Database Users

Signal Strength

Is there any way to boost the Signal Strength on these phones, I am sitting here with the Siemens ver of this phone in one hand, a Nokia in the other. The Nokia is 100% where as the Siemens is 10%
Thanks in advance.

You may find that the accuracy of the signal level indicator is not very good. If you have a good connection when calling or talking I would use that as a gauge rather than the very suspect indicator on the pda. Having said that, there is a very cheap device that you stick to your phone and is supposed to boost the signal significantly. Heres a link, they are sold in lots of places and are only pennies on ebay.
This ebay link is selling 3 for 99cents in usa.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=48491&item=5719616810&rd=1
You may need to remove the back of the xda to install this device, its worth a try though if you want a better signal. To remove the back you will need a small flat blade screwdriver and a No 6 Torx screwdriver.

Those stick-ons have been shown to have either no effect at all or to actually make the signal worse. Been proven over and over. Save your money.

I heard that too but at 99cents for 3 it might be wirth a try. A piece of string will probably give a better signal but its all about trying different ideas.

Just to let you know, this is a fake product. The only function this device has is to make your wallet a bit lighter. Dont spend your money on this.
If you want better signal on your phone, then you have to extend the build-in antenna via the antenna connector on the back, which normally are for carkits.
Try to place a bit of wire (4 - 16cm) in the hole. Keep your phone in the same spot and see if the signal gets better if you shorten the wire.
This is just an idea so dont blame me if the signal does'nt improve.
Your provider is most likely the problem.

BobBob said:
Try to place a bit of wire (4 - 16cm) in the hole. Keep your phone in the same spot and see if the signal gets better if you shorten the wire.
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!!!!!
That strikes my interest
!!!
Could you be a little more specific. Which hole are you talking a bout ?

cant remember if xda1's have that option

There is no hole. Maybe a 7 element Yagi motorised directional beam mounted on a head cradle would work. Might give you a stiff neck though.

xdaII and xdaIIs

Where can we find out more about xdaIIs ?. My problem with xdaII is poor reception and tinny sound, particularly on handsfree compared to Nokia's excellent but brik heavy Communicator

XDA II vs IIs speakers and reception
I have found no difference in reception between XDAII and XDAIIs. To be honest, I haven't noticed that the XDA was any worse than any other dedicated mobile, and I have had a few. The only really bad news is when you use an aluminium case, that really knocks a bar of the signal strength.
The Speaker in the IIs seems about the same as the II, and the nice white screen of the XDA II is now a pale yellow in the IIs. Putting them side by side it is obvious.
If you can, wait until HTC fix up the Bluetooth stack before buying. Version 3500 is promising, but still no better than the later versions of the Microsoft stack in the XDAII.
Happy Christmas.

Bad Reception on All Networks Tried Compared to Older Nokia & Sony Ericsson Phones

Bad Reception on All Networks Tried Compared to Older Nokia & Sony Ericsson Phones
I just thought I would post my issue here with my Desire HD. I will post updates following warranty. If anyone has similar issues with their handset please feel free to mention it here too. So far I've found a couple of comments googling about bad reception using a Desire HD when compared to an older phone. The girl I spoke to at HTC Australia said she had not heard anything about this before and said she believed it was an isolated issue.
I am experiencing very poor 2G & 3G reception on my Desire HD. I have played with all network settings including turning off Wi-Fi and selecting the network manually. I've also tried multiple radio versions, multiple ROM versions and factory resets and yes the issue was there to begin with and still is happening now after I've restored my ROM and radio back to stock. Compared to a much a older Sony Ericsson W660i and some other Nokia phone of the same age they all get much, much better reception. This is in the same room of the same house. Using sim cards from Telstra, 3, and Vodafone in Australia. The biggest change noticeable is obvious using 3 and Telstra SIM cards in the Desire HD. The old Nokia and Sony Ericsson keep a rock solid full reception bars. The Desire HD struggles around 1 or two bars. Often going to no bars, sometimes getting as high as 3 bars only for a moment and sometimes going to X bars meaning completely no reception. Using the Vodafone SIM card I get equally crappy reception but when I put the Vodafone SIM card in the Nokia or the Sony Ericsson it is not rock solid full bars but usually only just a bit bellow full. HTC have suggested a factory reset and a warranty. I have complied a complete guide to reset my phone back to factory stock ROM, settings, htboot, S-on ect. Which is here if anyone needs it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=920876
Lastly to anyone who didn't know HTC Australia informed me that if warrantied during the first 28days of purchace and they find an issue they just replace the phone. After 28days they only repair the phone. I will taking my phone in today to get the full replacement.

