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Anyone know if there is a registry hack to increase the wattage on antenna or if there is a way to hack the radio rom to increase the wattage a bit??
Is this even legal? I was pretty sure that the FCC regulated the output power of cellular devices. That'd be pretty cool if we could hack it up a bit though
saq said:
Is this even legal? I was pretty sure that the FCC regulated the output power of cellular devices. That'd be pretty cool if we could hack it up a bit though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't know but, the benefit would be awesome.
would be cool.. but isnt battery drain on this device bad enough?
I don't think the increase in battery drain would be very great. Handsets only output at like 250mW which is not very much. The wifi on our handsets output power at about 80mW by comparison and sucks down much more battery power.
i dont think that a reg hack will do the trick. you might actually have to access the radio layer and play around with the signal to noise ratio of the radio it self.
In radio communications, the SNR is continualy monitored and in UMTS, the SNR is 3.5db for data mode based on 3GPP specifications.
if your SNR is good, hence you are receiving a good signal, the power control algorithm in your phone radio layer tells the basestation to cut down on the transmission power. On the flip side (worse SNR due to higher interference or greater path loss), your mobile tells the basestation to increase its transmission power. This also happens on the basestation end where your mobile phone increases and decreases its transmission power.
Now whether or not these algorithms are implemented in hardware or software (ie ROM) is not certain on the hermes. My gut feeling (based on my work developing TDD-UMTS baseband application specific integrated circuits for ericsson sweden a couple years ago), is that its in hardware. It might be a dedicated ASIC, or an FPGA/DSP where the hardware algorithms can be modified only by the radio manufacturer. Or it might be software, but probably not WM5 controlled.
I hope I can be proven wrong coz it would be nice to have a little more power, but on the flip side, not frying my testes (when phone is in my pocket) will also be good...lol
cheers,
I can hear Tim the tool man Taylor shouting in the distance. MORE POWER! UG UG.
daedalia said:
I can hear Tim the tool man Taylor shouting in the distance. MORE POWER! UG UG.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Need it when Cingular is lowering the output of the UMTS radios until they have enough subscribers then incrementally jumping it up. Had a talk with the network engineer for North Florida.
Hey guys very very important question , it's about the sar rating when we make calls . Sar represents radiation hazards to the brain and , most phones have predetermined valuethat is approved before they are sold for safety . Please can somebody do a test about this
htc hd2 running on winmo is safe but running on builds like the ones here we are not sure
i hope that the forum members and the developers for tons can find out and let us know.
Very very important !!!
im taking a guess here, but wouldn't it depend on your radio rom not the build?
can someone confirm or dispute this?
primaraly your looking at hardware such as antana and shielding. im doubtfull that diferent radio packages are going to boost things to unacceptable levels, otherwise mfg's wouldnt cook them up.
both winmo and android runs on the same radio regardless of wich one is booted.
does that make you feel more warm and fuzzy on the inside?...... or is it from to much radiation?
Once again, cell phone radiation poses absolutely no dangers to the tissues of your body.
You want to know why?
There is not enough energy in the radio waves.
There is less energy coming off of your cell phone's radio transmitter than there is coming off of your computer screen that you interpret as visible light.
Learn2highschoolphysics
enneract said:
Once again, cell phone radiation poses absolutely no dangers to the tissues of your body.
You want to know why?
There is not enough energy in the radio waves.
There is less energy coming off of your cell phone's radio transmitter than there is coming off of your computer screen that you interpret as visible light.
Learn2highschoolphysics
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right
But if it does still, you won't die because of this radioation. It will only make you sterile if you carry your phone always near of your balls.
But then again if there are safety requirements about this than it is only
Logical to know that if a device exceeds a safe limit then it means
It could pose a health issue.
With that in mind , I hope that a test could be done to resolve the worry.
The radiation also has to with the antenna and battery consumption during
When the phone is searching for signal etc.
