Database Users

reception sucks!

I hate to say it but I am having 3g issues. By that I mean no 3g and one to two bars. Usually I have perfect reception.
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i've noticed on the incredible that my displayed signal strength isn't as strong as it is on my droid. haven't noticed a difference in call reception or data speeds though...yet.

Eris users have noticed the same thing as you bzbz when compared to the Droid. Could be the cpu or something else HTC vs Motorola.

i've noticed on the incredible that my displayed signal strength isn't as strong as it is on my droid. haven't noticed a difference in call reception or data speeds though...yet.
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I noticed the same thing but my download/upload speeds are just as fast if not faster. I gave my Droid to my mom and took her upgrade so I have both side by side, off WiFi downloading a movie and the Incredible is actually 20-50kbs faster than my old Droid and yes the Droid is over clocked with petes 1ghz kernel.

I have had the Incredible for a couple of days, and I've noticed a lower displayed signal strength than I'd see on my Droid in the same locations.
But I've not experienced any reception issues, and my internet speed seems the same or faster.
This is what I expected. We all know that you can't count on those reception bars to compare different phones, and also that Moto tends to have better radios/reception than everyone else anyway. As long as you're phone's radio is close to Moto's in the ability to make/receive calls, then normally you're not doing bad.

well it's good to know that the signal strength concern may be more of a "cosmetic" issue than a legitimate performance issue.

daftlush said:
I hate to say it but I am having 3g issues. By that I mean no 3g and one to two bars. Usually I have perfect reception.
Sent from my ADR6300 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
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how is the quality on said reception? Other people's replies seem to indicate good quality even with less bars.

BzBz said:
well it's good to know that the signal strength concern may be more of a "cosmetic" issue than a legitimate performance issue.
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This...
It is definitely cosmetic, the newest radio i have installed on my eris does the same. The reception on my eris is better then my friends with the older radio, but he has more 3G bars.

designerfx said:
how is the quality on said reception? Other people's replies seem to indicate good quality even with less bars.
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It may just be the way HTC displays the signal. I know on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Pro, the signal indicator frequently shows incorrect (lower) signal strength but works fine.

I compared signal strength between my BB Curve 8330 and my new Incredible.
In spite of the indicated signal strength being lower on the Incredible, the dBm was the same. It's only one location and one user, but I suspect it's not an actual signal strength issue.

i used my incredible all day. i work in a downtown area with many tall building surrounded and i still got a good 3g signal and speed.
from Boston.

the 3G speeds on my incredible are slower that my 2G G1 running on AT&T. i get les than 200 kbps downstream. My friend with a droid standing in the same room will get aound 1100 Kbps. What gives??

if you are haveing a tough time with a signal.. I update my roaming towers... I had an issue today where I couldn't get much.. I did *228 option 2 and it updated my roaming towers and have had no problems since... sometimes you need to do that with a new phone so it knows exactly what towers to look for

tried the *228 to update. Update was successful but no improvment. still have very slow data speeds and terrible call quality. reception stays about around -100 dBm

I'm also noticing what appears to be poor reception. I was getting better reception with my Droid than I am with Incredible. I've tried the *228 last night and this morning but that hasn't helped. Hopefully there will eventually be some kind of software fix for this. I'm seeing other threads on other sites with the same kind of complaints so I don't think it's a select few who are experiencing this issue.

hoop762 said:
the 3G speeds on my incredible are slower that my 2G G1 running on AT&T. i get les than 200 kbps downstream. My friend with a droid standing in the same room will get aound 1100 Kbps. What gives??
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Your speed will depend on what tower your connected to. on my Eris, I've gone from 1mbps/0.70mbps in New York, NY to 2mbps/2mbps in West Haven, CT. It's not the phone. The newer radio on the Incredible will show less bars, but your signal strength will be fine .(dBm)

My phone keeps dropping 3G my droid never has done this in the location the incredible is. I will go into airplane mode then back out and I will have 3g again

