Did you know in its early days Nextel Communications' technicians made house calls? While working for Nextel Communications I was an outside technician and made those house calls or in most cases office calls.

One day while making one of those calls a man saw my van and asked me if I worked for Nextel. After confirming his suspicion, which was painted in big letters on my van, the man then told me that where he worked cell phones did not work and a Nextel salesman told him he should have a Nextel unit because it would work. I asked him where he worked and he told me he was a prospector and worked in the middle of the desert in Nevada. I almost could not contain my laughter and assured him that he would have no coverage in that area.

The first error people make is to believe the salesperson. Salespeople can be the technician's biggest headache. It is not that they deliberately lie to make a sale because most of the time a returned unit means a lost commission and too many of those result in a lost job. It is just that most cell phone salespeople are not technicians and do not understand anymore about how it works than the customer does.

Talk to other people who are using that carrier and if possible the very unit you are looking at purchasing. Ask them about the reliability of service in the areas where you plan to use the phone.

Make sure, before you sign a contract, that you have a few days to bring the unit back at no charge if you are not satisfied. If there is no cell site near where you want to use the unit it won't work

I have had people tell me they could see the other person but still was not able to talk to them on their phone. It does not matter how close you are to the other person is you are not connected to the system you can not talk. Your phone must be heard by a cell site then the information is sent via telephone lines to a central switching station which finds the other person and then sends the signal back.

Next, there is the error of letting the units get wet. Water is an enemy of electronics and will kill your cell phone. When you take it in to find out why it doesn't work the technician will know it has been wet.

It is amazing how many times a unit full of corrosion or even those with water still present inside the unit has been "no where near water." Telling the technician the unit has not been near water won't work, there are too many tell tail signs.

Keep the unit dry by keeping it out of the rain, away from the pool, away from the toilet (and if it falls in the toilet please do not take it to a technician), and out of the hands of small children. If you carry a cell phone on your boat put it a zip lock plastic bag filled with air (do not blow in the bag because there is enough moisture in your breath to kill a phone); this will keep the unit dry and afloat if it falls overboard. When exercising be sure to protect the phone so perspiration can not get inside the unit. A plastic zip lock bag without air in it works great for this.

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