Thank you for the reply some of you have given.
ok, first, try educating your self before posting the same drivel in a bunch of diferent threads.
had you spent as much time searching how sar is tested as you did posting , you would have found that its tested @ the hardwares max output.
hmm... the software comes no wheres near pushing the hardware to the limit.
the radio software is the same in both WM mode and in Android mode
therefore this would lead to the conclusion that if it passed federal standards for sar emissions when run @ full hardware output, and we arnt driving it that hard, that we are at a level LOWER than what it was tested...
fariez44 said:
I hope that a test could be done to resolve the worry.
The radiation also has to with the antenna and battery consumption during
When the phone is searching for signal etc.
Thank you for the reply some of you have given.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
please fwd me your bank info, and each specific condition you would like it tested.
its not cheep
http://www.metlabs.com/Services/Wir...ywgP2vhaUCFSBugwodfX3aOw.aspx?_kk=SAR+testing
http://www.ce-mag.com/archive/03/01/miller.html
http://www.rfexposurelab.com/
Well thanks for the information , I was looking for an explanation as such
It seems you resolved my doubts and thanks once again.[/B]
Need to take care of ourselves
I keep seeing people who claim to have headaches in the morning whenever they use specific builds. We also know some builds provide better cell signal and wifi capabilities. I strongly guess there is a difference between radiation levels of different builds.
If someone leads us to measure the SAR levels of builds under this forum to get an "XDA approval", we can surely all donate to her/him. Then we also can prefer the builds acording to their radiation levels.
Someone with knowledge please help us to determine:
- methods of measurement
- rules and standards of approving the builds
- safety classification according to SAR levels
Radiation is no joke. We are the only big enough developer community to provide this standardization to custom builds.
Radio waves are not ionizing, and thus do not carry enough energy to pose any danger whatsoever.
It is physically impossible.
enneract said:
Radio waves are not ionizing, and thus do not carry enough energy to pose any danger whatsoever.
It is physically impossible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The effect of mobile phone radiation have been studied by a lot of scientists. There are thousands of articles about this topic. I agree that there are contradicting results but no single one claims as you said: "it is physically impossible" Or no scientist refused to do the research assuming that the high school physics is enough to finish the argument.
In fact a lot of researchers came into the conclusion that there is a corelation between cancer and mobile phone radiation.[1,2,3]
It has been basicly studied for the short and long term hazards. Long term hazards have not been completely studied yet due to the short history of word wide mobile phone usage. Short term hazards have been proven such as decrease in cognitive functions and prolonged response times. [4]
1. http://journals.lww.com/epidem/page...=2004&issue=11000&article=00003&type=abstract
2. http://oem.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/64/9/626.pdf
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19285839
4. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...ionid=69BCBB4C4AC1B054C0B953A974547C77.d03t01
baybenbey said:
I keep seeing people who claim to have headaches in the morning whenever they use specific builds
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Id bet that has wayyyy more to do with screen settings, size, brightness resolution refresh rate comparative brightness of the room( dark room more eye strain) than radiation.
Take two or three flights and you'll already have been exposed more than a small transmitter will give in its lifetime.
I have to admit I keep getting headaches with some phones when having long phonecalls. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the screen (always off during calls) or heating up of the phone (all about the same temperature while in use). In the past I would have laughed, but since I paid attention on when and where those headaches started, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the phone radiation. Yes, the general radiation levels are pretty low, but still, they are concentrated at our heads and some of us might be more receptive than others.
First I noticed it with my old HTC Trinity. When I moved to an area with generally low reception, I kept getting headaches during phonecalls, while not having them in other areas where the reception was fine. Those headaches always started on the side of the head, where I held the phone. When switching to a bluetooth headset (which has much lower radiation levels) the headaches were gone.
Another example was the Nokia N73 which I had to use for a job I did. I never had a phone before and after which had such an excellent reception. Areas where I couldn't even get a signal with other phones, were no problem for the N73. I could make and receive phone calls without any problems (1-2 bars). For 3 days I had the phone around my neck with a lanyard. So it was resting on my chest all the time. And I can say for a fact that I got a weird feeling at exact that point. When removing the phone from the lanyard or replacing it with a dummy unit or switching it off, it stopped ...
There are various other phone where I can reproduce that. Unfortunatly.
