Hello,
I wanted to know if anyone tried one of these, if they are any good or a waste of money???
http://cgi.ebay.com/12-5dB-External...obile-MDA_W0QQitemZ200006439524QQcmdZViewItem
I am looking to get one to try and use in the San Jose, CA area spec. Ft. Hunter Ligget Verizon has coverage but no T-Mobile, I think Cingular has coverage too.
Couple of comments.
First off, if Cingular has coverage and TMobile doesn't, then you should check to see if you can manually select a network. There is a registry hack to do this, I just can't remember exactly where it is.
Second, Verizon is CDMA, Tmobile is GSM. Therefore, just because Verizon has coverage, doesn't mean TMobile will have coverage.
Third, You should make sure the antenna you buy has the correct connector. Each manufacture has a different connector style, and my not be compatible.
I understand you to mean, if Verizon and Cingular have a signal, with an antenna, wouldn't I have one, too?
The answer is probably yes.
I have a Wilson antenna on my wizard and one for my aircard, as well. The difference ranges from "oh cool" in most areas to "amazing" in some areas.
The one you posted a link to has been pulled off the market, obviously, it's ineffective.
I highly recommend you buy a wilson (www.wilsonelectronics.com)
One warning: many military facilities use electronic jamming systems, while not intended to block cell signals-they do. But, if others have a signal, so should you...maybe. LOL
If AlfredTV had checked http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/ he would have seen that there is NO coverage anywhere near Fort Hunter Ligget. T-mobile's closest towers provide a string of beads of coverage along Hwy 101.
I have purchased and occasionally use an antenna identical to the one he asked about... it works quite well, within reason. One must consider that there is about 3 dB signal loss in the long coax that comes attached to the antenna. The principal advantage to using an external mag mount antenna is to avoid the roughly 11 dB in-vehicle reception loss and gain a better field of view for the antenna producing more reliable reception. It works but don't expect a miracle.
I mainly use the antenna slapped on the top of an upper cabinet in my cubicle. My phone alone at desk level is completely deaf, with the elevated antenna I can receive calls and make a (slow) EDGE connection.
Related
Lets compile a list of areas with poor reception.
Having looked into options to improve reception, If the xda wasnt such a damned good device I'd hate it as a phone as I just cant use it as a mobile when I'm at home reliably, and lets face it networks lie about temporary faults with coverage.
Saying that, my Motorola V60 is also poor in my area - So I thought if we could all post bad areas anyone interested in buying an O2 xda in the same area would certainly think long and hard before committing to a contract for a year.
GSM/GPRS
Next to no coverage in the lower hill areas in Rusthall near Tunbridge Wells for O2
GPRS doesnt connect sometimes
single dot on antenna symbol, one bar next to it very occasionally.
SMS
SMS sending sporadic
VOICECALLS
Voicecalls are distorted
Other Network coverage
T-Mobile - coverage awful.
No service whatsover (cant even send sms)
Orange
We also get a poor reception here using Orange (although miles better than O2)
Anyone live nearby with Vodafone?
I'm hoping to switch networks for my xda after the years contract with o2 is up
http://www.webmap.btcellnet.net
Put in your postcode and it can tell you exactly how many O2 cells you have in your area and how close they are.
How damn useful!!!
Is there a weblink for other service providers that anyone knows about??
Rog
its lying about the lower part of Rusthall!
Anon, I notice you're not man enough to use a real name. And that you have to resort to being abusive.
The whole point of this thread is to make people aware that salesmen who say that coverage is ok in your home area are sometimes unitentionally misleading the public.
If you enjoy misleading people then please leave this forum alone - its for sharing information - please read the posting guidelines.
And as for it being a simulation, dont you think its misleading, and why do you think I started this posting, to get REAL data - so we can compile our own results - and help other people who want to buy an xda. After all if a map showing coverage is false - whats the point of it. Would you sail to america in a yacht with a simulated map?
Moderator, how come people can post replies as guests anyway?