Could be bad SIM cover antenna contact. Without it you'll not get good reception at all.
Also DHD does not support all HSPA bands but you probably knew that. At least on Telstra GSM any DHD model should get full reception.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Yoshi_523 said:
Lastly to anyone who didn't know HTC Australia informed me that if warrantied during the first 28days of purchace and they find an issue they just replace the phone. After 28days they only repair the phone. I will taking my phone in today to get the full replacement.
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That's nice. In South Africa we got 7 days... I had to send mine in on day 11. Been waiting for almost a month for the phone to come back, but it should be any day now (holding thumbs, touching wood, etc).

Also DHD does not support all HSPA bands but you probably knew that. At least on Telstra GSM any DHD model should get full reception
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Yeah I did know that. Same as my Sony Ericsson W660i really. The Sony only runs on the 2100Mhz UMTS (3G) band along with the standard quad band GSM (2G). It gets full bars on Telstra & 3 but my DHD doesn't
Could be bad SIM cover antenna contact. Without it you'll not get good reception at all.
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Where is the antenna exactly? I was guessing the antenna is around the middle of the back roughly coz cupping my hand across there will make the Wi-Fi drop a little. Is it really got a connector in the plastic cover plate that covers access to the MicroSD Card and SIM Card that affects the antenna?

The antenna in inside the botom plastic sim cover.
IT is molded in the cover and has 2 connectors where the cover and the main body of the phone make contact

broncogr said:
The antenna in inside the botom plastic sim cover.
IT is molded in the cover and has 2 connectors where the cover and the main body of the phone make contact
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Indeed, and when I take the SIM cover off I can barely get reception near a cell tower.
The battery cover also has an antenna in it, however I think it's for Wifi and BT.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

have you tried taking the sim card out and wiping the contacts clean and doing a reset i.e. battery out reset. This was happening to me when I got mine and this fixed my issues.

^^ Yeah no dice. Cleaning the SIM card does nothing. I also used multiple SIM card of different carriers.
I've just posted a new thread with videos as the brand new replacement Desire HD still has reception issues and I've found it has a surprisingly similar "death grip" issue that plagued the iphone 4.
Here's the link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=10842571#post10842571

All phones have a similar death-grip issue. But have you ever dropped a call on your DHD while holding it? Mine's similar, but I'm yet to drop a call or data session.

^^ I'm sorry I cannot answer that question as ever since got the phone with this SIM card I've been waiting for Vodafone to get back to me to change over my existing phone number so I've put on hold to use this Vodafone SIM card to make any calls or to use data. I can't believe that many years after the Australia wide policy to be able to keep your phone number that Vodafone are making a stink about it being such an issue to swap my number over. So in short I haven't been using the new SIM card and only been using Wi-Fi till because I want to wait till it's transferred to my old number. I would imagine holding the phone vertically as shown that web browsing on zero bars wouldn't be great. I would also guess that once I move to an area with even less reception that it would drop out. Again this is just my educated guess. Others will probably have more experience on this.
Secondly yes I can understand that maybe all phones have a particular death grip hold (depending on where the aerial is) that will cause reception to drop however I do think that this is bad planning with this HTC phone. Being a touch screen phone I unusually hold the phone in my left hand as in the video for general application and web surfing use. The old Nokia and Sony Ericsson I'd really have to try hard to hold my hand strangely to get it to drop reception.
Again please keep in mind I'm not against you guys. I'm only new to this phone. I realise it's one of the best on the Australian market. Hell I love this phone and have bought into a 24month contract. I plan to keep it and I only wanted to show you what I've found and hopefully if others have seen similar maybe they can tell HTC and then they can work on something to help. Maybe it's me being optimistic but I would like to thing that maybe that plastic bottom plate holding the antenna could be re-engineered and replaced with an upgraded one or something similar and problem solved?!?