I'm pretty sure too, that different builds have different radiation levels and the radio rom is not the only thing affecting those. When running WP7 on the HD2 I got headaches very fast (after 5 minutes) being on the phone. With Android (at least the ROM I use) and WM 6.5 those headaches only start after 1+ hour on the phone and even then much less. The radio rom might limit the maximum output, but the specific reception control still comes from within the OS.
So since I seem to be pretty sensitive on this, I'm cool with Android on the HD2. I don't get any more headaches than with Windows Mobile 6.5 (or other "low-SAR-phones"). However with WP7 on the HD2 I had serious problems having long conversations over the phone, comparable to my experience with the HTC Trinity in low reception areas. But I don't think that any of those levels are life threatening - it's just an inconvinience (at least for me). But being a gadget fan and geek that's a little bit of a letdown, having to admit that those things might actually be harmful in one way or another.
baybenbey said:
The effect of mobile phone radiation have been studied by a lot of scientists. There are thousands of articles about this topic. I agree that there are contradicting results but no single one claims as you said: "it is physically impossible" Or no scientist refused to do the research assuming that the high school physics is enough to finish the argument.
In fact a lot of researchers came into the conclusion that there is a corelation between cancer and mobile phone radiation.[1,2,3]
It has been basicly studied for the short and long term hazards. Long term hazards have not been completely studied yet due to the short history of word wide mobile phone usage. Short term hazards have been proven such as decrease in cognitive functions and prolonged response times. [4]
1. http://journals.lww.com/epidem/page...=2004&issue=11000&article=00003&type=abstract
2. http://oem.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/64/9/626.pdf
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19285839
4. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...ionid=69BCBB4C4AC1B054C0B953A974547C77.d03t01
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Click to collapse
Yet, every study focusing on the overall cancer rate in comparison to cell phone adoption has found no correlation. There are numerous experimental problems with actually studying the supposed effect directly (in fact, there was a new york times article earlier this week written by an oncologist enumerating those problems, and why the research, either way, on this subject is fundamentally flawed).
However, the fact remains that if you are scared of this latest nonsensical boogeyman, you should also avoid exposure to all EM radiation of radio and higher energies - you know, radio waves, microwaves, infrared and visible light - goodluck!
I have to admit I keep getting headaches with some phones when having long phonecalls. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the screen (always off during calls) or heating up of the phone (all about the same temperature while in use). In the past I would have laughed, but since I paid attention on when and where those headaches started, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the phone radiation. Yes, the general radiation levels are pretty low, but still, they are concentrated at our heads and some of us might be more receptive than others.
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Click to collapse
Obviously there is no way that you can get a headache from listening to a speaker placed a few millimeters from your ear for an extended period of time. Obviously, no bloody idiot would think that.
Re-read my post ;-) the speaker has nothing to do with the headaches...
Jeez this whole discussion sounds like one of those stupid news lead-ins like 'find out whats killing your kids... ...right after the break'
Surely there are worthier things to worry about than the radiation from cel phones. Just tune in to Fox News, you'll find plenty of ridiculous crap to worry about. Ask yourself this : if you know for sure that when you're 70 you'll have cancer from using cel phones all your life, will that be enough to make you stop using them now? I'll take the cancer over going back to pagers and pay-phones.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
What's the problem discussing possible downsites of customizing our devices? It's not black and white, you know. We can discuss this stuff, and use phones accordingly to our findings and knowledge.
And as said before: It's not (only) about cancer (or any other long term damage this might cause). There are obviously short term effects for some people, why not try minimizing those?
I think it's no difference between WinMo or android builds radiation because the hardware it's the same whit its limitations....even if this wasn't true the livel of sar are not so high to damage our brain(it's possible some biological effect)...so take it easy...only God knows...perhaps
It is really weird that some people here, agrssively oppose individuals who are sharing their concerns by stating some scientific findings about the hazards of SAR. What is the purpose of trying to insult and silence people on the discussion of such a potential risk? Weird!
In the previous references I shared, more than one study of 10+ year of mobile phone usage statistics point out an increased incidence of brain cancer. There are many studies with this result.
