Help Poor Reception

[forthelulz]

I have really poor reception with my DroidX and I am trying to figure out if it is the phone or verizon. I used to have an iphone on AT&T and while I had low bars I could at least make consistent phone calls. With the DroidX and verizon I have 0 bars and only have service when the wind blows my direction (or so it seems). Any advice on how I could boost my signal? I had verizon 4 years ago and it was great so I am not sure what the problem is.

 

[esn]

Have you tried dialing* 228 to update your roaming capabilities?

 

[lakai113]

i have had a couple problems with it but i think its just cause im not use to the phone yet.. its a lot wider than my old phone so i might be holding it wrong on my ear..lol

 

[forthelulz]

Have you tried dialing* 228 to update your roaming capabilities?

I updated the phone but it doesn't look like that helped. The strangest thing is that if I lay the phone down it gets great reception, as soon as I pick it up I go from 3-4 bars to 0-1 bars. I'm not sure what to make of this.

 

[redgtconv]

For the first 10 days I also had reception problems especially at night. My phone would show up to 50% of my standby time at night was without a signal. And of course this drained the battery. However, mysteriously, for the past 3 days, and nights the
reception has been great, 3_4bars all the time and no more time searching for a signal at night. I don't know if the phone improved out the signal, but the battery life has substantially increased.

 

[forthelulz]

For the first 10 days I also had reception problems especially at night. My phone would show up to 50% of my standby time at night was without a signal. And of course this drained the battery. However, mysteriously, for the past 3 days, and nights the
reception has been great, 3_4bars all the time and no more time searching for a signal at night. I don't know if the phone improved out the signal, but the battery life has substantially increased.

redgtconv are you sure you didn't do anything? I have my phone rooted so if there is any way that I can boost signal I would love to. I love this phone but if I can't make and receive calls then I'm not sure what good the phone is. Has anyone else had poor reception on their phone?

 

[ckochinsky125]

I havent had any problems i have had great reception in areas where my friends on other networks dont have service

 

[Greavous]

I updated the phone but it doesn't look like that helped. The strangest thing is that if I lay the phone down it gets great reception, as soon as I pick it up I go from 3-4 bars to 0-1 bars. I'm not sure what to make of this.

Ive got the exact same thing going on with my phone. Ive gone so far as starting a trouble ticket with VZ, their techs say the towers are working properly and im in a low and poor signal area. VZ has sent me an "extender" that uses my broadband connection to boost the signal around the house but I still have 0 to 4 to 0 bars and a signal of -103dbm. and a battery getting eaten up hunting for a signal. They are sending a new phone next week when they become available again. I actually believe that VZ is playing a false advertisement scam when it comes to their coverage map. When I had Sprint it was clear to see that my area was with a weak signal. VZ makes everything either one color red or white which misleads the world as to how good their coverage actually is. Based on the coverage map I should have the same coverage as New York City or Washington DC.

Can you hear me now?

 

[forthelulz]

Ive got the exact same thing going on with my phone. Ive gone so far as starting a trouble ticket with VZ, their techs say the towers are working properly and im in a low and poor signal area. VZ has sent me an "extender" that uses my broadband connection to boost the signal around the house but I still have 0 to 4 to 0 bars and a signal of -103dbm. and a battery getting eaten up hunting for a signal. They are sending a new phone next week when they become available again. I actually believe that VZ is playing a false advertisement scam when it comes to their coverage map. When I had Sprint it was clear to see that my area was with a weak signal. VZ makes everything either one color red or white which misleads the world as to how good their coverage actually is. Based on the coverage map I should have the same coverage as New York City or Washington DC.

Can you hear me now?

Thank you for the feedback. I too feel like their coverage map is inaccurate at best. Did VZ provide you with the extender for free or was that something you had to pay for? This phone is provided by my employer so I am going to see what I can do about this.

 

[Greavous]

they gave it to me for free. they even paid the shipping. I think you need to start off with tech support and calmly and politely enplane how the map says you have coverage and you simply do not. They had me do a code *** (send) which placed marks on my call logs when I had lost service or dropped a call. Then they could investigate the towers I was using for problems. Once they determined that the towers were OK but my service too weak they offered the Extender. Its $100 bucks at the VZ store if it doesnt work out for you. The good part is there is no service fee once you get one. Which is good as why should I use my internet to make their phone work?

 

[forthelulz]

Greavous I called tech support and they had me take the battery out and they checked the towers. They said to try it again when I am at home to see if I still have problems. If I do they want to replace the phone next.

 

[forthelulz]

At this point they have put in a ticket for their network techs to look into my signal issues. Right now if I want to talk I have to drive 1/2 a mile down the road before my phone will work. Hopefully they have some sort of good news.

 

[Doctorsti]

my reception has been more poor then my ooooold Motorola V710 but that phone is a dinasour with a pull out antenna. I always had all bars or maybe one missing on occasion. My droid X on the other hand only has 0-2 most of the time especially in buildings. Here in my house it's got 0-1 but then I had my wife call me from her iphone and as soon as the phone started ringing the reception went from 1 bar to 4 and the call sounded perfectly fine. Weird. So far it doesn't seem to limit my calling range or ability so it's not a big problem for me.
My droid will be replaced likely due to a random time out issue and a dead pixel so maybe my new one will have better reception.

 

[gvillager]

Ive got the exact same thing going on with my phone. Ive gone so far as starting a trouble ticket with VZ, their techs say the towers are working properly and im in a low and poor signal area. VZ has sent me an "extender" that uses my broadband connection to boost the signal around the house but I still have 0 to 4 to 0 bars and a signal of -103dbm. and a battery getting eaten up hunting for a signal. They are sending a new phone next week when they become available again. I actually believe that VZ is playing a false advertisement scam when it comes to their coverage map. When I had Sprint it was clear to see that my area was with a weak signal. VZ makes everything either one color red or white which misleads the world as to how good their coverage actually is. Based on the coverage map I should have the same coverage as New York City or Washington DC.

Can you hear me now?

I'm fairly certain that Richlands, NC is an area where the Alltel network hasn't been integrated with the VZW network. This has caused a lot of problems with coverage in many parts of the country. These problems should go away once integration is complete.

 

[DellG]

FYI - It might just be the individual phone. My first X had terrible call reception. I dropped calls constantly, I never had problems like this with my original droid. I called CS, they opened a trouble ticket, checked towers and all that. My original droid would have a rating of -87dBm where my X read -104dBm in the same location in my house. After a week of trying to problem solve w/CS over the phone I went to a verizon store and checked my dBm rating against there store model and my X was reading about 20 points worse. I called CS and they sent me a new phone. dBm rating is about -90dBm now, no problems since then and no dropped calls since I got the new X.


To check dBm rating - setting>about phone>status>signal strength. Also, its a negative number so a rating of -87dBm is better the -104dBm.