Over at Androidforums there is a thread going regarding reception issues. On page 2 is some help in running a debug on the phone that will give you dbm levels and some other info. I'm not sure how to use the info the debug gives but perhaps it may be of some use to someone here.
The link is http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/70223-weak-signal-strength.html

rckeystone said:
Over at Androidforums there is a thread going regarding reception issues. On page 2 is some help in running a debug on the phone that will give you dbm levels and some other info. I'm not sure how to use the info the debug gives but perhaps it may be of some use to someone here.
The link is http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/70223-weak-signal-strength.html
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You don't need to go into field test mode like this guy said, all you need to do is from the home screen > menu > setting > about phone > network.
Here you will see signal strength (typical between -100 to -80dBm) the closer to 0 you are the better your signal is (ie: 80dBm > 90dBm)
Hope that clears up some confusion. I've tested both the motodroid and the incredible side by side in a location with low signal and can say that my incredible gets better signal than the droid, even though the "bars" don't indicate as such.

my signal always stays at -81, is that a good thing?
im a new android and 3g user

Possible bug in Fascinate's signal strength

I believe there is a bug in the signal strength indication on the Fascinate, the one that shows the signal strength in -dBm.
You can see the signal strength of the cell signal on the Menu, Settings, About, Status screen. Or you can place a widget on your Home screen. There are several widgets available, I'm using Mobile Signal Widget.
I have a network extender, which basically creates a cell tower right in your home. With my Motorola Droid, I used to get signal strengths down to about -50 something and 60's in indicated signal strength. I can hold both of our Fascinates right next to the network extender's antenna and they will read no better than -86 dBm. So far I've seen signal strengths from -86 dBm to -106 dBm (terrible).
I believe there is a bug in the software (Baseband) on the Fascinate. Previously, I thought the hardware (antenna/radio) wasn't very good, but now it may be software related.
Has anyone seen a signal strength stronger than -86 dBm on the Fascinate?

That's a good point. Mine has never gone below -86dbm either. It fluctuates between -86 at it's best and -106 at it's worst.

Ill keep an eye on this with my phone
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

I have no experience with cell phone radios so take this with the appropriate helping of salt.
Most radios have input protection that attenuates any signals greater than a set maximum level to prevent damage to the radio. I'm guessing the Fascinate reports it's receive signal level post input protection. It appears you just discovered this threshold for the Fascinate. Honestly, -86 dBm is plenty of signal, anything more is just for show
Again, I'm only speculating here.
Martian21

Interesting theory. I have emailed Verizon support as well. Hopefully, I will get a technical response and not a canned response from them.

With mine, it only fluctuates in -5dBm increments lol. I thought it was a litle wierd. I've seen -86, -91, -96, -101, and -106 lol.
As far as what the OP is talking about, my BB Tour (alltel) is the same way. It won't ever display anything lower than a -80.

Anyone else have a consistently high TWS(Time Without Signal) percentage? Mine almost never goes below 50%, and I've seen it up in the 80s. I think my battery life is really suffering from this. You can see yours in Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby. I've tried a few "fixes" that I've found through researching the issue on other android phones in general, but haven't seen any results.

shazbonk said:
Anyone else have a consistently high TWS(Time Without Signal) percentage? Mine almost never goes below 50%, and I've seen it up in the 80s. I think my battery life is really suffering from this. You can see yours in Settings > About Phone > Battery Use > Cell Standby. I've tried a few "fixes" that I've found through researching the issue on other android phones in general, but haven't seen any results.
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I was thinking about this the other day. Is it possible "time without signal" is simply a poor translation? The reason I ask this is when taking my phone off the charger overnight, I went directly to this setting to see what it reported. The phone reported having been unplugged for 2 minutes and already showed 5% TWS. I had been looking at the phone the whole time and didn't see it drop at all. What I did see is it going from 3G w/ arrows to 3Gd. So maybe this percentage isn't time without signal but rather time not active (i.e. 3G d).

I agree w/ the 3g d, I did not update to DI01 yet and it said I have 20% TWS throughout the day, but the phone didnt make a no service sound.

On my drive home everday I pass a Verizon owned tower.
I've stopped at a liquor store about 200 yards away from it and they maximum signal my Fascinate would pull down was -86dBm (4 bars as well).
My Cell Standby is usually around 11%.
Battery life of my Fascinate is very good.

xliderider: Any news/word from Verizon on this? What kind of Network Extender do you have? Got a brand/model #? Been thinking of picking something up like this.