And secondly, I found few articles which completely refuses the hazards and defends the safety of mobile phone radiation by agressively opposing(like some people here) the related scientific data. Most of them are suspiciously published from Finland(Country of Nokia). These articles are written in an ideologic and biased manner and falsify all the findings which prove the cancer corelation as nocebo effect or false positive. Or they study the effects of SAR on skin epitheliel cells(relatively resistant against radiation) instead of brain glial cells(sensitive to radiation) and -no surprise- in the end there is no serious harmfull effect... These articles urge to come into the conclusion that SAR is as lovely as blessing of God! Take a look at the discussion section of wikipedia on this topic. All editors complain biased and frequent editing of the page by someone who is adding suggestive sentences to defend the safety of SAR. Hmm...
According to some people here, by looking at the relative wavlength and frequency, microwaves are supposed to be less harmfull than visible light. In fact we can cook a chicken in a microwave oven but not in a sunny beach. SAR can not be found safe by comparing only wavelength/frequency. Who tries to do that obviously misses 3 major points which are:
- distance from source
- intensity of rays
- duration of exposure.
Anyway, even the fanatic SAR defenders in scientific community do not defend it by such a point of view.
Hi today I bough a Samsung vibrant from T-Mobile an the date on the box is 10/26/10 and it came already updated software and I truer the GPS and its perfect locked in 8 seconds and while I was driving it kept on the road spot on. I had vibrants before maybe 4 of them and the back cover is smooth I think the ones I had before I fulfilled feel the dots now its smooth. I think they changed the phone internals becouse even the vibrants I had before after update the GPS was crap. Anyone had any experiance?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Mine locks pretty quick too, I never had any GPS problems since I got the phone two weeks ago.
So does that mean the rest of us that got our phone, few months back are screwed?
That's what owning a samsung phone is like always getting screwed. The days are numberd
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
What?! Does this mean we wont get a fix for the other people? I'm always travelling and GPS is one of the most useful things I need... my old blackberry has a perfect GPS isn't this meant to be a smartphone
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
The thing is that all the phones have something wrong or screwed IP there is no phone that is perfect its just us we are beeping to perfectionists.
My wife and I got ours on the buy 1 get 1 free deal. Ours are both dated 09/26/2010. The SIM Serial # on hers ends in 22288F and mine end in 22296F.
It takes me about 45 second to a minute to get a lock running Axura 2.0.4 and I got a lock using 6 of 7 satellites with accuracy of about 70 feet.
My brother-in-law standing right next to me with a HTC Dream G1 locked on 12 of 14 satellites in about 9 -10 seconds and a accuracy of 10 feet running stock.
My wife running stock saw 2 satellites and never got a lock.
EDIT: This thread is now depreciated. Please visit http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878970 for a fix. I thought I would put the edit here so you don't have to read to page 7 to see the link to the fix.
they didnt change the antenna..give it a few days and i gurantee u it wont work as good
My gps has worked since day one
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
You did not buy a GPS Receiver, you bought a phone with a GPS antenna which is used to track your movement. It just also happens to receive signals from GPS satellites that you are able to use. If you require dead on GPS location then you should go buy a GPS Receiver.
Think of all the things this phone does. It doesn't do any of them better than a device designed to do just that. All-in-one devices are never as good as the devices they are designed to combine.
Zylograth said:
You did not buy a GPS Receiver, you bought a phone with a GPS antenna which is used to track your movement. It just also happens to receive signals from GPS satellites that you are able to use.
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Click to collapse
That is correct, BUT when pretty much EVERY other Android phone on the market out performs it in this aspect, there is a flaw in the system. As stated, the G1 locks on faster & stays locked on much better than this phone.
With that said, I tell the GPS where I want to go, and by the time I've left my neighborhood, it's working great. The fact that it takes 10 times longer to lock on doesn't really matter to me.
Using all of the Bionix ROMs and now using the Axura 2.0.5 ROMs, I've been happy with my GPS. When I was using complete stock, it was crap. IIRC, JI6 wasn't bad though.
I'm currently playing with a friends Galaxy Tab and inside nowhere near a window, it locked on and showed my location without the wireless network assist or verizon location assist being turned on (but that could just be because the phone is bigger and would therefore use a larger antenna).
