3G reception

[larryccf]

thought some might find this interesting - i've been following the Nexus One forum on google's support pages re the poor 3G reception a number of the N1 owners have experienced.

One thread is about 3000 posts long, and it finally came down to weak radio reception because of the N1's "poor" antenna or antenna placement - one of the recommendations that google came up with, was to suggest users not cover the phone with their hand when using, but to pinch it between thumb and forefinger or use a three finger hold trying to leave as much of the phone's back uncovered.

In Android (or maybe it's just unique to HTC), there's a code you can punch in to the dialpad - *#*#4636#*#* and it'll pull up a selection of phone items you can review.

One, under "phone info" shows signal strength. Folks on the N1 boards with the 3G reception issues were reporting when they covered their phone's backside with their hand, signal strength went from low seventies ( -71 dBm) to -101 dBm (the higher the number, the weaker the signal).

it just dawned on me to check my MT3G, and it's showing -63 dBm uncovered, and jumps to -84 dBm when i cover the back side - so we can degrade our phone's 3G reception by cupping the phone in our hand when using.

just as an fyi

 

[Ryco]

Thats not cool

 

[larryccf]

actually, it's pretty simple physics or radio wave science - you block the antenna with something that shields the signal, whether your hand or otherwise, it's got to degrade the reception - that was the reason i asked bout the reception with the carbon fiber shells - CF blocks electronic signal totally (as well as does a lot of things).

CF conducts electricity better than copper - we made some briefcases, in the late 90s, for an outfit that used them for highend tool cases for mainframe electronics techs. Got word that one of their techs, working on a navy communications facility mainframe had his briefcase slip down into the cabinet and sparks flew. Customer called us pissed we hadn't informed them of CF electrical conductivity. Only response we could offer was we assumed they knew and it wasn't an issue as our cases were replacing metal tool cases. After that we slipped a notice about the electrical conductivity into every briefcase.