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Cell Phone Questions - Signal Problems & Audio Quality
For those of you reading this in rec.radio.shortwave who are thinking the
question doesn't belong he Take it as a compliment, OK? Some of you might be the type whose idea of great bathroom reading is a 17 pound book about antenna theory. I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Cell phone salesmen (and 98% of customers) seem to take crummy audio quality for granted, or know nothing about it. So, before I consider upgrading equipment, I'm hoping for the unlikely: Some specific input from anyone who has been through this and can recommend brands/models which aren't toys. If I ever have to call the Coast Guard on my cell phone, it would be really novel if they could understand me. |
"Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... For those of you reading this in rec.radio.shortwave who are thinking the question doesn't belong he Take it as a compliment, OK? Some of you might be the type whose idea of great bathroom reading is a 17 pound book about antenna theory. I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Cell phone salesmen (and 98% of customers) seem to take crummy audio quality for granted, or know nothing about it. So, before I consider upgrading equipment, I'm hoping for the unlikely: Some specific input from anyone who has been through this and can recommend brands/models which aren't toys. If I ever have to call the Coast Guard on my cell phone, it would be really novel if they could understand me. The problem could very well be with your old phone. Do you have any family, friends or co-horts @ work who use SPCS? If you do, invite them over and she whether their new phones show improved coverage to make and receive calls throughout the house. In saying that, with you just moving, you could have moved into fringe coverage as well. Maybe you can post a reply, listing out when you live, within a couple of near intersections. Someone in the SPCS newsgroup might be close to you and provide some information. Bob |
"Bob Smith" wrote in message .net... "Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... For those of you reading this in rec.radio.shortwave who are thinking the question doesn't belong he Take it as a compliment, OK? Some of you might be the type whose idea of great bathroom reading is a 17 pound book about antenna theory. I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Cell phone salesmen (and 98% of customers) seem to take crummy audio quality for granted, or know nothing about it. So, before I consider upgrading equipment, I'm hoping for the unlikely: Some specific input from anyone who has been through this and can recommend brands/models which aren't toys. If I ever have to call the Coast Guard on my cell phone, it would be really novel if they could understand me. The problem could very well be with your old phone. Do you have any family, friends or co-horts @ work who use SPCS? If you do, invite them over and she whether their new phones show improved coverage to make and receive calls throughout the house. In saying that, with you just moving, you could have moved into fringe coverage as well. Maybe you can post a reply, listing out when you live, within a couple of near intersections. Someone in the SPCS newsgroup might be close to you and provide some information. Bob 3 blocks from the junction of route 590 and Empire Blvd in Rochester NY. As far as "fringe", I mentioned that the nearest antenna is a mile away over flat land. |
"Doug Kanter" wrote in message ...
1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Probably true. I am an RF engineer (retired) and it makes sense to me that the tower antenna would be designed to have maximum response in the direction of the highway that they're trying to cover. There are solutions to your home location reception problem (external Yagi antenna hooked to an in-house repeater) but it's quite expensive. -- John Richards |
John Richards wrote: "Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Probably true. I am an RF engineer (retired) and it makes sense to me that the tower antenna would be designed to have maximum response in the direction of the highway that they're trying to cover. There are solutions to your home location reception problem (external Yagi antenna hooked to an in-house repeater) but it's quite expensive. I've seen some setups that only use two yagi's, one in the home (or business), and the other outside, connected only by cable. No repeater involved. dxAce Michigan USA |
"dxAce" wrote in message ... John Richards wrote: "Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Probably true. I am an RF engineer (retired) and it makes sense to me that the tower antenna would be designed to have maximum response in the direction of the highway that they're trying to cover. There are solutions to your home location reception problem (external Yagi antenna hooked to an in-house repeater) but it's quite expensive. I've seen some setups that only use two yagi's, one in the home (or business), and the other outside, connected only by cable. No repeater involved. dxAce Michigan USA And this does what? Somehow redirects the cellular signal into the home??? |