It's just sad what has happened to businesses, they really just don't care about consumers. I really doubt we'll ever see a fix and if we do, i doubt it'll work for more than 50% of people. I've never been so disappointed with a company. The only thing we can do is just never buy samsung again. Just so disappointing all around.
Microwave frequencies antenna design is fraught with both peril and magic
tjhart85 said:
I'm currently playing with a friends Galaxy Tab and inside nowhere near a window, it locked on and showed my location without the wireless network assist or verizon location assist being turned on (but that could just be because the phone is bigger and would therefore use a larger antenna).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NOPE! All antennas must be designed with a physical length that matches the frequency they are designed to operate at. For GPS this is 1575.42 Mhz and therefore due to the physics of radio frequency ALL GPS antennas are about 7.5 inches long, they have to be to work. Antennas typically work better if they are designed with some type of coil (wrapped around something) so by the time you take 7.5 inches of wire and coil it the resulting antenna is quite small. You can also make a panel antenna by creating a trace of conductive line on a flat surface, but the length still has to be the same to work. Regardless of the size of the device it is going into, if you want the antenna to work at a specific frequency it must be a specific length - end of discussion.
So if the GPS issue varies from phone to phone so much, assuming the antenna is the problem, but it can be affected by software, what is likely the problem? Logic would say that it might be either poor quality control in manufacturing causing slight variances in length (at 1575.42 Mhz a small difference in length can make a big difference) or a design that partially obstructs the antenna. Software can not fix the physical antenna issue, but it can compensate by attempting to filter noise better thus increasing the receiver sensitivity, boosting transmit power, or by shifting phase of the signal to make minor adjustments to the effective conductive length of the antenna.
Another possible issue (but less likely because I see no way for software to effect this) is that Samsung did not get a good impedance match between their antenna and their radio. If this was the case you would lose a great deal of signal to and create a lot of noise because of reflective power. Transmitting at a lower power would reduce over all signal, and boosting power would just create a greater reflective power problem.
lolcopter said:
My gps has worked since day one
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Click to collapse
Ditto
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I too am a replacement Vibrant GPS lover now. Both phones were stock. It has been a week with the new phone and I have not seen any decrease in the GPS performance yet. The old phone had mic issues
I have read many of the GPS posts, but will admit I have not read them all so I don't know if this was talked about yet. While outside tonight as I was doing my daily test I turned the phone upside down so screen is facing the ground and my signal improved from the mid 30's of the "in use" sats to the low to mid 40's. It was nice to see a lot of green for a change. Accuracy improved too. Not sure how the GPS gear is mounted in the phone, but it sure looks like there is a lot stronger signal coming in the the back side then the screen side.
My "use wireless networks" is off
I did this test a number of times while keeping the phone the same distance from the ground. Same results. If there is any other questions or other tests I would be happy to do what I can.
So there you go, the GPS works great, we all just need to hold the phone above our heads..
Zylograth said:
You did not buy a GPS Receiver, you bought a phone with a GPS antenna which is used to track your movement. It just also happens to receive signals from GPS satellites that you are able to use. If you require dead on GPS location then you should go buy a GPS Receiver.
Think of all the things this phone does. It doesn't do any of them better than a device designed to do just that. All-in-one devices are never as good as the devices they are designed to combine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My g1 and mytouch 3g and nexus all had great GPS. The sgs is advertised as the premier device. We have every reason to expect GPS to work and we have absolutely no reason to think one of the advertised features will be broken. GPS is a huge part of smartphones, and since its proven to work on thousands of handsets for years it should work on our vibrants. Maybe new technology gets flexibility but this is GPS we are talking about, its been done and been done perfectly a thousand times over. The phone has plenty of small bugs which is acceptable. Its not acceptable for GPS to be f****d. I think even Samsung would say its unacceptable that I have to carry around my nexus one for its GPS. My vibrant works until I'm about 2/3 of the way to my destination. So basically my screen starts spinning when I'm about as lost as possible. Thank God for my nexus one
GPS on the Vibrant is not a hardware issue. If they have change the hardware, which I doubt, it wouldn't have fixed anything unless they also changed the software. And if they've fixed the software -- which they did in JI2 and JI6 for most people -- then we'll get that fix with the official 2.2 release. OR you could just flash a custom wrong and get good GPS now.
