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Bad 1x reception on voice calls

Not sure if this is related, but it's data so use it at will.

I'min S. Louisiana, and was in a low signal area yesterday. No 3g. Used Gvoice to call my g/f & call quality was iffy. Hung up & called her back with verizon service. No problems.

I only had 2 bars of 1x service.

As I said, this may be irrelavant.
 
colnago said:
As the signal degrades, so does call quality. The quality issues manifests itself in multiple ways, one-way audio, connection loss, and poor sound(i.e. Quality of Service).
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Fair enough but don't keep posting that a call echo fix is going to solve everything, because that connection hasn't been made in Verizon's own leaked documentation, and on the basis of what has been leaked so far we have no way of knowing what problems it will solve other than the echo.
 
O and the touch screen works great one min and the next it almost doesn't seem to work at all/ My messages only alert have the time also.
 
photoeditor said:
Fair enough but don't keep posting that a call echo fix is going to solve everything, because that connection hasn't been made in Verizon's own leaked documentation, and on the basis of what has been leaked so far we have no way of knowing what problems it will solve other than the echo.
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Which is why I said "supposedly". If it doesn't, then we know its a hardware issue, and can make decisions about whether or not to accept the problem, or move on. Fair enough? Dec 11th is important to me because its just inside my 30-day return window. I really like to keep the phone but I don't have these issue with my Moto Q, which I'm still using, different network, but others have posted other VZ phones not having this issue.
 
Check www.antennasearch.com to see where your towers are. I can't vouch for its accuracy though. My buddy says he doesn't have the issue, and I could sort of see that he consistently had 1-2 more 3G bars when we're side by side. I was gonna wait 'til the Dec. 11 update to see if its a software issue.

Here's my 4 mil radius:

Antenna.JPG


Towers.JPG
 
Where I work I have a Verizon repeater in the next room and I get a fluctuating signal all day (from 2 bars of 3g to one bar of 1X). My signa strength, sitting at my desk, is -102 dBm.

Anyone think that this could be a phone issue and not a firmware thing? Should I bring the phone in to Verizon and get a replacement?

If it matters, my PRL is 65061.
 
photoeditor said:
Interesting. You're getting all of my symptoms except for the weak signal reading. I know this sounds crazy but I almost wonder if your phone is giving the statistic on the 3G signal and mine is giving the one for voice.

It sounds to me like some kind of runaway process drained your battery very quickly. I wonder if the messaging program froze or something while the phone was in your pocket.
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Nope, it wasn't a battery drain. Had about 70% before it went black and wouldn't respond. Pulled battery, restarted, still at 70%. I see other people in this thread have also had the 'phone goes black and won't respond requiring a battery pull' scenario. Starting to get the feeling we are the beta testers for this phone.
 
fireshaper said:
Anyone think that this could be a phone issue and not a firmware thing? Should I bring the phone in to Verizon and get a replacement?
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This is my concern too. If this can be fixed by a software update I don't mind waiting for that. But I am wondering if this might be the phone itself. I can't have a phone with reception this poor.

Another thing, I notice that depending on how/where I hold the phone, the signal starts going down worse or not as badly. But I can't be worried about how I am holding my phone either.....I just need it to work.

This is so frustrating as I really like all the features I have on this phone. But I do need it to work as a phone too, and right now it really isn't getting the job done.
 
MJ25 said:
This is my concern too. If this can be fixed by a software update I don't mind waiting for that. But I am wondering if this might be the phone itself. I can't have a phone with reception this poor.

Another thing, I notice that depending on how/where I hold the phone, the signal starts going down worse or not as badly. But I can't be worried about how I am holding my phone either.....I just need it to work...
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I found some interesting results today...check my thread:

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/19985-homemade-antenna-breakthrough-3g-1x-switching.html
 
Still no improvement, of course. But there are a wide variety of problems. Searching the forums as well as this thread, we've seen:

1. Sudden drops of 3G signal (not a problem I'm having but apparently very common)
2. Unacceptable 1x signal in general when compared with other phones in test mode (a problem that seems to be universal if I'm not mistaken)
3. Speakerphone echo (the only problem thus far for which a fix is explicitly promised. Not a problem I've had, but again very common)

And that's before counting the usual bugs you get with an OS update.

I'm curious if other users can tell me what they're getting on the Ec/Io statistic when in test mode in the Program (for those who feel confident enough to do this, dial ##PROGRAM, the enter six zeros and press Verify, and then select Test Mode and enable. Don't change any other settings.) Ec/Io is a ratio of the power of the Verizon signal you're getting to all received signals. Ideally, it should be as close to zero (1-to-1) as possible. And on 3G, that's exactly what I get -- zero. But on 1x, I'm getting numbers like 50, even 100. 30 if I'm lucky.

Can anyone else suggest why this might be? Firmware? Network? Or hardware?
 
I live in a rural area in california and I thought the bad signal was because of that. I get good 3G coverage at my house but it is always going from full to 1 bar randomly. Or depending on where I am in my house, it catches 3G in my room downstairs but goes to 1X randomly it seems. If I wait for like 15 minutes it goes back to full 3G. When I call people the bars go down to ONE SINGLE BAR. I have to go outside to get better coverage.
Right now my signal is -95 dBm
 
I am seeing the exact same issue in SE Wisconsin, Oak Creek area to be exact. I was also in northern Milwaukee county and see the same issue.