The whole system is set up so that guests can post messages. We've felt that the advantages have outweighed the disadvantages so far.
I've deleted the offending post and contacted the user behind this IP-number to see if we can achieve a change in behaviour.
derekcfoley said:
its lying about the lower part of Rusthall!
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mmm. The colour coding seems to be misleading but its handy to know how close the cells are. Even if you are very close to the cells I would guess there are things that can block the radio signals (eg. hills, trees, building etc.).
You say T-mobile and Orange are worse than O2, so I would definately try Vodafone.
Also interesting is that O2's cell indicator has a form you can fill in if you have a piece of land they could put a new cell on. Might be an option?
Spent last week in the UK with my Qtek on Vodafone. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!! You guys have the worst mobile coverage ever! And people seem to think it's ok!
I lost connection all the time while going on major roads between major cities! On the site of the company I visited you had to go outside in certain spots to get any coverage at all, and they used Vodafone as their main supplier. And last but not least, getting a GPRS connection worked like one time out of twenty.
Here in Sweden, I find it irritating that I have bad coverage at my summer house. Which is like 20 minutes drive from the nearest major road or small town. No wonder they use Sweden as a test bench for new mobile services!
Could that also have something to do with the fact that the two largest mobile manufacturers are Scandinavian? You'd sort of expect it to work in your own back yard. When they try and turn up the juice in the UK, everyone complains about their kid's brains getting fried
rgds,
Alex.
well I can safely say that O2 in NW sheffield and south of Leeds is rubbish.
according to the map it should be GOOD
uh uh.
the whole area is a sinkhole for decent reception. about the only phones that give good signal in this place is orange.
Kent seems to work pretty much everywhere for O2. I live in Dartford and work in Bexleyheath and have no troubles.
Rgds,
Rob.
O2 in central Cheltenham is total crap and has been for as long as I can remember and I have used lots of different phones.
Anonymous said:
.
You say T-mobile and Orange are worse than O2, so I would definately try Vodafone.
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Never had a problem with Vodaphone here............
Works phone is on Vodaphone...............
The only time I loose the signal is when I am hiding down in the Subway at work....!!! (Birmingham New Street Station!)
addendum to my post about Sheffield and Wakefield.
reception is crap if you are running windows 2003 PPC 4.00.05 and 4.00.11
I put 3.17.03 on my XDA yesterday and I am stunned at the difference.
In my works building on 4.0.05 and 11 I never got a signal. now I thought fair enough because I am in the basement below ground level with iron bars on the window. not even one bar
since I've put my XDA back to 3.17.03 I've never had less than 3 bars, even in places where I've never got a signal.
I think I'll wait until an official O2 ROM release for 2003.
Here are my list of bad spots....
Almost any part of the top of the mendip hills apart from near to major towns. One notable exception being orange, who seem to have much more coverage there.
Crediton in devon, and the road from tiverton to crediton. Reception is patchy at best. This is true for all neworks.
Parts of avonmouth are bad for O2 coverage, with orange being the best in that area.
Parts of the A38 from Churchill to cross, patchy reception for all networks.
Winscombe to Banwell, O2 is ok, but other networks patchy.
Flixton in norfolk, very patchy (stand outside and point the phone in the right direction).
Wooky Hole (village not the cave!) almost no signal on any network, unless you walk to the top of the nearest hill.
Frome a bit patchy for O2, not sure about other networks.
cells said:
http://www.webmap.btcellnet.net
Put in your postcode and it can tell you exactly how many O2 cells you have in your area and how close they are.
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http://www.webmap.o2.co.uk/
This is the current URL for this site, which according to my Post Code says i'm 0.3km from my nearest Cell. I'm also 0.35km (as the crow flies) from my O2 shop - in my O2 shop my XDAII gets 5 bars reception, from my living room, 0 bars!!!
What can I do to get a better reception?
PS my area is Worthing (town centre), West Sussex.
