Distance from nearest site & Signal Strength

[RhoXS]

My home is exactly 1.8 miles (line of sight) from the nearest Cingular cell site. The tower on this site is large and appears to be at least 100' high. This site is used by both the Orange and Blue networks.

I am using an application by Shadowmite, called Signalmeter, on both our Treo 650's to see a numerical value for signal strength in RSSI units. Outside my my home, the Orange network typically varies between 6 and 9 and the Blue between 8 and 12. A received signal strength indication of 12 provides a barely usable signal. I also noticed that when approaching this site, the signal indication rarely exceeds 22 or so. It always pegs out at 31 when approaching all other sites.

We obviously do not have usable cellular phone service at home. I would think being only 1.8 miles from the nearest cell site would provide a very good signal. This is Florida so the terrain is flat. My home is in a neighborhood that is not landscaped with an excessive number of trees and is relatively open.

Am I being reasonable to assume that I should be receiving a reasonably good signal only 1.8 miles from the nearest cell site?

[COtech]

I would think you would have a satisfactory signal at 1.8 miles. However, more details besides just the distance would be useful.

Where the tower, and where is home in Florida? Then we can learn what band(s) Cingular is using. PCS is more susseptible to foliage attenuation. You might just be in a coverage gap, a few degrees wide, between the field strength patterns of two adjacent sector antennas on that same tower.

Just mention county and major intersections.

COtech

[Andy]

You can never say for sure how far a cellsite should reach. There are too many factors involved like how the panels are angled, how much output power they have, etc. Depending on conditions, though, getting a good signal from a cellsite less than 2 miles away definitely is possible, in your case, though, there must be something limiting the cellsite from reaching this far, though. Is this an urban area?

[Yankees368]

Take my home for example. I have 4 towers within 2 miles of my house and get a terrible signal.

[RhoXS]

I am in Stuart, Florida (Martin County). The cell site is located at the intersection of SE Cove Road and SE Flounder Ave (.55 miles East of US 1 on SE Cove Road). I am located about 0.1 mile east of the intersection of SE Kubin Ave and SE Reef Way. According to Microsoft Streets and Trips, the straight line distance between the two points is 1.82 miles.

Cingular told me the site is both an Orange and Blue site and uses both the 850 and 1900 mHz bands.

[John Sprung]

Originally Posted by Yankees368

Take my home for example. I have 4 towers within 2 miles of my house and get a terrible signal.

Maybe you're in a place where the system is doing hand-offs all the time. You can find out by using the test mode for your phone. The Wilson Repeater folks have a handy list of how to get into test modes:

http://www.wpsantennas.info/pdf/test...dTestModes.pdf

On mine, the test mode gives you both signal strength and a hexadecimal thing that I'm pretty sure is a cell site id. Something like 5F3-B2. If you get a bunch of different hex strings, you're in handoff land. If your signal strength is -90 or worse, then that's the problem.

You might also want to check near the various towers and compare with what you get at home. Your service provider might not be on all four towers, maybe not even on any of them.



-- J.S.

[Yankees368]

Originally Posted by John Sprung

Maybe you're in a place where the system is doing hand-offs all the time. You can find out by using the test mode for your phone. The Wilson Repeater folks have a handy list of how to get into test modes:

http://www.wpsantennas.info/pdf/test...dTestModes.pdf

On mine, the test mode gives you both signal strength and a hexadecimal thing that I'm pretty sure is a cell site id. Something like 5F3-B2. If you get a bunch of different hex strings, you're in handoff land. If your signal strength is -90 or worse, then that's the problem.

You might also want to check near the various towers and compare with what you get at home. Your service provider might not be on all four towers, maybe not even on any of them.



-- J.S.

Yeah, we have all bus diagnosed this problem for me already. It is almost 100% a problem with NID handoffs. And in my area, nobody really uses towers, all antennas are usually installed on buildings.

[COtech]

Originally Posted by RhoXS

I am in Stuart, Florida (Martin County). The cell site is located at the intersection of SE Cove Road and SE Flounder Ave (.55 miles East of US 1 on SE Cove Road). I am located about 0.1 mile east of the intersection of SE Kubin Ave and SE Reef Way. According to Microsoft Streets and Trips, the straight line distance between the two points is 1.82 miles.

Cingular told me the site is both an Orange and Blue site and uses both the 850 and 1900 mHz bands.

RhoXS, that was a fine description. The tree report helped, and I know, too, that coastal land is flat, flat! Cingular has cellular A, B, and PCS there.

I am suggesting now that you measure signal strengths in two places in your neighborhood (same distance from the tower as your home), but clockwise and counterclockwise from the line between the tower and your home. To the northwest, you could use the intersection of SE Malibu Lane and SE Williams Way. To the southeast, the east end of SE Nassau Terrace.

If both are much the same as at your house, then you are not on a sector boundary line (between different antennas, on different tower sides). Then I'd believe that the antennas don't have enough mechanical tilt down to the subscribers on land. Ocean coverage could be better, beyond your house! You can get the same effect with electronic beam tilt by phasing among antenna elements.

