Help Understanding Signal Strength?

[kjarrett]

Just downloaded "Real Signal" from the market and am trying to understand what the numbers mean. Tried searching here, no luck. Can someone point me to a good thread or a resource to help me understand what the #s mean?

At home I get 2 bars and the battery lasts and lasts, at work I get 0 to 1 bar and the phone hunts for a signal, making the back of the phone very warm to the touch, eating battery like there's no tomorrow. I have it on 'airplane mode' right now but that sort of defeats the purpose of having it, might as well turn it OFF...

TIA,

-kj-

 

[dscribe]

I haven't seen that app yet, might have to give it a look. I love my Inc. to death but I must say that I don't get as good reception on it as I did my previous feature phone. The reason I know this is that my house is located in a bad place for phone reception but my previous phone did, rarely, drop due to signal fade... My Inc. drops calls due to signal fade at least twice as much as the previous phone did. I have thought about getting a verizon signal booster but the thing is like $250 and that is just for voice, it doesn't help with data (3g) connection.

 

[cp1]

I'm assuming you're referring to the numerical signal strength in dB? You can also get that info in the "about phone" in setting. From what I've read the scale goes somewhat like this:

-50 db: fantastic signal strength
-75 db: OK signal strength
-100 db: bad signal strength

 

[JE78]

I think the community I live in is built on top of a old nuclear waste facility. Where I live I get 1-2 bars, 3 maybe when I make or receive a call. (anyone else notice that when you make or receive a call you get an extra bar?) Most of the time i'm anywhere from -85 db to -93db. If I leave the community I live in and drive 5 minutes in either direction I have 4 bars and -50 db. Not sure why my community hates Verizon because when I had my AT&T and my iPhone I had 4 bars all the time.

3G isn't effected at all, I hardly see any difference between 3G and WiFi when I'm using the web on my phone.

 

[kjarrett]

Thanks. This helps. I've seen a lot of threads on this issue and realize there isn't anything that can be done about it, you just have to live with it.

Reason I posted in the first place is I got to work today and within an hour the phone was really hot in the back, battery had dropped like 20% in 90 minutes with no apps running - it was just hunting for a signal. It seems to have calmed down now, maybe a cell tower was out or something. I ended up switching to airplane mode then I thought that was stoopid (since I wasn't making/getting calls or using it), why not just turn if off.

Never had these problems with my Razr2 V9m, but then again, there's no comparison between those two phones.

-kj-

 

[cp1]

I get really bad reception at work. I switched the "always on mobile network" setting to off, and it has increased my battery life a ton. It stops the phone from trying to continuously get an internet connection and instead only looks for one when it needs (when your email timers tell it to poll, etc).