Doug Kanter wrote: "dxAce" wrote in message ... John Richards wrote: "Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Probably true. I am an RF engineer (retired) and it makes sense to me that the tower antenna would be designed to have maximum response in the direction of the highway that they're trying to cover. There are solutions to your home location reception problem (external Yagi antenna hooked to an in-house repeater) but it's quite expensive. I've seen some setups that only use two yagi's, one in the home (or business), and the other outside, connected only by cable. No repeater involved. dxAce Michigan USA And this does what? Somehow redirects the cellular signal into the home??? What would be your best guess??? ;-) I have no idea whether it works or not. dxAce Michigan USA |
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 15:57:29 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote: For those of you reading this in rec.radio.shortwave who are thinking the question doesn't belong he Take it as a compliment, OK? Some of you might be the type whose idea of great bathroom reading is a 17 pound book about antenna theory. I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Maybe. Look at the towers and see what is up their. Typical antenna has about a 120 degree beam width, but if one of those beams isn't pointing in your general direction, no signal. As for improved sensitivity with new technology? BS. Receiver technology has changed remarkably little in the past 40 years. The RF performance of the handset is mostly related to the antenna design in the headset. Some are much better than other. For example some relatively Ericsson GSM handsets like the R520M have outstanding RF peformance, some newer onces like the T68 were legenady for poor RF performance. Has little to do with new or old, everything to do with that particular design. Another headset might well give you much better performance, but that probably has little to do with whether it was a design from 5 years ago or 5 months ago. 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Cell phone salesmen (and 98% of customers) seem to take crummy audio quality for granted, or know nothing about it. So, before I consider upgrading equipment, I'm hoping for the unlikely: Some specific input from anyone who has been through this and can recommend brands/models which aren't toys. If I ever have to call the Coast Guard on my cell phone, it would be really novel if they could understand me. The design of the CDMA Codec allows the exchange of voice quality for network capacity. if you want reliable high quality voice, get rid of the CDMA phone. GSM Codec's don't have that feature (it isn't useful on a GSM network). You probably should see what sort of GSM signal you can get at home. Coverage does vary between carriers. |
"dxAce" wrote in message ... Doug Kanter wrote: "dxAce" wrote in message ... John Richards wrote: "Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Probably true. I am an RF engineer (retired) and it makes sense to me that the tower antenna would be designed to have maximum response in the direction of the highway that they're trying to cover. There are solutions to your home location reception problem (external Yagi antenna hooked to an in-house repeater) but it's quite expensive. I've seen some setups that only use two yagi's, one in the home (or business), and the other outside, connected only by cable. No repeater involved. dxAce Michigan USA And this does what? Somehow redirects the cellular signal into the home??? What would be your best guess??? ;-) I have no idea whether it works or not. Well, not being knowledgable about that kind of antenna, the best guess I could make is that it's sort of like wearing aluminum foil inside your hat. :-) |
I used to have crappy coverage (non-existant at home) until I switched
to Verizon (800 mHz CDMA G3). It works flawlessly. You can switch providers and keep your existing number. It's called ''porting''. Radio Shack are the experts. |
"David" wrote in message ...
I used to have crappy coverage (non-existant at home) until I switched to Verizon (800 mHz CDMA G3). It works flawlessly. You can switch providers and keep your existing number. It's called ''porting''. Radio Shack are the experts. Porting is old news by now. But I would not trust what a Radio Shack rep says. Time after time I discovered that I knew more about a product than the RS sales clerk. -- John Richards |
"David" wrote in message ... I used to have crappy coverage (non-existant at home) until I switched to Verizon (800 mHz CDMA G3). It works flawlessly. You can switch providers and keep your existing number. It's called ''porting''. Radio Shack are the experts. I'm aware of the porting issue. And, Verizon is known around here for having great coverage in rural areas, which Sprint does not. This leaves me with evaluating the audio quality of the phones themselves (not the network, but the individual phone models). |
Doug Kanter wrote:
I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Resoundly True. Cell sites use directional antennae... in fact in an area where buildout is mature, they sort of have to. Cell sites, even those that operate on CDMA as Sprint does, are sectorized to reduce interference with neighboring cells on different pilot signals. 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? Actually, very likely. The 7867 is a 5 year old design at least, and the network has changed quite a bit since then. The carriers have worked to squeeze more capacity out of the network, and in CDMA that means a generally higher signal to noise ratio (in CDMA, all other conversations happening on the same channel are "noise" to your particular handset), and thus greater tolerance requirements for a higher noise floor. This has forced chipmakers (mainly Qualcomm) to come up with better, more sensitive RF stages for newer handsets. The result is your old phone will still work with the present network, but not as well as it did four years ago even in the best of circumstances. If you put a current-model Sanyo side by side with your StarTAC, the Sanyo will probably receive a better signal nearly all of the time. 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Yeah, a casualty of the need to squeeze capacity is sound quality. Vocoder ("VOice enCODER") bitrates have gone down, and that means your StarTAC which uses a 13kbps vocoder will sound better than the 8kpbs/variable-rate vocoder on today's phones. However, some phone manufacturers are still better than others. A lot of people (including myself) swear by the Sanyo models. Samsungs aren't all that great, and the jury is still out on LG. Of course nothing, not even a StarTAC, beats the sound quality on the original Qualcom QCP-2700s that Sprint first started out with back in 1996. I had one and could swear that phone sounded as good, and sometimes even better, than a landline. It was small and light, and it was solidly built... if you smashed the 2700 against a brick, my bet would be that the phone would win and the brick would lose. Sadly, none of that is true with current phones from any wireless carrier these days. Before jumping ship, I would give the Sanyo 4920 a try. It's the descendant of the 4900, which Sprint users have been raving about for a while as being the best phone (of current models, anyway) for call quality and for holding a signal. -- E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. |
"Isaiah Beard" wrote in message ... Doug Kanter wrote: I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Resoundly True. Cell sites use directional antennae... in fact in an area where buildout is mature, they sort of have to. Cell sites, even those that operate on CDMA as Sprint does, are sectorized to reduce interference with neighboring cells on different pilot signals. 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? Actually, very likely. The 7867 is a 5 year old design at least, and the network has changed quite a bit since then. The carriers have worked to squeeze more capacity out of the network, and in CDMA that means a generally higher signal to noise ratio (in CDMA, all other conversations happening on the same channel are "noise" to your particular handset), and thus greater tolerance requirements for a higher noise floor. This has forced chipmakers (mainly Qualcomm) to come up with better, more sensitive RF stages for newer handsets. The result is your old phone will still work with the present network, but not as well as it did four years ago even in the best of circumstances. If you put a current-model Sanyo side by side with your StarTAC, the Sanyo will probably receive a better signal nearly all of the time. 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Yeah, a casualty of the need to squeeze capacity is sound quality. Vocoder ("VOice enCODER") bitrates have gone down, and that means your StarTAC which uses a 13kbps vocoder will sound better than the 8kpbs/variable-rate vocoder on today's phones. However, some phone manufacturers are still better than others. A lot of people (including myself) swear by the Sanyo models. Samsungs aren't all that great, and the jury is still out on LG. Of course nothing, not even a StarTAC, beats the sound quality on the original Qualcom QCP-2700s that Sprint first started out with back in 1996. I had one and could swear that phone sounded as good, and sometimes even better, than a landline. It was small and light, and it was solidly built... if you smashed the 2700 against a brick, my bet would be that the phone would win and the brick would lose. Sadly, none of that is true with current phones from any wireless carrier these days. Before jumping ship, I would give the Sanyo 4920 a try. It's the descendant of the 4900, which Sprint users have been raving about for a while as being the best phone (of current models, anyway) for call quality and for holding a signal. -- E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. Thanks, Isaiah, for the specific phone model tips. The guy at the Sprint store pointed out a Sanyo. Years ago, I was in the car audio business, selling AND installing what I sold. Sanyos were hideous. Absolutely atrocious. We used to warn customers 10 times to keep the knobs & faceplate very clean for the first week because they'd be back to exchange the units for something real. 9 out of 10 people came back. So, my stomach turned when he mentioned Sanyo, but my experience goes back 15 years. I'll take another look. |
In alt.cellular-phone-tech matt weber wrote:
: As for improved sensitivity with new technology? BS. Receiver : technology has changed remarkably little in the past 40 years. The RF : performance of the handset is mostly related to the antenna design in I agree. I have a 5 year old Kyocera 2-mode cellphone and it works much more reliably in a fringe area vs. my new Audiovox flip phone. My GF also has an old Audiovox and it works superior to the newer ones. In their efforts to make the phones compact and add features, they really don't seem to be paying attention to signal quality. b. |
Isaiah Beard wrote:
Doug Kanter wrote: I use SprintPCS with a 4 year old Motorola StarTac ST7867. Just moved to a new house and I can barely get a signal unless I stand in the middle of the yard. That's problematic in winter. After grilling a couple of customer service reps on the phone, I stopped into the Sprint store today and came away with some questions I need answered before I terminate my service and try another provider 1) The salesman was the first Sprint employee I've found who was actually able to show me the actual location of antennas. There's one a mile from my home, and 2 others within 5 miles, with no obstructions of any kind. No hills, no tall buildings, just trees and homes. He says this explains nothing because he signal is highly directional. True or false? Resoundly True. Cell sites use directional antennae... in fact in an area where buildout is mature, they sort of have to. Cell sites, even those that operate on CDMA as Sprint does, are sectorized to reduce interference with neighboring cells on different pilot signals. 2) His next suggestion was (of course) to try a newer phone because mine uses "older technology" which might not be able to pick up such a great signal. Likely or not? Actually, very likely. The 7867 is a 5 year old design at least, and the network has changed quite a bit since then. The carriers have worked to squeeze more capacity out of the network, and in CDMA that means a generally higher signal to noise ratio (in CDMA, all other conversations happening on the same channel are "noise" to your particular handset), and thus greater tolerance requirements for a higher noise floor. This has forced chipmakers (mainly Qualcomm) to come up with better, more sensitive RF stages for newer handsets. The result is your old phone will still work with the present network, but not as well as it did four years ago even in the best of circumstances. If you put a current-model Sanyo side by side with your StarTAC, the Sanyo will probably receive a better signal nearly all of the time. 3) Here's the tricky part: I'm not totally adverse to a newer phone, even though I have absolutely NO need for color, email, songs, games, digital pictures, or any other crap. I just need a friggin' phone. But, I've made an observation over the past few years while listening to the sound quality when people call me from THEIR phones. It seems that some manufacturers have gone WAY off the deep end when designing their noise cancelling arrangements. In many instances, background noise causes the phone to also kill or scramble the voice of the user. This, of course, makes the phone useless. I make quite a few calls from my boat in high winds, and people tell me that as long as I'm manually dealing with the wind somehow (turning away, etc), the phone sounds like a normal phone as opposed to some sort of special effects in a B-movie. Yeah, a casualty of the need to squeeze capacity is sound quality. Vocoder ("VOice enCODER") bitrates have gone down, and that means your StarTAC which uses a 13kbps vocoder will sound better than the 8kpbs/variable-rate vocoder on today's phones. However, some phone manufacturers are still better than others. A lot of people (including myself) swear by the Sanyo models. Samsungs aren't all that great, and the jury is still out on LG. Of course nothing, not even a StarTAC, beats the sound quality on the original Qualcom QCP-2700s that Sprint first started out with back in 1996. I had one and could swear that phone sounded as good, and sometimes even better, than a landline. It was small and light, and it was solidly built... if you smashed the 2700 against a brick, my bet would be that the phone would win and the brick would lose. Sadly, none of that is true with current phones from any wireless carrier these days. My wife JUST switched to a new phone at the beginning of this summer. she WAS using one of the old Qcp-2700's. The only reason she switched phones was (1) the difficulty removing the battery (having to use that nifty specialty screwdriver), and (2) She couldn't find any new batteries for it . |
Connecting two antennas back-to-back makes a passive bi-directional