Hi this is the software I have on the phone.
Firmware version. 2.1-update1
Baseband version. T959UVJI6
Karnel version. 2.6.29
Build number. ECLAIR.UVJI6
I don't know if anything diferrent.
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App
I don't understand the comparison to other devices and talk of "I'll never buy another Samsung device."
Since the Galaxy's screen demolishes the competition, I guess the rest of the manufacturers out the are just junk. They are supposed to be top of the line devices so their screen should be as good as this subpar samsung.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
My GPS has worked since day one.
raverj said:
Ditto
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
But certainly Samsung should be better at fixes and T-mobile couldn't be any slower.
Still by far the best device I've ever had, and I had a lot. Axura
And Froyo pull it all together.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Hi, I am making an android application. Whenever a user sign in, his current lat and long are stored in a database at the server. Now let's say two more users sign in the application as well, how would I display nearby users in a 1km radius according to each user? As in how would I calculate if a certain user is in the proximity of another within a 1km radius?
s you are talking about relative short distances you can ignore the fact that the earth's surface is curved. you can now use the Pythagoras' theorem to calculate the the distance between the two. Just look up geographical distance on wikipedia for more information.
But let's say I have 30,000 users (online) in my database. That means do I have to check against 29,999 records each time a user signs in? This seems a bit heavy on the database end. Is there any other efficient way I can pull this off?
You can organize your queries within a tree so only pairs in a certain range get checked.
Have you looked into the latitude api?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
@bompo: i am not sure i understand what u mean , can you please elaborate your point?
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My GN3 is the best phone I've ever owned. It does everything I want except what it was originally built to do. I have the absolute worst service. If i flashed a new ROM would that improve the service? I know it did for my RAZR. Also the WIFI goes in and out constantly. Could a new ROM change that also? Any responses or recommendations would be great!
Thanks
BroadSword
The answer to your question sort of depends on info you didn't provide.
What I mean by that is that radio software NEVER changes raw RF signal strength.
Yeah, that's right - never. That is entirely a hardware/antenna thing.
It *can* change things that happen at the radio protocol level - things like tower selection, power output, modulation and coding selection, etc. And I suppose if there are bugs that cause intermittency, those could be due to software/firmware. So you need to distinguish between three different scenarios: (a) problems due simply to poor signal strength, (b) problems that happen even when the signal is strong, or (c) never observing strong signals even when in close proximity to the cell tower or WiFi router**
So... What are the signal strengths you observe (either cell or WiFi) when you have troubles? Report the values in "dBm", not "Signal Bars" - the latter means literally nothing.
And if you observe problems at -90 dBm, there might be nothing wrong with your device (there is very little "fade margin" above the noise floor and all devices will have problems due to weak signals). But if you see problems such as drop-outs when the signal strength is above (more positive) than -70 dBm, that could be either a hardware fault or a software bug.
If you never see signals above -75 dBm (Cell) or -45 dBm (WiFi in close proximity to the router), then you probably have a hardware problem and a ROM update won't change that.
So - your turn. What signal strengths are you seeing?
PS - on my Note3, the Cell signal strength reported in the Android settings app never seems to change so I conclude it isn't working (MJ7 ROM); I use the "RF Signal Tracker" app (Ken Hunt) for that. You can even drive around town and it will later plot on a map the observed signal strength values. That can be useful for determining if you just have weak signals at your home, or if they are weak everywhere. If you see the latter, you know you have a hardware problem.
Perversely, this app doesn't correctly report WiFi signal strengths on the N3 (it works OK on other Android devices I have); but you can use the "WiFi Analyzer" app (farproc) to observe WiFi signals in dBm.
FWIW, my Note 3 observes signals as strong as -35 dBm (1m from the router), and -51 dBm LTE (cell). It is possible that by driving around I might see even stronger cell signals; I haven't tried it yet in the 7 days I've had the N3.