If there's too much beam tilt down, you could be passing through a region of increasing signal strengh as you travel away from the tower to the house. Then it would drop off, as you continued along the route and arrived at home.

Is this making sense to you?

COtech

[RhoXS]

It makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your suggestion.

I was not smart enough to consider the possibility of being between the major lobes of two antennas. However, I did consider the vertical alignment. I considered this because I rarely max out at an RSSI of 31 when approaching this site as I do at all other sites. It just gave me the impression that the signal is passing over me as I approach the site.

Are different antenna elements used for 850 and 1900 mHz?

Tomorrow I will conduct a field strength survey based on your suggestions.

Thanks again.

[RhoXS]

I conducted the survey this morning.

As you might have noticed from the map, the area I live in is essentially a small peninsula, called Rocky Point, surrounded on the west, north, and east by water.


Blue Network: The signal throughout Rocky Point rarely exceeds 12 or so. It is also about 12 at the eastern end of SE Cove Road, also just under two miles from the tower. The tower is easily visible even at the eastern terminus of SE Cove Road. I could not discern any real difference in signal strength throughout this area.

Orange Network: Now it gets confusing. All along SE Cove Road, east of the tower, there is excellent signal averaging in the high twenties. Moving only .4 miles north (e.g. intersection of SE Horseshoe Point Road & SE Kubin Road) the excellent signal quickly degrades to about 11 or so. In fact, nowhere along Horshshoe (running parallel to Cove, .4 miles north of Cove) does the signal strength exceed 12 or 13. In most places in Rocky Point the signal is never more than 12 and usually in single digits.

Although the tower is directly visible even at the eastern end of SE Cove Road, I do not think it is reasonable to see such a large drop in signal strength by simply moving .4 miles north. Do the horizintal edges of the antenna beam pattern have such a sharp cutoff to explain this? The tower is not visible along Horseshoe (as it is on Cove) but it does not seem reasonable that this explains the very large drop in signal stregth from the high twenties to 11 or so.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by RhoXS

I conducted the survey this morning.

As you might have noticed from the map, the area I live in is essentially a small peninsula, called Rocky Point, surrounded on the west, north, and east by water.


Blue Network: The signal throughout Rocky Point rarely exceeds 12 or so. It is also about 12 at the eastern end of SE Cove Road, also just under two miles from the tower. The tower is easily visible even at the eastern terminus of SE Cove Road. I could not discern any real difference in signal strength throughout this area.

Orange Network: Now it gets confusing. All along SE Cove Road, east of the tower, there is excellent signal averaging in the high twenties. Moving only .4 miles north (e.g. intersection of SE Horseshoe Point Road & SE Kubin Road) the excellent signal quickly degrades to about 11 or so. In fact, nowhere along Horshshoe (running parallel to Cove, .4 miles north of Cove) does the signal strength exceed 12 or 13. In most places in Rocky Point the signal is never more than 12 and usually in single digits.

Although the tower is directly visible even at the eastern end of SE Cove Road, I do not think it is reasonable to see such a large drop in signal strength by simply moving .4 miles north. Do the horizintal edges of the antenna beam pattern have such a sharp cutoff to explain this? The tower is not visible along Horseshoe (as it is on Cove) but it does not seem reasonable that this explains the very large drop in signal stregth from the high twenties to 11 or so.

Seem like the orange network doens't have panels facing the other direction, hence the sudden drop in signal strength. Have you ever considered another carrier in the area?

[jjdu42]

Not to sound like a cheerleader but from looking at my info alltel seems to have a good bit of coverage in your area.......

[hillbilly44]

Originally Posted by RhoXS

I conducted the survey this morning.

As you might have noticed from the map, the area I live in is essentially a small peninsula, called Rocky Point, surrounded on the west, north, and east by water.


Blue Network: The signal throughout Rocky Point rarely exceeds 12 or so. It is also about 12 at the eastern end of SE Cove Road, also just under two miles from the tower. The tower is easily visible even at the eastern terminus of SE Cove Road. I could not discern any real difference in signal strength throughout this area.

Orange Network: Now it gets confusing. All along SE Cove Road, east of the tower, there is excellent signal averaging in the high twenties. Moving only .4 miles north (e.g. intersection of SE Horseshoe Point Road & SE Kubin Road) the excellent signal quickly degrades to about 11 or so. In fact, nowhere along Horshshoe (running parallel to Cove, .4 miles north of Cove) does the signal strength exceed 12 or 13. In most places in Rocky Point the signal is never more than 12 and usually in single digits.

Although the tower is directly visible even at the eastern end of SE Cove Road, I do not think it is reasonable to see such a large drop in signal strength by simply moving .4 miles north. Do the horizintal edges of the antenna beam pattern have such a sharp cutoff to explain this? The tower is not visible along Horseshoe (as it is on Cove) but it does not seem reasonable that this explains the very large drop in signal stregth from the high twenties to 11 or so.

Part of the problem you are having is the networks are not integrated from the sounds of things. Also call customer service and open a trouble ticket asking RF Engineering to look into any issues with the area (could be antenna issues, or T-1). Also, if your area is going through integration then unfortunately it will be a little bumpy for a while until your area is completed. After that it should get much better. Good Luck.