So it isn't just my phone. My Fascinate goes from -86 to -106 as well. I had my Droid and Fascinate sitting next to each other, both reporting 4 bars. I went into status, and my Droid's signal strength was -77. The Fascinate was at -86. It's gotta be capped.

You're holding it wrong.
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You are probably right. With 4 full bars I can't get better than -86

I've been having the same problem...I was told by Verizon that it just has a "weaker" antenna. I go throughout the day with about 20% TWS. Never had that with my other Verizon phones.

do you get dropped calls or otherwise poor service?

I am returning my incredible due to dropped calls (while at home) using Verizons network Extender. I have had the incredible since April 29th (I believe that was the first day it was released). I have had the signal boosted twice by Verizon but still can't get close to 40' without dropping. One thing I noticed on the incredible while in the same room with the Extender is it would read let's say a -86dbm before placing a call then when placed and on the Extender network the signal would automatically go to -56dbm (stronger signal than -86dbm) and then back up after my call. What I saw was the Extender wasn't active until you make a call... Having said that, I am hoping the Fascinate will be better than the inc was... I will let you know when the Fascinate gets to me Wed or Thursday.
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Got the Facinate a day early : )
So far it is defiantly working better than my Incredible on my verizon network extender!
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Mines 0%
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Sounds like it could have the same problem that affected the Vibrant. It NEVER showed higher than -81dBm, and would often reflect no signal (-0dBm is spectacular but it really means no signal within the Android system). Now with the update it reflects up to -51dBm like it should for GSM/WCDMA with Android and doesn't drop to -0dBm anymore. This of course effected the bars, often dropping to no bars or 1. Now after it's been fixed, plenty of bars and proper -dBm readings.

[Q] Anyone having signal issues?

I just picked my new Fascinate yesterday and have been noticing something strange. I routinely have a very low signal with 3G and WiFi in places I've always had a great signal (or so I thought). Just to get it out of the way, I am not using any kind of case and I have already done a *228 update.
For example, tonight I put my Fascinate, a friend's Continuum, and a friend's original Droid in front of me on a table to compare their 3G signals. The Droid reported 4 bars, the Continuum 2 bars, and my flickered between 0 and 1.
At home, my "old" Omnia 2 routinely got 3-4 bars (still does even though it's deactivated) and my gf's LG Ally gets the same. However my Fascinate gets 1-2, sometimes dipping to 0.
Oddly, I have the same issue with my WiFi signal. At home my PC and laptop have a full strength signal while the phone is lucky to have a that first dot and maybe a bar. At work, I can walk within 4 feet of my Wireless-N router and still not have a full signal
Now everything *seems* to work so I'm hoping it's just an algorithmic display issue, but I have gotten a "Network Error" message a few times. For good measure, I'll probably pop into Verizon to compare my signal to the various displays there.
My question is: Is this a general Fascinate issue? Do I have a lemon? Should I just hope 2.2 is magic?
Thanks

same problem here.
I'm really hoping this gets fixed with 2.2.

I've had two fascinates now, and they've both had really poor signal strength compared to any other phone I've used or seen. Was at lunch the other day with a friend with a Droid 1, and I was getting 1 bar, he was getting 4. At home, it's consistently 1 to 2 bars at best, and I live less than a mile and a half from the nearest tower.
While I don't drop calls, I think it's pretty clear that the phone has a particularly week antennae design.
Since you say you just got the phone, I assume you haven't rooted and played with other roms yet. But in case you have, I noticed a significant drop in signal strength, both cellular and wifi, using JT's DJ05 rom. And it was more than just a display issue, since the wifi connection would repeatedly drop - even in the same room as my router. Switched to the stock DJ05 and I was back to normal (if you consider 1 to 2 bars normal).

