Kyocera 3245 Up-Update

Still sniffing around the options but can report that Optus will sell the 3245 for $399 outright (bit cheaper than Telstra, heaps less then Crazy - quite a few other retailers don't carry them). Telstra carries the CDMA traffic for Optus it seems. Optus do a $5 plan for CDMA (and a $10 as well) but Telstra's Communic8 seems the go for $10, because freebie calls are included day and night, but to a designated number only.ALSO, re temporary external antennas (not the in-car jobs) - retailers in Adelaide seem to know nothing about them. I'm going to chase up some more info, but with what little I know about transceivers, playing with antennas can bugger up performance el pronto, and as Tom says below, possibly bugger up the innards....my guess re the use of a longer antenna is that the worst that could happen is degraded performance.Tom at Kyocera fed back the following important advice - quite a few key points in there for me:Thank you for contacting Kyocera Wireless Customer Care.

Unfortunately, Kyocera Wireless Corp. does not manufacture external antennas for cellular phone products. We do not offer or recommend using any other type of antenna other than the one included with your phone. The phone is calibrated for optimum performance using the included antenna.
Aftermarket external antennas are available from third party manufacturers but Kyocera Wireless has not tested the compatibility of non-Kyocera branded accessories with Kyocera products. The use of aftermarket accessories may degrade the phone's overall performance, void our manufacturer's warranty, and may cause damage to your phone.

Please contact your Service Provider if your phone signal strength is less.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

For further clarifications and assistance feel free to get back to us.

Thanks and Regards -

Tom -
Kyocera Wireless Technical Support