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Help TB death grip?

R

Romikemi

Well-Known Member
Hold a TB with two fingers, top and bottom, upright.

Now wrap the battery door with your hand like you normally hold a phone.

Do you see a reduction of voice signal bars? In my specific case and location, I go from three to zero.

I'm curious to see if it's distance to tower affected or that the battery door mounting of the antenna generally causes a significant loss of signal when the TB is held like most people hold a phone.
 
Romikemi said:
Hold a TB with two fingers, top and bottom, upright.

Now wrap the battery door with your hand like you normally hold a phone.

Do you see a reduction of voice signal bars? In my specific case and location, I go from three to zero.

I'm curious to see if it's distance to tower affected or that the battery door mounting of the antenna generally causes a significant loss of signal when the TB is held like most people hold a phone.
Click to expand...



NONONONONONO dont start this discussion. This is a iphone related post.
 
Last night I DID notice that if I held my phone in a particular way (it was an abnormal way, but it was comfortable at the time), that I would completely lose WiFi signal. The same grip does not affect my 4G/3G/1x signal.
The WiFi signal would drop RAPIDLY, when held the way I was holding it.

I know I shouldn't be feeding the fire, but I just thought I should put my $0.02 out there ;p
 
Tumeg said:
Last night I DID notice that if I held my phone in a particular way (it was an abnormal way, but it was comfortable at the time), that I would completely lose WiFi signal. The same grip does not affect my 4G/3G/1x signal.
The WiFi signal would drop RAPIDLY, when held the way I was holding it.

I know I shouldn't be feeding the fire, but I just thought I should put my $0.02 out there ;p
Click to expand...


Oh great here we go LOL.
 
Knewz said:
The antennae are located at the top of the phone. No death grip
Click to expand...

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Last year my buddy and I were at a restaurant. I had my EVO and he had his iPhone 4. He wouldn't let me do the death grip on his phone. I asked him why Apple didn't put the antennaes toward the top of the phone like HTC. I demonstrated on my EVO for him. As I cupped my hand over the top portion of the EVO, my friend said that won't do anything because of the rubber case on my phone. He believes anything Jobs has to say about rubber cases. Anyway my signal bars dropped, then when I removed my cupped hand the bars returned.
 
Tumeg said:
Last night I DID notice that if I held my phone in a particular way (it was an abnormal way, but it was comfortable at the time), that I would completely lose WiFi signal. The same grip does not affect my 4G/3G/1x signal.
The WiFi signal would drop RAPIDLY, when held the way I was holding it.

I know I shouldn't be feeding the fire, but I just thought I should put my $0.02 out there ;p
Click to expand...

You are probably "encasing" the wifi antenna with your hand, how you were holding it.

Wifi is low-power microwave, doesn't do well penetrating ANYTHING with a high water content (ie, your hand, rain, etc). This is a normal function of nature, and not really a design flaw.

I notice my wifi signal drops greatly if I am in my bathroom, sitting on the can, and place my tablet/phone on my lap. More or less the same reason.
 
PSkeptic said:
You are probably "encasing" the wifi antenna with your hand, how you were holding it.

Wifi is low-power microwave, doesn't do well penetrating ANYTHING with a high water content (ie, your hand, rain, etc). This is a normal function of nature, and not really a design flaw.

I notice my wifi signal drops greatly if I am in my bathroom, sitting on the can, and place my tablet/phone on my lap. More or less the same reason.
Click to expand...

Makes sense...
Thanks for the detailed explanation!
 
Please don't be hostile toward my question. I'm asking this sincerely, not to cause problems or controversy. I appreciate the responses so far that were on topic.
 
I am totally unsure what the problem is. The human body will attenuate the signal...why does anyone think that is an iPhone only thing? Granted, the severity of it is multiplied by a large factor due to the idiotic placement of the antennae, but still...be reasonable.

Anyway, I do not experience this (5 bars). Also, and this is personal preference, that is not how I normally hold the phone when talking. I normally have my thumb at the height of the usb port but on the opposite side, and then index and middle finger on either side of the usb port, with the pointer finger propping up the back.

-Nkk
 
nkk said:
I am totally unsure what the problem is. The human body will attenuate the signal...why does anyone think that is an iPhone only thing? Granted, the severity of it is multiplied by a large factor due to the idiotic placement of the antennae, but still...be reasonable.

Anyway, I do not experience this (5 bars). Also, and this is personal preference, that is not how I normally hold the phone when talking. I normally have my thumb at the height of the usb port but on the opposite side, and then index and middle finger on either side of the usb port, with the pointer finger propping up the back.