Here we go again. HTC made the best considering the laws of physics. You can't have metal body without some non-metal part that holds the antenna. The only other possible solution is WiFi and gsm antennas to switch places but that might not be practical from the internal design point of view. If you hold your phone and look at it, you'll see that the only place you never put your hand is the top of the phone but I wouldn't want a cover there especially on a rainy day .
Our "death grip" and iPhone's is completely different. We have attenuation of the signal because when holding the phone your hand is in the near field of the antenna which messes with its properties to some extend (and attenuated the signal too) and Apple experiences signal cuts because some bright boy liked his design too much and did not listen to the engineers. IPhone's antenna is exposed and by touching it you cause much more trouble than being in the near field. And as if that's not bad enough, that same bright boy has put the WiFi antenna too close and if you bridge the two, the signal drops. Actually with the silicon case on, the iPhone and the DHD experience the same. If it doesn't look like it that's because with the software update Apple changed the way signal strength is reported to the user.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

I'm not sure this is actually an issue at all, the OP has stated he has no idea if it drops calls or not, merely that the recorded signal drops, also comparing signal strength with that of older phones, or even phones of different makes is nonsensical as all manufacturers set there own scale as to when the phone displays full reception and when it displays less, and since apple got caught fiddling the scales they appear to be overly cautious at reporting full reception

Desire HD "Death Grip" Reception Issues with Videos

Ok so yesterday (in Sydney, Australia) I returned my HTC Desire HD after I was facing poor reception when compared to 2 other phones used in the same room of the house. I did carry out the factory reset as suggested by HTC and also wiped the SIM cards clean. For the tests I used a Nokia 6120 and a Sony Ericsson k530i. I also used SIM cards from 3, Telstra and the one that came with the Desire HD from Vodafone. In all the tests the Desire HD had significantly worse reception (at least if the reception icons are anything to judge by).
Yesterday Vodafone replaced my Desire HD on the spot as I was within 28days of purchase. At first I seemed to think the reception was better on the new phone however this was with the phone laying on a box and not touching it. As soon as I picked up the phone reception became lousy again like my previous Desire HD. After reading comments from other users on this site regarding the antenna being in the cover plate at the bottom I tried holding the phone in different positions to see if this bottom cover plate really did affect things. The two videos linked to here show my findings using the brand new replacement phone I picked up yesterday. Also in the second video is shown if a factory reset or a gel case changes this isse.
Now that I've got a better understanding of what is causing this issue I will contact HTC again to see what they say about it. I'll keep you updated. Please post feedback on your phone including what carrier & country you are using and what ROM and radio version is loaded. Thanks
Here are the two videos I made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ljHtUMOH8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr16fGAVzQg

Okay I've contacted HTC in Australia and the person taking my call has looked at the two videos. He's said he has documented the issue and will forward the videos on to the HTC engineers to have a look at. Will let you know if they contact me with any updates. Feel free to contact HTC if you find similar issues with your phone. I would think the more people reporting this to HTC, the more importance they should place on trying to fix this issue.

Mine id exactly the same. I already noticed this since last week when I got it. Just dont hold it at the bortom.

are you part vampire or some thing
turn your lights on
put your phone in a case and your problems will be solved

Framedtrash said:
are you part vampire or some thing
turn your lights on
put your phone in a case and your problems will be solved
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AHEM. bit sounds like someone i know.. may be Stevey ..
But yes when reception is low, take your hand of the antenna at the bottom. I own a K530i too, where antennae is at back. I will get poor signal, if i hold it in particular way or if i keep it in cushion or so. but K530i antennae is ergonomic to hold but desire hd is placed right at where my palm holds it. this happens with WIFI too when i hold my fingers covering the side. but again its bearable. lets see how it holds in the long run.

At least the DHD, is ambidextrous. You can hold it with either hand just grip it in the middle. Compared to The iphone 4 which has crap signal when used by right handed girls. Lol lol lol.

Well, never had this problem even when I cover the bottom part the signal just drops 1 bar and that's it, no problems with the signal and whatsoever.

To the OP, just wondered what build no. and baseband is on your phone???