Just wanted to follow-up on this. After a week of comparing signals to every smartphone I ran into, I came to the conclusion I either had a lemon or the Fascinate had serious engineering issues.
I went back to my local Verizon store and compared my phone's signal strength to all the Android phones in there, including the other Fascinates. Every phone was between -73 and -86. My phone never got any better than -101. So they swapped phones for me (new one out of the box) and this one performed like all their other phones in the store. I am now enjoying my old, normal, strong signal strength and my battery is still at healthy 80% after several hours of use, even a little wifi usage.
Moral of the Story: Check your signal strength (on any phone) against the phones in the store before you leave and don't be afraid to demand a new phone if you have that sort of concrete data to back it up!
Sent from my SCH-i500 Fascinated using the XDA App

DI01 has a signal reporting bug that is fixed in DJ05/DL09. With DI01, the best I got was -86dBm, and the jumps did not really seem to make sense. After going to DJ05, the reported signal goes up to -50dBm or so and moves in a logical direction (go inside, signal goes down) where before it would just move randomly. It is possible that there was also bad hardware, but I'd guess that it had more to do with the crappy software Samsung provided.

Interesting. I've not had any ambition to root/flash my Fascinate (I swear I did it weekly with my old Omnia 2) so for whatever it's worth, my experience was always with the stock DI01.

Hopefully you won't have similar problems after we get the maintenance update, whenever that may be.

Poor Signal Reception?

Anyone else noticing a lower signal reception with this phone?
I am coming from an iPhone 4. Previously at my house I was at 4-5 bars, now 2-3.
At my work I usually had 2-3 bars, now I get no signal to 1 bar.
I was trying really hard to enjoy the phone but now that I have seen the signal at my work I think it's going to have to go back
I wonder if the Inspire would get a better signal.
Update: It's not just the bars, I make calls and texts regularly at work with my iPhone and have never had a problem. With the Atrix it is dropping to no service and I can not make a call or text.

I was just noticing this same thin as well, i'm coming a captivate and where i normally have full service, the atrix gives me 2-3 bars. That said however, i don't notice much of a difference, if any at all, in the speed of things

Signal bars are different from phone to phone. I wouldn't trust those to much. However I find this behavior odd as I get better reception on this phone vs my old one. A lot better as in 2 - 3 bars better. Were you able to make calls on you iphone when it actually had the 1 - 2 bars at your office?

Vaires from phone to phone, remember when iPhone 4 showed higher signal then it was supposed to? then apple pushed the update

Yeah I made calls and texted regularly in my office, with the Atrix it drops service enitrely (says no service) and I can't make a call or send a text
I wouldnt care about the bar difference if it wasn't for the actual no service vs never having a problem.

That is interesting , my captivate had 0 to no service in my office, while the atrix has atleast 3 bars of edge.

crawlgsx said:
Anyone else noticing a lower signal reception with this phone?
I am coming from an iPhone 4. Previously at my house I was at 4-5 bars, now 2-3.
At my work I usually had 2-3 bars, now I get no signal to 1 bar.
I was trying really hard to enjoy the phone but now that I have seen the signal at my work I think it's going to have to go back
I wonder if the Inspire would get a better signal.
Update: It's not just the bars, I make calls and texts regularly at work with my iPhone and have never had a problem. With the Atrix it is dropping to no service and I can not make a call or text.
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Comparing using the bars is not going to work across different phones, besides the iPhone 4 was known for reporting more bars then other phones.
In Android go to Menu > Settings > About Phone > Status and note the signal strength.

On Verizon you could update what they call "roaming capabilities". It's not really roaming, its more like manually updating or sync'ing tower or geographic locations. It's supposed to help some issues with signal strength.
Does ATT have a method to manually re-sync in this fashion?

HAROLDS Did u even read the bottom of my post?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

tbae2 said:
That is interesting , my captivate had 0 to no service in my office, while the atrix has atleast 3 bars of edge.
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i think that means your Captivate still tries to look for a 3G signal but the Atrix is so weak that it cannot find any 3G signal and therefore it automatically starts looking for the Edge signal.
I am saying this because I also noticed the same behavior inside my apt building elevator.

This is interesting. I guess I'll find out tomorrow, but several of my friends and I have been noticing that deadspots with our N1's and Captivates. Like no signal, no voice, no text, no data. In the same locations iPhone 4's are good to go on everything. I volunteered to be the guy that gets an Atrix to see how it does. This thread has me worried.

Driod 2 evdo signal question.