Well I finally broke down replaced the HTC rom that came on my TyTN last night with the cingular rom (1.31) and today something funny happened - I had a U when I left my house! Formerly I only had 3G when I went into the city. So I'm wondering if there's something magically new in the Cingular rom that allowed me access to differn't then the HTC or whether with the release of the 8525 tomorrow if Cingular is lighting up new towers so when people go and buy it they can all have the joy of 3G
Only problem is that aroumd my house - I have lousy 3G coverage (1 bar) but would have full coverage with GSM. Within my house fortunately the 3G signal is nonexistant so it goes over to GSM. If I remember correctly that 3G is actually CDMA and I think they use the same towers is Sprint does in the area because as I drive around - the signal strength mirrors nearly perfectly my expierence with Sprint (which is why I left them - terrible coverage in my area) It's too bad that the phone doesn't have a toggle that if you don't have at least 2 bars of 3g but there's full GSM to default over to the GSM (I know I can disable 3g altogether if it turns out to be a problem).
Well at least I can now confirm that (with the right rom?) Cingular has 3G coverage in Stamford, Darien (poor) and Norwalk CT (I haven't driven anywhere else today)
It's probably not your device/ROM. More likely you're seeing the continued buildout of Cingular's 3G network...
Yeah I just saw somebody on Howard Forums post that they just got service in CT today too. I figured that was the case but it just seemed like an extreame coincidence. - Not that there's anything wrong with that
3G is not CDMA .. it's WCDMA which is totally different than CDMA ..
I realize that CDMA and WCDMA are differnt tech, but would it lkely use the same towers as CDMA? I know that the towers (at least in my area) are not generally owned by the carrier but rather rented out to them. If they use the same towers - it would explain why their coverage mimics Sprints signal so much in this area (rather then Cingular's GSM coverage).
not know for sure but I dont think it's possible to share towers between different technologies .. one technology issues .. two why share something with competitors ..
well if it's running in the same frequencies I BELIEVE it should be able to transmit and recieve both (kinda like your laptop can do 802.11B and 802.11G) but I could be wrong on that - also, at least the towers in my area, the majority of them are independently owned and rented to the companies so from that stand point, I think it's obvious why - the more people renting their towers - the more money! Course this is mostly speculation on my part (cept the fact that I know that 6 of the 9 towers in my area are independently owned).
the actual tower is either owned by a carrier and space is leased to other carriers, or owned by a 3rd party and leased to carriers. the radio equipment located on the tower belongs to the carrier, and is not shared with other carriers. i realize there may be roaming agreements, but they are not sharing tower equipment, you are just using another carrier's tower. your provider pays the carrier you used for handling your call while roaming.
one tower might host a cingular GSM radio system, a t-mobile GSM system, a verizon CDMA system, a WCDMA (UMTS/HSDPA) system, a 800mHz iDEN system, and maybe a few local repeaters for local government.
towers are shared between competitors primarily because they are actually owned by a third party. carrier owned towers still have exceptions though, often because zoning laws limit available tower space. the carriers work together in this sense, because otherwise each might be locked out of another's coverage area due to local limits and restrictions on tower construction.
sometimes you have to work with the competition to get the job done!
Nice to have people smarter then me around
chymmylt said:
I realize that CDMA and WCDMA are differnt tech, but would it lkely use the same towers as CDMA? I know that the towers (at least in my area) are not generally owned by the carrier but rather rented out to them. If they use the same towers - it would explain why their coverage mimics Sprints signal so much in this area (rather then Cingular's GSM coverage).
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Yeah you pretty much hit it on the nose. Not many operators own their own tower, and towers aren't cheap to build. So if they're doing a rollout the most logical thing for them to do would be to put their equip on the same towers that probably everone else does (Sprint, et al). That does NOT however mean they are actually using Sprint's equipment.
