Cell Phone Coverage in San Juan's ?

Cutty Sark

Just curious if anyone knows what kind of cell reception one can get in the SJ's? Specifically Sucia, Matia, and Stuart islands. I was wanting to hit these area's in the next couple weeks. Trouble is my wife works on call most weekends and needs to have cell phone coverage. Most interested in Sucia. Anyone have an idea?

Thanks
Sark

Sawdust · Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:49 pm Post subject:

Works for me - but don't do Sucia at all. There are some dead spots, but generally good coverage. I use Victoria when I lose signal and need to stay in touch.

Wish I coud help more,

Dusty

TyBoo · Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:49 pm Post subject:

I am sorry to say that for my tatses, the coverage is good. Too good. The only time it ever got weird for us was up north around Stewart Island. The provider we had then (ATT I think) said we were in Canada.

Socrateur · Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:03 pm Post subject:

My understanding is that there is one, and only one, cell phone tower located in the San Juans, and it is at Mt. Constitution on Orcas. If you have a clear line of sight in that direction I would assume you'd be OK, particularly from Sucia and Matia. Stuart might be more of a problem. Certain cell providers might not subscribe to that location, however.

Jay

Knotty C · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:44 am Post subject:

We were up there last summer and had pretty good coverage most of the time. We did find some dead spots at Stuart, but never made it to Sucia. We have Verizon.

Cutty Sark · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 8:43 am Post subject:

Believe me sometimes I'd love to throw the cellphone in the drink, but my wife is a workaholic. She works almost every weekend of the year staffing for a home health care agency, So she needs reception so she can make calls etc... Gets on my nerves especially when we are doing family stuff, but it helps pay for the boat so I don't gripe too loud. Thanks for the tip sounds like we should be ok.

Sark

Anita Marie · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:40 am Post subject:

Switched from Verizon to Cingular because the number of dropped calls from Verizon. Was at Sucia, Stuart, Jones and Friday Harboar last week and had zero dropped calls.
This is not a Cingular ad, I just got fed up with Verizon. The folks that use to run Blakely Marina said that Verizon had the worst coverage in the islands.

Patriot · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:02 am Post subject:

What about coverage in Canada. I expect we will spend time near Vancouver Island and up to Desolation sound (for this year anyway). My wife has a Verizon cell phone and I've wondered if I get one (retired last Friday and I'm not sure I want to be that accessible), should it be from a Canadian cell service.

Art

rhys · Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:27 pm Post subject:

I call from the north side of Stuart often and have Verizon. One thing we do is go into the menu, go to "Settings and Tools" then "System", then "Network" and select "Home Only". As you get close to the line between the Canadian system and the US tower, the phone will try to seek the Canadian signal which puts my phone into roam and fluctuates more. Just remember to switch it back to "Automatic" in the network setting when you leave the area.

lloyds · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:47 am Post subject:

We have verizon and it works fine on vancouver island, with two qualifiers. One is you have to get out into the open, and on the west coast most of the anchorages/marinas are ringed by hills/mountains. And the big qualifier is if you have an american plan the roaming charges are like $0.99/minute. It works if you can afford it.