I have downloaded both Real Signal and Signal Status from the market. I keep having issues with my data not working(it's been ongoing since I got the phone.), so I wanted to know what my actual dBms were. But for some reason, on both apps, the highest evdo reading I get is about -3 and the lowest is about -30. But I don't know what that means in terms of real signal as everything I can find on google and that I understand, it should be between -60ish and -115ish but I have never seen those numbers on the evdo side. Am I wrong? I understand that it is the same dBm as 1rxtt, and I know they are different tech, but I would think it would be similar any way. However, I don't know antenna tech at all. So that's why I posted the question here. I have done a google search with no real relevant results, but I didn't search XDA specifically, as I thought if there were any relevant results they would have popped up in my google search. And all the relevant postings that I came up with said the same as my assumption. That signal should be between -60ish and -120ish.
Thanks again for all the help, you guys are awesome.

1 bar ~ -102 to -120 dBM
2 Bars ~ -93 to -101 dBM
3 Bars ~ -87 to -92 dBM
4 Bars ~ -78 to -86 dBM
5 Bars ~ -40 to -77 dBM
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I was able to hunt down that chart (Granted it was for a BB, however I would imagine the info would still roughly apply to any device), but I was not able to locate any real description of bars vs dBM. However, from what I've read before, just because you have a lower dBM (IE: -40) doesn't really mean you're going to have full bars/better service. I could be wrong, but from most of what I've read over time showed it was only a very vague correlation.

Do you get intermittent loss of data where only the right arrow under the 3G icon is active? That happens to me frequently as well and I have to go in and out of airplane mode to reconnect. Some of us think Blur causes it.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

Granted, I only kept the stock rom for about 3 days before I installed a custom, blur-less rom. However, I seem to recall having some data issues while using the stock rom. I donno if it was part of blur or something else causing it. However ever since I've flashed to a new rom I havent had a single issue.

I've been having issues with data like this, too. I have put an Airplane toggle widget on my home screen just for this. I am near Fort Collins, CO, but I guess it looks like people may have narrowed it down to ROM issues and not location or Verizon.
Maybe they'll fix it when they roll us out to Gingerbread.

silverfang77 said:
Do you get intermittent loss of data where only the right arrow under the 3G icon is active? That happens to me frequently as well and I have to go in and out of airplane mode to reconnect. Some of us think Blur causes it.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
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Yes. It happens quite frequently, and an airplane toggle usually fixes it.

-Gilgamesh- said:
Granted, I only kept the stock rom for about 3 days before I installed a custom, blur-less rom. However, I seem to recall having some data issues while using the stock rom. I donno if it was part of blur or something else causing it. However ever since I've flashed to a new rom I havent had a single issue.
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I have wondered myself if it wasn't blur issues. It freezes all the time, and fiancees Ally doesn't have the freezing problem and general laggyness. And I know hers only has a slow 600 Mhz processor and is just a budget smartphone.

-Gilgamesh- said:
I was able to hunt down that chart (Granted it was for a BB, however I would imagine the info would still roughly apply to any device), but I was not able to locate any real description of bars vs dBM. However, from what I've read before, just because you have a lower dBM (IE: -40) doesn't really mean you're going to have full bars/better service. I could be wrong, but from most of what I've read over time showed it was only a very vague correlation.
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Then should it be possible for me to hit single digits? I don't recall ever having a lower signal than -30 and it stays typically in the -8 to -20 range. When I was at about -100 cell service, I was at about -8 to-10 evdo. So something still must not be right with my phone. right now I am at -76 cell and -2 to -4 Ev.

I am seeing the same thing on my phone. I have ~87dBM cell service, and ~7dBM for evdo. I have always understood Verizon's voice and data network to be separate, I suppose this just goes to confirm that.

Here's a way to confirm if it's a problem with Blur, as opposed to VZW's network. Is there anyone who had this problem on the D2 with the stock ROM and then had the problem completely disappear (or at least reduce in frequency) after switching to Liberty ROM, or one of the others?

All my issues dried up when I flashed a custom rom.

I work in the industry. A -80 is generally the number you want to shoot for as far as having a good usable signal. Anything higher would be even better. Although once you get past -50 or so the signal is kind of hot and may cause issues. Anything lower is a bad signal (-90/-100) and would also cause issues.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

I had 3g issues with the droid 1 and cyanogen but Never with blur or liberty/droid 2 from the same house. I have noticed some "cell standby" signal loss on liberty but never really bad like some cyanogen builds..don't overclock and see if that helps.
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