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Old 09-15-2006
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"the thing to do is to use your cellphone consistently during any cruise."

How far offshore has anyone successfully used a cell phone, without an external amplifier or external antenna?

I'm told the cell tower system will allow distances of up to 32 miles (it actually tolerates the signal turnaround time delay needed by that much distance, it doesn't know miles per se) but in practice, I've been on a boat where we played "Who's got two bars?" with a couple of carriers and phones and at 3-3.5 miles from shore (towers known to be on water towers somewhere a little further in) it seemed like calls were just at the threshold of dropping.
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