The Welcome Thread !

[JFB]

A big welcome to all the new members!

Enjoy the ride

[WiggyFife]

Originally Posted by saracydal

Hello ia anybody home?

Hi!!! Actually... I am at home. How'd you know!!!

Welcome to WA, & enjoy your stay!!!

[ShoresGuy]

Originally Posted by saracydal

Hello ia anybody home?

At home where? Down at the Santa Cruz Beach boardwalk? I haven't been there in years.

Welcome to WA.....

[mwest]

Hello, My neame is Mary

[ShoresGuy]

Welcome to WA

[jasonohler]

Hi- my name is jason. My main interest is using MP3 files I have created of my own music as ring tones. I have a Sanyo MM-5600. I thought this would be much more straight forward than it is turning out to be. Any help is appreciated.

[ShoresGuy]

Try the ringtones and the Sanyo forums.

Welcome on board.

[Homura]

Hi people, I'm James and um, I don't know what else to say!

Just glad to be here, and I hope I learn a lot about wireless

Actually signed up a couple of months ago, but finally had the courage to actually post

[ShoresGuy]

Welcome, whatever questions you have, throw 'em at us. Be sure to post in the correct forum so we can help you directly. If you have questions about Sprint/Nextel, ask larry, he's one of the Super Mods and the in-house expert on Sprint for the tough questions.

[Harvard98]

Raising the Bar--yeahh right..

I get reception in very few places, and if I do, it's very weak. Not only that, they never gave me my $200 rebate for buying my phones, and the customer service completely has no idea what is going on. I've never been so annoyed with a wireless carrier before. I recommend VERIZON for better reception, more informed customer care, and following through with promises such as returning rebates....

[toneill48]

My name is Thomas O'Neill, I am the Controller for an extended stay hotel chain operating 11 hotels in Georgia, South Carolina, and the Norfolk, VA areas. Our company currently has 10 user business account with Nextel. We are evaluating competing plans with Verizon and T-Mobile. Coverage and signal quality are more important to us than proice. Can anyone offer any recommendations.

[WiggyFife]

Welcome to all the new WA Members I've missed since my last swing through here!!! Enjoy your stay!!!

[ShoresGuy]

Originally Posted by toneill48

My name is Thomas O'Neill, I am the Controller for an extended stay hotel chain operating 11 hotels in Georgia, South Carolina, and the Norfolk, VA areas. Our company currently has 10 user business account with Nextel. We are evaluating competing plans with Verizon and T-Mobile. Coverage and signal quality are more important to us than proice. Can anyone offer any recommendations.

Welcome to WA ,

Post in the Eastern US forum since that applies to the region you're based in. It helps focus your question at the right part of the US.

[moeen]

Hello! I just joined Name is Moeen from Dallas Texas USA

[SheWritesCopy]

Wow, there is a ton of info. on this forum! I have found Cellular Nirvana!

OOPs, getting a bit ahead of myself...

Hi, I'm Anita, a freelance writer (primarily SEO site content) in Virginia.

I've recently discovered the joy of working with DSL and lately with T1 for my internet needs. Knowing I'm relocating to "sparce parts" means I most likely won't find a good cell signal, much less get DSL. My net search is comming up on the shallow side of the pool when it comes to finding good signal for the area I'm going to be living in (lower middle Tennessee). Soooooo...

I'm sure from the brief bit of WA forum surfing, my answer will be found right here. It will be fantabulous if I can find ONE provider for both my internet and cellular needs.

Thanks for the welcome! You guys R O C K!!!

[catfan]

Hey Ya'll,
Greetings from the Southeast. First Post, glad I found this place, great info... I've got lots of ? that I'll be posting. (Cell Phone junkie!) I'm a T-mobile, and Cingular girl in Kentucky. But, getting rid of my crapy Cingular phone, & ready to upgrade my T-mo phone. (Moto V300) So I'll need your help deciding on the best phones. Looking forward to all the info.....
Great day to ya,
Catfan..... "go big blue"

[forrest1]

Originally Posted by forrest1

Hmm. Very interesting. Downstairs signal strength is around -95, downstairs Ec/Io is -10 to -16. Both numbers jump around a lot. And we don't drop every call, sometimes it will work fine for several minutes, other times it'll drop it in less than a minute. Seems like the important calls get dropped the most/fastest, per Murphy's Law . And most of the important incoming calls go to voicemail, which is aggravating.

Interference may be a problem. We have a couple of computers, a laser printer & fax running in the office, often a TV on in the family room, two places with the most trouble.

In analog mode I can make calls, but the sound is a little scratchy off & on, as signal strength varies, I suppose. And the battery runs down very quickly--I just tried an analog call, and the phone powered itself off in less than a minute, from a full charge! I think my battery may be getting a bit old, BTW, because it used to pretty much stay "full" all day, but recently it drops a bar or two during the day. I figure I'll get a new phone soon, one way or the other, so I'm holding out til then.

I will give a Motorola a try, and hope for the best. I'm starting to think that the LG is an inexpensive little phone with flashy features, but not a quality workhorse like the Moto.

