How far away for minilink?

[Mama2H]

How far away can you get the minilink from the pump without losing signal? I have been trying to put Hailey's hooked to her pillow at night and she loses signal everytime so I have to move it back to her waist.... Any suggestions?

[rickst29]

Range of the radio signal varies ENORMOUSLY, depending on what's in the way. The signal has a really hard time going through human tissue or walls.

With walls, the angle of the line between the Minilink and the Guardian is important, too: If it's straight through, most walls are only about 6" thick, you'll loose about 8 feet's worth of range. But if the signal must go through the wall at a big angle, the distance through the 6" wall can easily be twice that long, and you won't get any signal at all.

Your on-the-pillow location isn't bad *if* the signal can go through only air (and a blanket or two) to reach the Guardian. But if Hailey rolls over, putting the Sensor against the actual bed, then the signal will have to travel through her entire torso (from Sensor, through lower back or belly, up through chest, out through shoulder).

And maybe it has to go through her head and skull to, depending on which side of her head the Guardian is on. But that doesn't matter, just going all the way up from butt cheek to shoulder (through the body) is probably already too much "stuff" in the signal path, it almost certainly WON'T get there.
- - - - -
I'm a full sized man, wearing Dexcom. If I live it in on a Kitchen counter while in the "Great Room", the signal easily handles 20 feet of air-- and my Transmitter is almost a YEAR OLD, Dexcom says that they're only expected to last for 6 months. But if I put it in the wrong pocket, it skips readings: Just going from my "love handle" Sensor site THROUGH my belly to the other side is now too much for it. And really, my waist isn't that big and flabbed-out :p

[EmmasMom]

I agree with Rick, there are many factors!
I keep Emma's pump in a pouch and her sensor is near her waistband on her upper butt cheek, we almost never lose the signal, even if she's laying on it, because of the close proximity and how small she is. Will your daughter wear a pump pack?

On the other hand... we can be 6 feet away outside while she's running around and lose the signal. The signal never stays strong when she's in water, no matter how close the pump is. She has a cast iron bath tub and we always lose the signal even if I set the pump on the ledge, and let all the water out, or hang the pump from the shower head... many experiments have been done;).
A few nights ago I had silenced two weak signal alarms during her bath, and then she got out and ran off to play w/o being reconnected to the pump. I thought it was weird that the pump hadn't alarmed again, so I looked at it and the signal was great even though she was across the hall in the playroom a good 15-20 feet away from her pump and on the other side of two walls.:rolleyes: You just never know!

[Mama2H]

Thank Rick and Amy! Her site is on her behind right now but we plan on switching to her thigh on Sunday :D Which means the signal has to go through entire body including the skull. It never occured to me that it would make that much of a difference. Tonight I will try to lay it next to her instead of hooked to her pillow!

[Mama2H]

We tried a thigh and Hailey couldn't stand it so we had to remove it less than 24 hours later :( Unfortunatly she still lost signal if the pump was more than 12 inches from the minilink :( I called minimed tonight and they think there is something interfering as we did a test while on the phone and I couldn't get a straight signal more than 2 feet away. I explained to them that we live in a VERY rural area without cell towers/power stations/radio towers etc... and that the only thing that it could be would be my cordless phone or the remote on the tv. After we ruled those out she said they would send a new minilink in hopes that it is a problem with that. I spent 45 minutes on hold and then another hour on the phone with the most condesending rep :( I was really urked when she kept trying to tell me that Hailey could not lay on it, no matter now many times I explained to her that I could look directly at the sensor with her butt in the air and if I moved the pump more than 24 inches away we would lose signal. I hate when someone tries to talk to me like I am an idiot and didn't try to fix this myself before calling them :cwds:

[EmmasMom]

I hate bad "customer service" reps!
I got one of those when we were having trouble with the sensor insertions, and she treated me like I was crazy for using this product on my daughter at all because of her age. She also immediately assumed that I was doing something wrong.:mad: Our inserter was not working right!!

I called my local rep who fixed the problem immediately and had the CSR fired! :eek: She said you should always report rude people because MM is really trying to weed out the bad people at the call center.

I agree that something is wrong with your minlink. It should have a much stronger signal than that! We very, very rarely lose the signal unless Emma's in the tub. I hope the new one fixes the problem!

I'm sorry about the thigh site too.:( You probably need more padding to be able to angle that thing on your thigh w/o pain.