-Nkk
Click to expand...

The iPhone has more than just an attenuation issue. It's because a finger shorts out two antennas, turning them into a single one, with a "dummy load" in the middle.

Dummy Loads are loads that are designed to sink RF energy. With the iPhone (Whose antennas are on the outside), you become a dummy load there, which creates a very, very bad antenna.

And, when it comes to low-power transmitters, antennas a key. They will make or break a phone design.
 
PSkeptic said:
The iPhone has more than just an attenuation issue. It's because a finger shorts out two antennas, turning them into a single one, with a "dummy load" in the middle.

Dummy Loads are loads that are designed to sink RF energy. With the iPhone (Whose antennas are on the outside), you become a dummy load there, which creates a very, very bad antenna.

And, when it comes to low-power transmitters, antennas a key. They will make or break a phone design.
Click to expand...

Yes...I know. Being a physics major makes it so that I know otherwise useless things like that. :p

What I was saying (not all too clearly) is that the people that are yelling at the OP should be quite, because in fact hand placement matters. However, this problem will be minimal compared to the iPhone, because the iPhone has exceptionally dumb placement of antennae which brings other factors into play, such as dummy loads. Sorry if I confused anyone.

Also, as far as I can tell, the in-the-battery-cover antenna design of the TB is actually fairly good. It is protected from other conductors (mainly your hand), but is still on the outermost part of the phone. My friend once had a flip phone (forgot which brand) that had horrid reception. When he got a new phone, he decided to rip his old one open and found that the antennae was in the middle, under the battery and above the keypad (in the dead center of the phone). Now, that alone will not render an antenna useless, but it certainly does not help.

-Nkk
 
I'm not exactly sure how you're describing to hold the phone to get this issue. Why would I hold the phone at the top and bottom and wrapped around it? I hold mine like a normal phone and haven't had a single dropped call all over New England this week and not a single person has said anything about sound quality. This myth is busted.
 
I meant as two separate steps. Maybe it's easier said as hold the phone normal, then kickstand it. Do you see a difference in voice signal bars (not wifi) between the two? How great a difference? For me, it is three bars difference.

I'm not drawing any comparison to an iphone's behavior, and the dummy load effect on RF is helpful to learn about. I can see that people would have responded differently if I didn't use an overworked media term for the iphone problem. I'm not trying to say that holding the phone with fingers in a specific position causes a short like the iphone.

I haven't dropped a call, and my call quality has increased greatly from a D1. I just noticed this sudden spike in the voice signal when I was messing with the phone by holding it up in the air with two fingers compared to the normal way people hold phones.
 
Well, I just tried it using the steps described by the OP. And much to my amazement, my bars went from 3 to 4. No joke.

Now I know how to hold the phone when I'm in a bad reception area.
 
I actually did try doing the "death grip" on my phone. I did notice a little spike then it went back to normal (4 bars to 3). I just took it as the phone just regularly trying to get a better signal then it lost it. Also tried while making a call and didnt notice any interruption in the call.
 
nkk said:
Yes...I know. Being a physics major makes it so that I know otherwise useless things like that. :p
...clip...
-Nkk
Click to expand...

Useless is a matter of perspective. That would be great knowledge to have in hand as an RF engineer ;)

It could also be a way to design a multi-band antenna :) I know, because I've done that for two HF bands, using a coil in the middle of an antenna (Which acts as a resistive load for some bands).
 
Romikemi said:
I meant as two separate steps. Maybe it's easier said as hold the phone normal, then kickstand it. Do you see a difference in voice signal bars (not wifi) between the two? How great a difference? For me, it is three bars difference.

I'm not drawing any comparison to an iphone's behavior, and the dummy load effect on RF is helpful to learn about. I can see that people would have responded differently if I didn't use an overworked media term for the iphone problem. I'm not trying to say that holding the phone with fingers in a specific position causes a short like the iphone.

I haven't dropped a call, and my call quality has increased greatly from a D1. I just noticed this sudden spike in the voice signal when I was messing with the phone by holding it up in the air with two fingers compared to the normal way people hold phones.
Click to expand...

Nope, no wifi degradation depending on grip. I should head to the end of my driveway and try to see. I have full wifi signal anywhere in my house, so even if my body were sapping the signal, it's so strong anyhow I may not notice.
 
Simply, no. My signal strength actually went up doing this from -75 dBm (sitting on the table) to -72 dBm in your "death grip" position. I held it for about a minute in case it was just a spike and both held steady at their respective strengths.
 
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