1 thing i HATE about the Dinc

[tbta02]

i have my wifes blackberry tour in my left hand and signal strenth is 83
droid incred in right hand and signal strength is 83 the same .
its not the actual reception , its the indicator that is different .
bb tour at 5 bars
droid inc at 2 bars but same signal strength

 

[morganpants]

i have my wifes blackberry tour in my left hand and signal strenth is 83
droid incred in right hand and signal strength is 83 the same .
its not the actual reception , its the indicator that is different .
bb tour at 5 bars
droid inc at 2 bars but same signal strength

dbm's change like in the video when holded in a different positon.

also i found this in my manual about the antenna

http://shehci.ho8.com/webshare/IMAG0157.jpg

 

[Steven58]

wouldn't it be more of a hardware problem though?

I see your point. Makes sense. Here's their letter to me for you to look at.




New Response
Hi, I

 

[jasonb1985]

i get anywhere from 0 to 2 bars in my house on my Inc but i still have crystal clear calls and have yet to drop a call. i also get very decent 3G data speeds at home as well. so i really could care less how many bars show up as long as i still get good call quality and average 3G speeds.

i have not played around to see if i get better signal when holding the phone funky ways, i just use it and it works. signal strength is about on par with my Moto Droid which has also never ever dropped a call.

 

[morganpants]

I see your point. Makes sense. Here's their letter to me for you to look at.




New Response
Hi, I

 

[Nightfall]

I remember back in my Nextel days many many years ago. Our phone had subpar reception, so they released a rom update that made all the bars go up to full signal strength even if it barely had a signal. If it had no signal, the bars would disappear and it would say "no signal". So, no one would complain about reception as long as you barely had one, you had 4 bars of service.

I don't put any faith in those reception bars to be honest with you. If I have one bar of reception on this phone, its better than the 3 bars of service I had on my Iphone with AT&T in the same location.

 

[kyler13]

The bottom i guess has a antenna in it which is dum because there should be no antenna on the bottom where your hand is going to block or alter reception.

The antenna is at the bottom so it doesn't fry your brain. Seriously, though, this is a common practice by all phone manufacturers to better the SAR rating for approval by the governing authorities (ie. FCC). My old razr had its antenna at the bottom.

Actually, I'm pretty accustomed to holding the phone by my finger tips, mostly from my razr days when I noticed how hot it got while taking a phone call and holding it with the more traditional "cupped hand" method. Ultimately I changed my habits to allow the phone to properly radiate heat from the battery area instead of trapping it.

 

[dkaile]

change to EVRC-B and you will find better coverage and voice quality -

Go to Phone and Dial ##778

• Choose Edit Mode
• Password is 000000
• Go to CDMA Settings
• Scroll all the way to bottom
• Change Home Page, Home Orig, and Roam Orig from EVRC to EVRC-B
• Hit Menu and Commit Changes
• Phone reboots and walla no more muffed voice calls!
• enjoy your uber phone.

Enhanced Variable Rate Codec B : http://en.wikipedia....le_Rate_Codec_B

 

[AJ McKay]

They should just release a ROM that removes the signal indicator from the notification bar. That would end all of the "my signal sucks" complaints.

I've yet to drop a call on mine, even when it shows no bars.

 

[bubbers44]

The antenna is at the bottom. We have a restaurant where signal strength is extremely marginal. I called a traffic number with a recorded message and it was very broken on reception. Moving my hand off the bottom made it much better. I only do this when reception is marginal. Sometimes low frequency reception can be helped by using the body as an antenna. Cellphones work at a very high frequency so the body shields the signal.

 

[kibble]

I am sure there is a video of someone taking an Incredible apart to see where the Antenna is.

If you take off the back cover, you can actually see (and touch) the antennae in the phone. They look like red tape over the plastic parts. The bottom one is the one for the cell and there's three other ones on top, most likely for Bluetooth, Wifi and possibly GPS, I'm assuming. I've highlighted them in blue here:

 

[TXSooner]

In my house my signal is never better than -102 dbm. This place is a black hole for cell service. My battery dies in like 8 hours just because of the hideous signal.

 

[Kev13Dd]

In my house my signal is never better than -102 dbm. This place is a black hole for cell service. My battery dies in like 8 hours just because of the hideous signal.

