By Raja Abdulrahim

Sugar Loaf - It used to be that there was an imaginary line a quarter of a mile past the Chester Town Hall where no cell phone reception dared pass.

No longer, as some residents of this hamlet discovered something new this weekend: bars on their cell phones.

"At first I thought it was some sort of weird wireless anomaly," resident Anne Striphas said, "having to do with sunspots or something."

Turns out the answer was much more worldly than that. A Verizon cell tower was built recently in a Chester subdivision. Striphas' neighbor was so happy about the newfound reception he spent the weekend calling family members and rejoiced in a nearly 45-minute phone conversation he had from his bedroom.

The tower has caused controversy, however, as neighbors worry it will emit cancer-causing radiation. Both houses on either side of the tower have since been put up for sale.

Another cell tower may be on its way with a company coming to scout the same area on Monday, said Tom Becker, Chester village water commissioner.

That's good news for residents with other phone providers. Cell phone dead spots are all too common in this region of hilly land and wide open fields. Callers usually don't know they've hit a dead spot until their phone goes kaput.

Striphas didn't have a problem getting reception before she moved here from Goshen. She recalls getting a signal in the bowels of buildings and once even in a cave in Colorado. Anywhere but her newly adopted hometown.

For Striphas, it was more than just an inconvenience. As spokeswoman for the large senior-care company Elant in Goshen, she uses her phone mostly for work and takes many after-hours calls. With the poor reception, she often missed calls and messages.

"For all those people I told not to call my cell phone," she said. "You may now call."