-Q
EDIT: Never mind...
jamiefiedler already answered this in more detail. Sorry for not reading more
yea, im dumping the tilt and going for the mogul. plans seems to be a lot better and phone is cheaper. I would like to know if it's a good time to buy this phone. I was reading something about the Rev A. I could have sworn i read something saying it's out and available. I live in Jersey City, NJ btw, if that helps somebody determine if my area has it. Also, I also read it will have GPS. As far as I'm concern, it has that 911 chip inside that cops use to locate you or the satellite actually tracks where you are with it. Sprint uses that for their GPS service. So... should I buy the phone now or wait for an upgraded one, if there is an upgraded one?
1. No GPS native. I use a BT receiver and it works great.
2. It should be available all over.
3. No Rev A until 2008 (based solely on rumors...no facts to its rollout have been officially released).
4. I think you are crazy for trading a Tilt for the Mogul. I walked into an AT&T store to see a Tilt and I am jealous...
jamesus said:
4. I think you are crazy for trading a Tilt for the Mogul. I walked into an AT&T store to see a Tilt and I am jealous...
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You can have the neatest phone in the world, but if you can't get a signal, it's useless!
I had some cool GSM phones on AT&T's network, but even with a 3g card on a 3g phone, barely ever got a usable signal, and oftentimes averaged less than 10kbs - yes, slower than dial up!
BTW, this was from pretty large suburbs outside Detroit...
I guess you are right...I was looking at it more from a purely phone perspective...
Ill trade you my mogul for your tilt! (used for a month, never activated, perfect condition, etc)... <3 128MB
Hi, I was wondering if there were any decent signal boosters for this phone(htc tilt 2)?
I've saw some that are 300-400 dollars and I'm really not looking to spend that much.
I get one bar inside my house and 3 if I put it in my window... but yeah any advice would be appreciated
plz help
have u put a custom rom and radio on ur fone? there are several radios for different areas and companys.... but also as an addition to that sum buildings just have poor reception.... i have FULL HSPA reception nearly everywhere but on my college campus or at my friends house i drop to 1 or 3 bars in EDGE
I have researched this extensively for the past month and I can tell you what I have come up with. You are going to get what you pay for first and foremost. I am building a house in an area that has little to no reception depending on where you are standing. My neighbor bought a $300 repeater and did a halfa$$ attempt at getting the external antenna directed at the tower thus he did not have a good results. If you understand the concept then you can understand the cost of good results. I bought a $1000 setup that once installed I am sure it will perform. I cannot say it does as I have not used it yet but if you go through he steps required to see if you are going to benefit from a repeater then you will understand what I mean. You are going to need an external directional antenna running to an amplifier then an internal antenna to broadcast that signal. It all boils down to if you have good reception where the external antenna will be then it is going to reproduce that signal at the end point. I can get on top of my house and get a high RSSI #. So this will be pulled though my antennas and broadcasted to the phones in the house.
You can go a cheaper route and it may work but you are looking at trial and error on any setup you get unless you can get a person to help you figure out what setup and if any setup will help you. Most will just try and sell you something promising you full bars.
Cazey.... when making a request it's always best to post what you have.... ie if you are using a custom rom, radio your carrier etc..
That said... If you have ATT you might want to give this a check... If not I'm sure other carriers offer something similar.
AT&T 3G MicroCell now available in all markets
Hi.
I may possibly be moving about 30 mins away and the location has inconsistent signal...I get 4 bars of LTE in one spot, move literally 2 feet away and I am down to 1 bar of 3G signal. I need to have a very solid 4G-LTE signal as I use my phone for tethering as my main internet to my desktop and I also work a bit from home so this is important.
I am wondering if there is any product out there that can enhance my 4G-LTE signal on my phone that you can get and does not require a separate internet connection to work?
To my knowledge, the current Verizon network extender requires an internet connection and can only distribute/extend 3G speeds....this won't do.
flooritnfly said:
Hi.
I may possibly be moving about 30 mins away and the location has inconsistent signal...I get 4 bars of LTE in one spot, move literally 2 feet away and I am down to 1 bar of 3G signal. I need to have a very solid 4G-LTE signal as I use my phone for tethering as my main internet to my desktop and I also work a bit from home so this is important.
