My friend has no means of communications with her husband who works some place surrounded by mountains, so no cell phone reception there. I though maybe some radio station with a custom designed antenna could help. Any suggestions?
Well, there's always shortwave radio. Assuming, of course, that both parties want to be able to communicate, and someone isn't just using the mountains as a cover for, I dunno, an affair or something.
I thought that shortwave relied on bouncing off the ionosphere. Most radio is really line of sight. If you are deep in a mountain range's valleys, its hard to get anything. Even satellite coverage is bad, as the mountains keep you from seeing the bird on the equator. There are lots of places in West Virginia that have no radio, tv or cell coverage.
Cans and a string fixes the common line-of-sight problem, but you probably need wire rather than string. Could be prohibitive if the mountains are more than (say) 200 meters wide.
There are laser based signal senders that work well line of sight, assuming no trees, rain, fog, etc. And line of sight works well for even 2.4gHz radios, you can get a few miles with proper antennas and amps.
So far, this is either an overly generalized problem or impossible, we need the OP to clarify things.
Mike S. Assuming, of course, that both parties want to be able to communicate, and someone isn't just using the mountains as a cover for, I dunno, an affair or something.
Yeah, the situation also looked suspicious to me. Anyway, if to treat the problem strictly technically, there is something called "cell phone antenna and/or power booster" and "wireless extender repeater" which is supposed to help. Anybody has any experience with those?