HTH
** note that you could have problems with cell service/mobile data only, WiFi only, or problems with both if you are unlucky (they use separate radios and antennas).
I'm having issues as well. Never had a problem with the Note 2 , but the 3 likes to constantly drop out of 4G at home. It's odd because I've tested it against my old Droid Razr and they both get around the same signal (-106 dBm vs -105 dBm), however the Razr reliably holds the 4G signal and keeps a fairly consistent dBm reading, whereas the GN3 readings can get worse from time to time even in the same spot. I'm hoping it's software related and they'll fix it with a modem update... MJE didn't help me at all though.
Not to mention the poor battery life due to a low signal. I was very fortunate they turned on Band 4, otherwise I be looking at the same battery life I was getting with my iphone 5 around 6 to 12 hours.
I love my note 3, but the signal quality has me rethinking my decision to keep it.
@bodieism
Your principal trouble is very poor signal. (-105 dBm)
I mean, I get it that individuals aren't going move in order to improve their cell service, and the carrier is unlikely to install a new tower because of a single customer request about poor signal strength.
That only leaves a presumption that handset choice is a consumer option to "fix" a poor signal. (Or repeaters, but that's an expensive solution).
But I would caution that trying to make comparisons of "A vs. B" in areas with terrible reception is fraught with all sorts of methodology and interpretation problems. I can observe > 10 dBm signal strength changes due to orientation and "How I'm holding it" (LOL) changes alone while sitting in one spot on my couch. Imagine that I had an average signal level only 5 dBm above the noise floor - you shouldn't believe a handset comparison I made in that case unless I made it clear that I'd been exhaustive about test conditions.
Simply put, I wouldn't put much stock in undisciplined, anecdotal reports that come from fringe reception areas.
As you noted, the MJE update did nothing for you. But that's not a surprise - no amount of software is going to overcome lack of signal.
Maybe a complaint to Verizon might result in something measurable happening - squeaky wheel and all that. But you will be unlikely to get anything from them if you live in a rural or low population density area.
Any idea what this is saying. Looks like I'm connected to a tower that is over 6,000 miles away
Take a sec and hit thanks if I helped or if you're in a good mood!
bskarpa said:
Any idea what this is saying. Looks like I'm connected to a tower that is over 6,000 miles away
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That app doesn't have a complete tower database, so it just picks the geolocation info seemingly at random (or maybe one per continent). I don't think I have ever seen that app feature work for VZW towers; it might work for GSM networks tho.
I think it relies on public (crowd sourced) data for tower geolocation info, so that particular feature is probably only useful in metro areas and maybe not even then.
bftb0 said:
That app doesn't have a complete tower database, so it just picks the geolocation info seemingly at random (or maybe one per continent). I don't think I have ever seen that app feature work for VZW towers; it might work for GSM networks tho.
I think it relies on public (crowd sourced) data for tower geolocation info, so that particular feature so it is probably only useful in metro areas and maybe not even then.
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OK thanks bud. I know here around town by my daughter's school which is only like a mile or less away from my house I get awesome signal but here at the house its around -75db give or take.
I looked on the net to see what towers were around and it came back as (see the attachment) which is pretty interesting.
Take a sec and hit thanks if I helped or if you're in a good mood!
@bskarpa what Internet site did you use? (-75 dBm is a pretty decent signal btw)
That app says my tower is 6224 miles away in Croatia. Apparently tower numbers are not globally unique (as that record matches the observed tower # I have for my service)
bftb0 said:
As you noted, the MJE update did nothing for you. But that's not a surprise - no amount of software is going to overcome lack of signal.
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My Droid Razr, Note 2, and my GF's S3 all overcome the lack of signal with no problem at all. You'd think since Samsung can make 2 devices that can maintain a weak 4G signal that their newest phone could do the same, but apparently it can't, whether it be hardware or software related.
bftb0 said:
@bskarpa what Internet site did you use? (-75 dBm is a pretty decent signal btw)
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http://www.antennasearch.com/
Take a sec and hit thanks if I helped or if you're in a good mood!
bodieism said:
My Droid Razr, Note 2, and my GF's S3 all overcome the lack of signal with no problem at all. You'd think since Samsung can make 2 devices that can maintain a weak 4G signal that their newest phone could do the same, but apparently it can't, whether it be hardware or software related.