Meanwhile, I've found my way into the Debug Screen on the Sprint Samsung SCH-8500. Upstairs I get -80dB, Ec/I0 -5 to -8; downstairs Rx is -90, Ec/Io around 10. So no wonder the Sprint works so well. The SCH-8500 is a nice little phone, too. It just won't work in the office, where Rx is worse than -100 at my desk. A repeater would fix that really easily, though, so that will be Plan B if I have to change carriers.
The Samsung numbers are far more stable than the LG numbers, which hop all over. I suppose that is just a slower moving-average function--I doubt that it actually reflects a greater signal stability on PCS.

Andy, thank you very much for all your help! I'll let you know how this all winds up, and I'll be lurking around a bit until this obsession goes away and the phone becomes just another appliance that I can take for granted.

Forrest

GOOD NEWS! Verizon caves!!

I promised an update, so here is the latest. For background,see pages 10 & 11 of this thread, wherein, after prolonged but fruitless discussions with VW, I was frustrated in my quest to be able to talk from anywhere in my house without dropping calls. At that point I was waiting until I could get a "free" Moto E815 to see if that would help:
Well, about 2 weeks ago, we suddenly noticed that our signal strength was better here at home. We often had 3 or 4 bars, and the phones would actually ring instead of diverting incoming calls to voicemail! (this is still using the LG VX4400's, BTW). So finally today I went back and measured some data, and sure enough, our signal strength is BETTER!
Downstairs, signal strength is improved to -88 to 90 dB, Ec/Io to 8 to 10!
Upstairs, now -73 dB, Ec/Io 5 to 7!
That's about 7-8dB and 2-3 Ec/Io units better, both upstairs and down.

So I can only conclude that either:
1) My yelling and screaming and threats to move to Sprint were heard, and a team was dispatched to re-align the VW antennas and towers just so that my phone will work: the squeaky wheel got greased. Naturally, they wouldn't want to publicly admit this, or everyone would demand such personal service.
OR,
2) VW already had a network upgrade in the works, which nobody that I ever spoke to had any clue about, and the upgrade just went on-line, quite by coincidence.

Either way, it works for me, so I'll stay with VW. In fact, I picked up the "free" Moto E815 today, and we'll give that the 15-day test. It's too soon to tell if the E815 is indeed better than the LG, but I like it, so I'll probably keep it anyway.

Thanks to everyone!
Forrest

[Andy]

Great to hear that, forrest! I'm happy for you.
Do you happen to know if the Active Pilot number in the screen has changed at all? If so, then that would mean that Verizon has turned up a new site in your area.

[forrest1]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

Great to hear that, forrest! I'm happy for you.
Do you happen to know if the Active Pilot number in the screen has changed at all? If so, then that would mean that Verizon has turned up a new site in your area.

Unfortunately, I didn't note the active pilot number before. Interestingly, though, while I get AP # 400 when I stand on the fireplace hearth (which used to be the best place to make a call), most places in the house I get AP# 376, with good signal strength, so I suspect that you are right, and 376 is a new site.

Is there any way to track this down by number? I'd be curious. If Verizon is still adding on sites, I see that as a very good sign.

Forrest

[Andy]

You could drive around and see where the signal strength and dBm get better.

Dialing #878 SEND will get you the Cell NUmber, Sector Number and Switch. This could also help you when driving around looking for the cellsite. Most sites have 3 sectors and AP numbers should either be seperated by 160 or 168 in most markets, so you'll just have to figure out which one it is in your area.

BTW, I drove through LaMesa a few weeks ago and had no problem whatsoever, even in some of the residential areas I went through... You must have lived in one of the only weak spots in the area

[forrest1]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

You could drive around and see where the signal strength and dBm get better.

Dialing #878 SEND will get you the Cell NUmber, Sector Number and Switch. This could also help you when driving around looking for the cellsite. Most sites have 3 sectors and AP numbers should either be seperated by 160 or 168 in most markets, so you'll just have to figure out which one it is in your area.

BTW, I drove through LaMesa a few weeks ago and had no problem whatsoever, even in some of the residential areas I went through... You must have lived in one of the only weak spots in the area

I'll try driving around sometime, play the old transmitter hunt game. From here I get Switch 48, Cell 372, sector 1, for what it's worth.

We are actually in a canyon, low on the SW side of Mount Helix, that faces SD bay-- we can see the bay bridge in the far distance. It's not a very good site for radio waves.

Forrest

[Andy]

Yup, switch 48 serves San Diego county I think. #878 is my favorite in Southern Cali/NV.

[Blue State Voter]

Hello. I am in southern Maine and am looking for a cheap cell phone service. I had tracfone, then I had ATT which is now cingular, and I can't work the darn phone! Sometimes, I can't even answer a call!!! Of course, no one calls me because they know that! Anyway, all I want is a phone which I can use in emergencies, or to call home, or to ask questions, etc. I do not plan to use the phone for socializing, etc. I am confused by all of the different offers and the different phones??? I don't want to take pictures, or do conference calls, or other high-jinks. I just want to call when I can, and if I'm up the the Whites, or in Sugarloaf skiing, I can get a call in...Am I asking for the impossible? Thanks, for the chance to ask questions, I hope some of you can advise. blue state voter......



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