I am wondering if there is any product out there that can enhance my 4G-LTE signal on my phone that you can get and does not require a separate internet connection to work?
To my knowledge, the current Verizon network extender requires an internet connection and can only distribute/extend 3G speeds....this won't do.
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Click to collapse
Some may claim to extend LTE passively, but if you look at the specification, it's pretty much impossible to do passively. About the closest you can get is to build a picocell; a cell that covers a small home or office area. The reason they don't work is because LTE, like GSM, uses time division duplexing. This requires an advance in signal broadcast to compensate for the speed of light so that the handset's signal always reaches the tower inside it's assigned time window. The delay is a function of distance. Once your distance is greater than the allowable advance of the specification, the tower will drop your signal regardless of how strong it might be.
loonatik78 said:
Some may claim to extend LTE passively, but if you look at the specification, it's pretty much impossible to do passively. About the closest you can get is to build a picocell; a cell that covers a small home or office area. The reason they don't work is because LTE, like GSM, uses time division duplexing. This requires an advance in signal broadcast to compensate for the speed of light so that the handset's signal always reaches the tower inside it's assigned time window. The delay is a function of distance. Once your distance is greater than the allowable advance of the specification, the tower will drop your signal regardless of how strong it might be.
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Sooo.....anything on here won't help me out?
flooritnfly said:
Sooo.....anything on here won't help me out?
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Click to collapse
Nope. None of that will help at all unless you're planning on making your own cell.
What's the point in them selling them then?
And how do I solve my problem aside from moving somewhere closer to a tower?
flooritnfly said:
What's the point in them selling them then?
And how do I solve my problem aside from moving somewhere closer to a tower?
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Judging by the fact they all have coax leads on them, they're specifically designed for permanent client installations such as home broadband or to build a small cell within or very near a home or building. Doing what you're wanting to do, as in creating a local cell that extends to where you're at and uplinking via LTE, is possible, but you'd have to clone a device that would authenticate on Verizon's network and I'm pretty sure that would be pretty illegal on a couple fronts.
Not sure where you live, but around where I'm at in the rural areas WiMax is a common broadband solution that provides pretty good data rates.
loonatik78 said:
Judging by the fact they all have coax leads on them, they're specifically designed for permanent client installations such as home broadband or to build a small cell within or very near a home or building. Doing what you're wanting to do, as in creating a local cell that extends to where you're at and uplinking via LTE, is possible, but you'd have to clone a device that would authenticate on Verizon's network and I'm pretty sure that would be pretty illegal on a couple fronts.
Not sure where you live, but around where I'm at in the rural areas WiMax is a common broadband solution that provides pretty good data rates.
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Are you suggesting I dump VZW?
omg people are you serious
loonatik78 said:
Some may claim to extend LTE passively, but if you look at the specification, it's pretty much impossible to do passively. About the closest you can get is to build a picocell; a cell that covers a small home or office area. The reason they don't work is because LTE, like GSM, uses time division duplexing. This requires an advance in signal broadcast to compensate for the speed of light so that the handset's signal always reaches the tower inside it's assigned time window. The delay is a function of distance. Once your distance is greater than the allowable advance of the specification, the tower will drop your signal regardless of how strong it might be.
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Click to collapse
Are you for real LTE is nothing like gsm and tdma is completly different than gsm as well which stands for time division multiple access LTE is an IP. Based technology. With that said im waisting no more text on this fool.
Passive LTE Boost
flooritnfly said:
Are you suggesting I dump VZW?
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I know this is an old thread but just in case your still interested.
I have the Wilson Sleek LTE Booster. It took my Thunderbolt from Zero 3G to full 4G at my home. It was designed for mobile use but it works great. I know use it with an iPhone 5 with which it is even better. Wilson has a full home system that uses a directional outdoor antenna, and an indoor antenna that will connect an unlimited number of LT E devices all at once. I am getting this device soon.