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I don't doubt at all that your description of your experience(s) are anything but truthful.
And I don't doubt that some handsets are better than others when it comes to raw RF signal strength. For instance, (older gear) the Samsung Galaxy Fascinate had simply horrid GPS reception at a time when handsets and GPS receivers from other OEM vendors (and far less expensive devices, I might add) were perfectly fine. You couldn't get a reliable lock inside a vehicle, and you could barely get one with a completely clear sky to the horizon in 360 degrees.
The thing is, Samsung isn't making the radio silicon nor the radio firmware; so in the case of the Note 3, if there is a different vendor using the same Qualcomm MSM8974/S800 SOC with better reception, that would probably imply that Samsung sucks at understanding antenna modeling or RF interconnect modeling... or they just don't care enough in their rush to get their devices to market.
The other thing to consider is that the decision space that a handset needs to operate in is pretty complicated, as there are both 4G and 3G bands available, variable block resource allocations, variable coding & modulation schemes, etc, and the ability to switch between them in agile fashion might mean that there is a lot of stuff going on thousands of times per second - while the little idiot light in the notification bar probably only gets updated on the order of once a second. I suppose it is feasible that in fringe LTE reception areas it might even be possible that reversion to 3G produces better bandwidth in some situations (neither LTE nor EVDO are "all-or-nothing" affairs when it comes to bandwidth). If that were indeed the case, the fact that "4G" didn't show up on the device's notification bar might not mean too much.
In any event, a better comparative measure of handset performance would be actual data transfer rates measured at the same (weak signal) locations throughout different times of the day (to avoid confusing a transient cell congestion or interference issue as being the fault of a specific handset being tested). Then we'd be looking at what is really important to folks in that situation - actual bandwidth achieved instead of an indicator light status. I think that would be pretty diagnostic.
cheers
bftb0 said:
The other thing to consider is that the decision space that a handset needs to operate in is pretty complicated, as there are both 4G and 3G bands available, variable block resource allocations, variable coding & modulation schemes, etc, and the ability to switch between them in agile fashion might mean that there is a lot of stuff going on thousands of times per second - while the little idiot light in the notification bar probably only gets updated on the order of once a second. I suppose it is feasible that in fringe LTE reception areas it might even be possible that reversion to 3G produces better bandwidth in some situations (neither LTE nor EVDO are "all-or-nothing" affairs when it comes to bandwidth). If that were indeed the case, the fact that "4G" didn't show up on the device's notification bar might not mean too much.
In any event, a better comparative measure of handset performance would be actual data transfer rates measured at the same (weak signal) locations throughout different times of the day (to avoid confusing a transient cell congestion or interference issue as being the fault of a specific handset being tested). Then we'd be looking at what is really important to folks in that situation - actual bandwidth achieved instead of an indicator light status. I think that would be pretty diagnostic.
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It's not really necessary. I've never had issues with the speed while the phone is in 4G at home. The problem comes from it constantly wanting to drop to 3G. The quality of my Netflix shows dropping is one of the things that tips me off to having been bumped to 3G. Lately I've been putting my sim card into the Razr while I'm home and turning on the wifi hotspot. That way I can just use wifi on the Note 3 to avoid the annoying 3G bumps and subsequent crappy Netflix resolution. While I suppose I could go through the trouble of testing the different handset speeds in the same location at different times of the day, I have a suspicion that the download speeds will be similar if they both happen to be in 4G during the test. In fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if the Note 3 is faster while in 4G.
You can chalk it up to any reason you want, but in any event, my Note 3 can't hold onto a weak 4G signal anywhere near as good as any of my previous phones.
bftb0 said:
@bskarpa what Internet site did you use? (-75 dBm is a pretty decent signal btw)
That app says my tower is 6224 miles away in Croatia. Apparently tower numbers are not globally unique (as that record matches the observed tower # I have for my service)
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The one in my screen shot is www.antennasearch.com, sorry so late, I just now saw this.