repeater. It's a cheap solution useful where the field strength from each transmitter is high at the antenna which is pointing at it and there is an obstruction between the transmitter and receiver. I used this technique successfully on a 13 mile bi-directional analog video microwave link, with a 1/2 mile dogleg from the top of the hill down into a valley. The hilltop site was unpowered and accessible only with ATV but was a lot cheaper than putting up a 300 ft tower. It should work with cellular telephony as you suggest. The trick is to capture enough energy from each transmitter to overcome the transmission line losses and lay down sufficient signal strength at both receivers. If you can't make it with antenna gain, then you'll have to go with an active repeater. Tom ----- Original Message ----- From: "dxAce" Newsgroups: alt.cellular.sprintpcs,alt.cellular-phone-tech,rec.radio.shortwave Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 17:28 Subject: Cell Phone Questions - Signal Problems & Audio Quality Doug Kanter wrote: "dxAce" wrote in message ... John Richards wrote: "Doug Kanter" wrote in message There are solutions to your home location reception problem (external Yagi antenna hooked to an in-house repeater) but it's quite expensive. I've seen some setups that only use two yagi's, one in the home (or business), and the other outside, connected only by cable. No repeater involved. dxAce Michigan USA And this does what? Somehow redirects the cellular signal into the home??? What would be your best guess??? ;-) I have no idea whether it works or not. dxAce Michigan USA |
I have a Motorola 343 and it sounds very pleasant (for digital). Plus
it has this handy featu you don't have to unfold it. It's one of the new ''one piece'' designs. On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:32:42 GMT, "Doug Kanter" wrote: "David" wrote in message .. . I used to have crappy coverage (non-existant at home) until I switched to Verizon (800 mHz CDMA G3). It works flawlessly. You can switch providers and keep your existing number. It's called ''porting''. Radio Shack are the experts. I'm aware of the porting issue. And, Verizon is known around here for having great coverage in rural areas, which Sprint does not. This leaves me with evaluating the audio quality of the phones themselves (not the network, but the individual phone models). |
Doug Kanter wrote:
Thanks, Isaiah, for the specific phone model tips. The guy at the Sprint store pointed out a Sanyo. Years ago, I was in the car audio business, selling AND installing what I sold. Sanyos were hideous. Absolutely atrocious. We used to warn customers 10 times to keep the knobs & faceplate very clean for the first week because they'd be back to exchange the units for something real. 9 out of 10 people came back. So, my stomach turned when he mentioned Sanyo, but my experience goes back 15 years. I'll take another look. There seems to be an odd situation with asian electronics conglomerates, where the quality of their consumer audio, video and appliance products in NO way reflect the quality of their cell phones. Different divisions within the same conglomerate apparently have different philosophies. I agree with you that Sanyo A/V equipment is junk. However, their cell phones are uncharacteristically excellent. Conversely, I have a Samsung refrigerator in my kitchen and a Samsung 19 inch LCD display on my computer, and they are excellent products that I have highly praised and recommended to other people. However Samsung's cell phones, for lack of a better term, are total ****. Every Samsung cell phone I've tried from 1999 all the way to the present are cheaply constructed, have horrible audio quality, and couldn't hold calls even when I was outside and in plain view of a Sprint cell tower. The exception is NEC/Mitsubishi. All of their products have proven to be mediocre. :) -- E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. |
"Isaiah Beard" wrote in message ... Doug Kanter wrote: Thanks, Isaiah, for the specific phone model tips. The guy at the Sprint store pointed out a Sanyo. Years ago, I was in the car audio business, selling AND installing what I sold. Sanyos were hideous. Absolutely atrocious. We used to warn customers 10 times to keep the knobs & faceplate very clean for the first week because they'd be back to exchange the units for something real. 9 out of 10 people came back. So, my stomach turned when he mentioned Sanyo, but my experience goes back 15 years. I'll take another look. There seems to be an odd situation with asian electronics conglomerates, where the quality of their consumer audio, video and appliance products in NO way reflect the quality of their cell phones. Different divisions within the same conglomerate apparently have different philosophies. I agree with you that Sanyo A/V equipment is junk. However, their cell phones are uncharacteristically excellent. Conversely, I have a Samsung refrigerator in my kitchen and a Samsung 19 inch LCD display on my computer, and they are excellent products that I have highly praised and recommended to other people. However Samsung's cell phones, for lack of a better term, are total ****. Every Samsung cell phone I've tried from 1999 all the way to the present are cheaply constructed, have horrible audio quality, and couldn't hold calls even when I was outside and in plain view of a Sprint cell tower. The exception is NEC/Mitsubishi. All of their products have proven to be mediocre. :) If only Sanyo made a phone for Verizon, the runner-up in my quest for better and/or new service..... Talk about dumb, though: When I first got a cell phone, I signed a 1-year, 29.95 per month contract with Sprint. At the end of the contract, I did nothing, they said nothing, and I just kept paying the bills for 2 more years. I called the guy at the Sprint store this morning and mentioned the Sanyo phone. He said that in order to get that phone, I'd have to upgrade to 39.95 per month. I asked how a monetary issue is connected to the particular phone, and he sort of mumbled something about the purchase deal for the phone. He's checking with his supervisor blah blah blah. |
"Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... snipped If only Sanyo made a phone for Verizon, the runner-up in my quest for better and/or new service..... Talk about dumb, though: When I first got a cell phone, I signed a 1-year, 29.95 per month contract with Sprint. At the end of the contract, I did nothing, they said nothing, and I just kept paying the bills for 2 more years. I called the guy at the Sprint store this morning and mentioned the Sanyo phone. He said that in order to get that phone, I'd have to upgrade to 39.95 per month. I asked how a monetary issue is connected to the particular phone, and he sort of mumbled something about the purchase deal for the phone. He's checking with his supervisor blah blah blah. The minimum plans now are $35/mo. plus taxes and surcharges. If you take the full $150 credit off a new phone, you will be required to commit to a new 2 year agreement. Bob |
"Bob Smith" wrote in message ink.net... "Doug Kanter" wrote in message ... snipped If only Sanyo made a phone for Verizon, the runner-up in my quest for better and/or new service..... Talk about dumb, though: When I first got a cell phone, I signed a 1-year, 29.95 per month contract with Sprint. At the end of the contract, I did nothing, they said nothing, and I just kept paying the bills for 2 more years. I called the guy at the Sprint store this morning and mentioned the Sanyo phone. He said that in order to get that phone, I'd have to upgrade to 39.95 per month. I asked how a monetary issue is connected to the particular phone, and he sort of mumbled something about the purchase deal for the phone. He's checking with his supervisor blah blah blah. The minimum plans now are $35/mo. plus taxes and surcharges. If you take the full $150 credit off a new phone, you will be required to commit to a new 2 year agreement. Bob By the way, I was with a friend at a Verizon outlet a couple of months back. He wanted a phone ONLY for emergencies, and began to walk away from the counter when the guy gave him prices for plans with 200-400 minutes. The salesman said "Hang on a sec....", checked with someone else in the store, and revealed that there's a 19.95 deal with either no minutes, or very few - I don't recall. He said they don't publicize it much. Just something to know.... |
I agree with you that Sanyo A/V equipment is junk. However, their
cell phones are uncharacteristically excellent. Absolutely! Conversely, I have a Samsung refrigerator in my kitchen and a Samsung 19 inch LCD display on my computer, and they are excellent products that I have highly praised and recommended to other people. However Samsung's cell phones, for lack of a better term, are total ****. Every Samsung cell phone I've tried from 1999 all the way to the present are cheaply constructed, have horrible audio quality, and couldn't hold calls even when I was outside and in plain view of a Sprint cell tower. I bought a Sanyo 5300 before coming to college just so that I wouldn't have to fight with the Samsung I had before that, since it would be my only phone. I activated it and have had only a few rare problems with it. A year after I got my 5300, my sister started to whine DAILY to me that "Sprint sucks so bad, I get cut off a minute into each and every call." She really wasn't lying. This was during the last 3 months or our 2-year contract, and both my parents' and sister's Samsungs were deteriorating fast, even after PRL/firmware updates. I was constantly telling her that it was the phone, not the service, but she wanted to switch to Verizon badly. I told her to give Sprint a chance, specifically with Sanyo 4920s. She hasn't mentioned one dropped call since. Talk about a total 180, huh? The retention deal wasn't too bad, either. Why would Sprint represent their service so poorly with Samsung phones instead of pushing Sanyo? In retail, repeat sales always takes precedence over a higher phone-profit-margin. It seems like a no-brainer. Oh, and the Samsungs were all A400s. -- Phil, Squid-in-Training |
Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote:
Why would Sprint represent their service so poorly with Samsung phones instead of pushing Sanyo? In retail, repeat sales always takes precedence over a higher phone-profit-margin. It seems like a no-brainer. Samsungs are OK. I like my A660. However, they could be better at holding signals - my wife's (discontinued) Hitachi P300 seems to generally be better than mine is. For RF, it probably doesn't come close to the Sanyo phones. -- JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. |
"Phil, Squid-in-Training" wrote in message
... Why would Sprint represent their service so poorly with Samsung phones instead of pushing Sanyo? In retail, repeat sales always takes precedence over a higher phone-profit-margin. It seems like a no-brainer. Oh, and the Samsungs were all A400s. I'm not familiar with the Samsung A400, but our family has used Samsung A620 (VGA1000) phones for the past year, and we like them quite well. Before that we used the Samsung 8500, also a nice phone. -- John Richards |
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