feeding back into the antenna, you may not need 15'. I had only 10' but a concrete wall so there was no reduction in gain. It tells you on startup if and how much gain is reduced.

Second, you simply need a good signal to amplify. A better way to think of this product is that it pipes an outside cell signal to inside of your house. While it does do some amplification it won't turn a useless signal into a great one.

If there is a signal outside of your house and you can't make this system work there are a few options. They all add to the cost of the system but is just a question of how much you want to be able to use your phone in your house.
a. A directional antenna. There is a trade off with a directional antenna but it can pull in weaker signals if properly aligned.
b. A better higher performance omnidirectional antenna. More money and requires its own power source.
c. A very high mounting place. The manual suggests mounting the antenna in your attic. That might work. If it doesn't you may need a seriously tall pole. This may be beyond your abilities but again, it is a question of how important using your cell phone in your house is to you. You can hire a satellite installation person or similar to attach a 30'or higher pole to your house with the proper lighting protection for between $50 and $100.

Due to trees and terrain I simply could not make this system work but amazon, as usual, was great about accepting a return.

This is my first review but I'm writing it because I was tentative about this product without a clear yes/no about how well it worked. It had one rave review and other lower models had mixed reviews. In my home, I have at best 1 bar on each of the two frequencies (800 & 1900 MHz) inside. Outside above near the roof, I could get 3 bars each if I stood on railing because of the residential density of the area. It took about 30 minutes to setup and now I have 4 bars on both cell phone frequencies. It might take longer if you're not used to doing this sort of thing. I decided to try this model because sometimes you get what you pay for. For a home though, the $1000 units simply aren't necessary.

Some installation required
Parts:
1. Main unit amplifier with power supply. I believe that it's a bidirectional amplifier which is important.
2. Mounting hardware for antenna and base unit.
3. Weather protected antenna.
4. Decent lenth of coax cable to connect the outdoor antenna to the base unit. It reached my roof, ran through bedroom, through a short hall and across kitchen with space length.

It's important to check that you do have a place you can mount the antenna that has a good signal to begin with. It can be another room, attic, roof, etc. and you can always buy a longer piece of coax cable if needed.