Originally posted by
Framedtrash are you part vampire or some thing
turn your lights on
put your phone in a case and your problems will be solved
Yesterday 07:02 PM
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There problem is for an amateur like myself posting youtube videos is that if I don't decrease the exposure then you cannot see clearly the reception bars especially when I look at the backlit screen from the Sony Ericsson. I wanted to be sure most of all you can clearly see the what the phone screens are displaying.
Secondly please look at video 2 in the link it clearly shows how the Desire HD works in my experience in a case. Bascially a gel case solves nothing in my situation or at best maybe only delays by a few seconds the reception loss when holding the bottom.
Originally posted by nm8 To the OP, just wondered what build no. and baseband is on your phone???
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Please look at video 1. It clearly show the software information page in the video which shows the ROM verison, radio version, kernal version and baseband (or radio version) from the stock Vodafone Australia ROM that came preloaded as of yesterday January 23. I don't believe recent radio or ROMs fix this issue as SWIM loaded 1.72.405.3 with the latest radio his phone to try to solve this issue, that didn't fix it so SWIM then tried around 4 different radio versions including the latest "test" release from UK and still no significant improvement. I'd be happy to hear other's feedback on this and what ROMs and Radio versions they use and if any real improvement. I will make clear though that with my brand new phone, it is stock and unmodified.
I mean no disrespect guys when I say this, I'm happy to take constructive criticism and feedback just please have a look at the two videos first and consider everything explained and put forward before posting a quick response.
As I mention in the video this issue is not as bad with Telstra and 3 SIM cards in my room as they seem to have better reception and don't drop as many bars (but they still do drop bars) holding the phone in the "death grip". The worst is the included Vodafone SIM card which the phone is on a contract with and doesn't get completely full reception before holding the phone as shown. I would imagine that the same scenario would be replicated elsewhere. Find an area where you don't get full reception and see how much it drops when you hold your phone like I have in the video. Again this is going to most affect data while browsing the web ect rather than calls where you are likely to hold the phone differently.
I don't want to start a war or get people upset here. I love the Desire HD and Android. I've paid for a long term 24month contract and I plan on keeping my phone. I'm only just surprised to find out this issue and I hope HTC will take it seriously to try to find a way to help out with solving it. Take care guys. Again if anyone else wants to alert HTC to this issue I think they will be more likely to treat this with more importance. As present HTC Australia seemed to say they'd heard nothing about it and played it down a bit.

Ok, you say the recpetion is worse than your older phone are you actually measuring the recpetion or looking at the bars?. More importantly does it actually result in dropped calls? I believe the issues with the iPhone4 (and if apple are to be believed all phones in the world released before it) where that the bars are only a vague representation of signal strength and that if held wrongly it dropped calls.
I don't pay enough attention to the signal bars, but certainly my ability to make and recieve calls is no worse than my previous HTC Magic and better than my wife's iPhone 3g

Just tested on my phone and here are the results... If i push the bottom of phone to my palm the bars drop from 4 to 2, when holding it in such way that palm covers the bottom bars drop from 4 to 3.... When holding it normally i have full bars, so i dont really see a problem...

Just adding my 2 pence, prior to updating my Radio I would get low or no signal at home. Probably the only draw back of living in rural Wales.
Now after flashing the latest Radio 26.04.03.30_M, I get a solid 3 bars 90% of the time.
No new cell towers have been constructed, the locals would go mental! In essence what I'm trying to say is, try an update your Radio.
Ensure you follow all guides to the letter.

Still no response from OP, as to whether this has a detrimental effect on real world reception i.e dropped calls, so as to whether this is an actual problem at all!
Edit: I assume from the resounding silence, that there's is no actual real world effect?... Nothing to see here move along please!

^^ I'm sorry I cannot answer that question as ever since got the phone with this SIM card I've been waiting for Vodafone to get back to me to change over my existing phone number so I've put on hold to use this Vodafone SIM card to make any calls. I can't believe that many years after the Australia wide (I believe government) policy to be able to keep your phone number that Vodafone are making a stink about it being such an issue to swap my number over. So in short I haven't been using the new SIM card and only been using Wi-Fi because I want to wait till it's transferred to my old number. I would imagine holding the phone vertically as shown that web browsing on zero bars wouldn't be great. If someone could test this googling net speed test with the bottom held and then without the bottom held I would be most grateful. I would also guess that once I move to an area with even less reception that data would drop out completely. Again this is just my educated guess. Others will probably have more experience on this.