I will have 4 bars of 3g and when I make a call it goes to 0 or 1 bar and the quality sucks. Did the *228 option 2 a couple of times and it really does not help.

It really seems like the 800mzh antenna in the droid has issues on some phones.
 
photoeditor said:
I'm curious if other users can tell me what they're getting on the Ec/Io statistic when in test mode in the Program (for those who feel confident enough to do this, dial ##PROGRAM, the enter six zeros and press Verify, and then select Test Mode and enable. Don't change any other settings.) Ec/Io is a ratio of the power of the Verizon signal you're getting to all received signals. Ideally, it should be as close to zero (1-to-1) as possible. And on 3G, that's exactly what I get -- zero. But on 1x, I'm getting numbers like 50, even 100. 30 if I'm lucky.

Can anyone else suggest why this might be? Firmware? Network? Or hardware?
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My phone shows 65 for this when in the program mode.
 
If you're in SE Wisconsin, the 800MHz antenna is irrelevant -- Verizon is exclusively running on 1900MHz in your area because AT&T and US Cellular have all the 800MHz spectrum.

So the problem is not with the frequency. Rather, it's a matter of 1x versus 3G. For whatever reason, your phone, like mine, is barely able to hold 1x signal while it gets a good 3G signal. Probably some massive bug in the firmware on the phone -- or else they got a really bad batch of CDMA chips from Qualcomm.
 
photoeditor said:
in the Verizon forums.

The poster there is having the same problem I'm having, except in the southeastern Wisconsin market where Verizon depends solely on 1900MHz frequencies. No 800 there, because it's all AT&T and US Cellular.
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Just a FYI, that was my post and I am still seeing the issue.
When in program mode it's showing that I am on the US cellular 800mzh.

I get pretty good 3g, 1900mzh, but it seems all calls drop down to the 800mzh freq when making calls.

From what I can tell all Verizon voice calls are made over 800mzh and 1900mzh is for data only.

I am going up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and if the droid gets bad coverage there it will be back to AT&T which got good coverage way up in the north woods :-) I wont' hesitate to drop Verizon like a hot potato as I am in the 30 day window still.
 
photoeditor said:
If you're in SE Wisconsin, the 800MHz antenna is irrelevant -- Verizon is exclusively running on 1900MHz in your area because AT&T and US Cellular have all the 800MHz spectrum.
.
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I am in SE Wis and when I go into program mode it shows US Cellular 800mzh.

I don't think it matters where you are, voice drops down to 800mzh.

1900mzh is used for data only, no voice goes over 3g on Verizon EVER.
 
Trust me on this, if you're on Verizon in SE Wisconsin, you're not getting 800MHz.

I think the frequency reporting may actually be another bug in the phone. My phone is also telling me I'm on 800MHz, but it's also telling me I'm on channel 675, which is a 1900MHz channel.
 
photoeditor said:
Trust me on this, if you're on Verizon in SE Wisconsin, you're not getting 800MHz.

I think the frequency reporting may actually be another bug in the phone. My phone is also telling me I'm on 800MHz, but it's also telling me I'm on channel 675, which is a 1900MHz channel.
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Well, then there has to be something incredibly wrong with a batch of phones.

I got one for my wife and it exhibits the same behavior.

I don't have much confidence in the dec OTA update fixing this issue. I kind of have a feeling they are going to fix the camera bug and the echo bug and nothing else, and then we will languish while they are working on the Droid II, which of course will fix all the issues the original had.

At least they have the 30 day guarantee, which I will exercise if I can't get this resolved. I am going to call Verizon tech support and see if I can get a replacement device. It's possible the first manufacturing run had issues.
 
FWIW, I'm on my 2nd phone...same 3G->1x issue, and poor reception at my house, as well as my parents (stayed on 1x most of the time I was there). We both live < 2mi from the local VZ store. This phone had lower signal strength than the 1st while in the same spot on my desk. Today, still same spot, I get no 3G bars at all, nor 1x, and signal pegged at -105.

"It must be the shoes!"

09042008_spikelee.jpg
http://www.ifc.com/blogs/indie-eye/images/09042008_spikelee.jpg
 
I wonder if these issues are related to how the phone was provisioned, maybe they got the region wrong and it really is dropping down to 800mzh for voice? I called tech support and they won't do anything for me until I go home as that is where it is the worst.

Will report back here as to what they say tonight.
 
I've noticed most of the same problems over the last few days. I was about ready to throw the phone today! I had five bars with 3G. Attempting to make a call and as soon as I hit "call" all five bars would drop out. My wife also has a Droid and I can't say that I have had one pleasant moment when calling her. Looking at the log it took eleven attempts to get through a conversation. Everytime the call dropped it went right back to five bars.

I haven't noticed the overheating, but just yesterday her phone also just stopped working. One minute it was fine and the next it was just a black screen. She has very few apps installed. had to do a battery pull to get the phone to come back on.

I plan to run some test with both phones later tonight. If I find that I can repeat the problems several times I will have to go into Verizon to prove it to them.
 
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