QFT

Same here. Same at my work. Guy with the Droid who works at the same place is perfectly fine

K

 

[necosino]

Hey kibble, did your phone have a little "VOID" sticker over one of the screws?

 

[TXSooner]

QFT

Same here. Same at my work. Guy with the Droid who works at the same place is perfectly fine

K

Why the QFT?

 

[Kev13Dd]

Why the QFT?

Same exact issue I have at home- never more than -100 dB, and it simply drains the battery constantly looking. I even did a fresh wipe, doesn't last even close to half the day. I can't tell if it's due to the phone or simply bad cell service in my location

K

 

[kibble]

Hey kibble, did your phone have a little "VOID" sticker over one of the screws?

Yes, it did... I forgot to put it back on last time I took the phone apart.

 

[Skipdawg]

I get rather good signal. In the house I average 82 dbm and 77 dbm outside. The worst I get is down by the local train station it goes to 96 dbm.Right now on my patio on my laptop and just checked the phone signal and I'm 73 dbm.

 

[ilinimud]

change to EVRC-B and you will find better coverage and voice quality -


Go to Phone and Dial ##778

• Choose Edit Mode
• Password is 000000
• Go to CDMA Settings
• Scroll all the way to bottom
• Change Home Page, Home Orig, and Roam Orig from EVRC to EVRC-B
• Hit Menu and Commit Changes
• Phone reboots and walla no more muffed voice calls!
• enjoy your uber phone.

Enhanced Variable Rate Codec B : http://en.wikipedia....le_Rate_Codec_B

Anyone tried this? If so is it safe? I really dont want to jack up a brand new phone, but if it helps i will try it.

 

[NightAngel79]

change to EVRC-B and you will find better coverage and voice quality -

Go to Phone and Dial ##778

• Choose Edit Mode
• Password is 000000
• Go to CDMA Settings
• Scroll all the way to bottom
• Change Home Page, Home Orig, and Roam Orig from EVRC to EVRC-B
• Hit Menu and Commit Changes
• Phone reboots and walla no more muffed voice calls!
• enjoy your uber phone.

Enhanced Variable Rate Codec B : http://en.wikipedia....le_Rate_Codec_B

can anyone comment on the usefulness of this, possible bad effects?

 

[freddyttt]

can anyone comment on the usefulness of this, possible bad effects?

also looking for comments

 

[fiskadoro]

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing our phones are set to EVRC for a reason, and that's because EVRC is everywhere. So if you set it to EVRC-B permanently but you're not in an area with EVRC-B coverage you might not be able to make calls properly. So it might make your call quality better, but you might have issues if you're not somewhere covered by EVRC-B.

But I'm wondering if our phones are already defaulted to EVRC, do they perhaps automatically use the EVRC-B network if it's available? I'm skeptical about forcing the phone to use EVRC-B all the time if I travel somewhere not covered.

EDIT: OK, had a hunt around the web. This post is valuable over on XDA forums:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=684022

 

[Haelous]

change to EVRC-B and you will find better coverage and voice quality -

Go to Phone and Dial ##778

• Choose Edit Mode
• Password is 000000
• Go to CDMA Settings
• Scroll all the way to bottom
• Change Home Page, Home Orig, and Roam Orig from EVRC to EVRC-B
• Hit Menu and Commit Changes
• Phone reboots and walla no more muffed voice calls!
• enjoy your uber phone.

Enhanced Variable Rate Codec B : http://en.wikipedia....le_Rate_Codec_B

EVRC-B can't provide better coverage. It's a codec. It's apples and oranges. It's like saying if you play an AAC in the background instead of an MP3, you'll be able to download faster from the market.

It can provide better voice quality in situations of borderline reception.

However, as noted above, it's not supported everywhere. You will get a fast busy if it's not supported in your area.

 

[kenyu73]

I made a free app in the market called "Real Signal" just because of the flaky HTC bars.

Android apps by kenyu73

 

[Excedio]

Anyone tried this? If so is it safe? I really dont want to jack up a brand new phone, but if it helps i will try it.

can anyone comment on the usefulness of this, possible bad effects?

also looking for comments

This has been talked about here.
http://androidforums.com/tips-tricks-incredible/107166-whoa.html#post992901

It's not going to work for everyone, but it may for some.