ghostofcain said:
Ok, you say the recpetion is worse than your older phone are you actually measuring the recpetion or looking at the bars?. More importantly does it actually result in dropped calls? I believe the issues with the iPhone4 (and if apple are to be believed all phones in the world released before it) where that the bars are only a vague representation of signal strength and that if held wrongly it dropped calls.
I don't pay enough attention to the signal bars, but certainly my ability to make and recieve calls is no worse than my previous HTC Magic and better than my wife's iPhone 3g
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The bars cannot be trusted and that's why we have a little thing called FieldTest. Dial *#*#7262626#*#* and you can see the actual signal strength in dbm. When completely covered and the palm pressed to the antenna the signal drops 7-10 db which should not be a problem. I normally hold the phone a little higher, covering only a small part of the antenna and the signal drop is even smaller - like 2-3 db. That's for WCDMA, for GSM frequencies it should be even more negligible. Too lazy to test it though .
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

tkolev said:
The bars cannot be trusted and that's why we have a little thing called FieldTest. Dial *#*#7262626#*#* and you can see the actual signal strength in dbm. When completely covered and the palm pressed to the antenna the signal drops 7-10 db which should not be a problem. I normally hold the phone a little higher, covering only a small part of the antenna and the signal drop is even smaller - like 2-3 db. That's for WCDMA, for GSM frequencies it should be even more negligible. Too lazy to test it though .
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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It's about the same with GSM at least for me, which to be honest isn't a worry, so again I don't see this as being an issue in real world use

ghostofcain said:
It's about the same with GSM at least for me, which to be honest isn't a worry, so again I don't see this as being an issue in real world use
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Some side-by-side comparison with the iPhone 4
Signal strength with the iPhone is ~5 db worse than the DHD. Both phones laying on the table so no touching whatsoever. When touched (with just one finger) at the "sweet spot" (bridging the WiFi and gsm antennas) the signal on the iPhone drops like 15-20 db. Both phones are in WCDMA mode.
Again I normally hold the phone higher than the cover by the sides of the phone. Unfortunately with the iPhone my ring finger goes exactly where the most trouble is caused, but if you ask a certain someone that's because I'm holding it wrong
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

I read this a few days ago. It may prove useful repeated here.
http://m.gizmodo.com/5740076/giz-explains-why-your-call-dropped

Yoshi_523 said:
Please post feedback on your phone including what carrier & country you are using and what ROM and radio version is loaded. Thanks
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hello,
i am from austria europa and its the same
when i hold the handy with my fingers only on the top i have 4points
when i hold it with my right hand i have 4points sometimes 3
when i hold my handy with the left hand i have 2 points
i thought the last week.. why i have ever a problem when i call out from here ...never i had it with my nokia n80.
right now i know it..... super work from HTC... siro points for her
it was my last HTC handy for sure... also some others as
incoming call display doesn't indicate that a call is forwarded etc.... but thats an other story
tnx
cqf

Same here.
When I hold the phone with my right hand it drops 1 bar (around 6db in FieldTest)
When I hold the phone with my left hand it drops 2-3 bars (around 12db in FieldTest).
When it poor reception areas (around 2 bars signal) holding in the left hand it switches from 3G to 2G.
I think there is definitively a signal problem, especially for left handed people.
It would be nice to gather more impressions.

[Q] GSM signal booster

Hi
In my apartment in one room there is pretty good gsm signal and in other room the signal is very weak. Is there any quick and not expensive solution to improve the signal?
I found one item on ebay, and just wandering could this small tag solve the signal problems?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Galaxy-S4...ell_Phone_Signal_Boosters&hash=item20dab0a1ff
Thanks

Being a licenced radio operator I have come across many strange antenna design's over the years and scratched my head trying to understand how the hell it could possibly work, regarding the tag you found, I highly doubt it would do anything, reason,
1. its not physically connected to the antenna circuit of the phone, Inductive coupling does work, but with the losses involved in this design, it would be highly sceptical you would notice any improvement.
2. They want you to place it "under the battery" this in turn would de-tune the resonate frequency of the antenna due to capacictive and inductive coupling of the battery and surrounding phone circuitry. Assuming it even works properly in the first place. And at cellphone radio frequencies a tiny change can cause the antenna to not be resonate.
Having said all that I have witnessed some strange things regarding antennas and with new ideas and designs I guess anything is possible.
For a few $ why not give it a try and report back.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app