Portland to Crater Lake Trip Report (long)

(posted here and on howardforums.com)

My family and I went from Portland OR to Crater Lake over the weekend. We were equipped with a Nokia 8265 on ATT TDMA (me), Moto V600 on ATT GSM (wife) and Samsung X426 on ATT GSM (mother-in-law). I did all the driving with the Nokia perched on one thigh and the V600 on the other :biggrin:

We left Friday afternoon for a 5 hr drive from Portland to Diamond Lake just north of Crater Lake NP where we had a cabin rented for a couple of days.

Down I-5 from Portland to Eugene, coverage for both TDMA and GSM was excellent as expected. I did notice that the TDMA signal was consistently 3-4 bars while the GSM oscillated from 4-5 bars down to 2 bars and back up again. Both the TDMA and GSM signals moved up and down in strength in phase, so I am assuming that this is because ATT has deployed GSM 1900 using the cellular band tower spacing....

Just past Eugene we hopped on to Ore. Hwy 58 East and this is where things got interesting.

Both TDMA and GSM did fine till we got to about milepost 25 or so. After that coverage was spotty for both, GSM being a bit worse than TDMA. When we entered the Willamette National Forest, TDMA hung on with 1-2 bars while GSM flatlined. Both TDMA and GSM came on strong in the town of Oakridge but GSM died again when we left city limits. TDMA did ok in the open areas but in the increasingly forested and mountainous terrain, I got a lot of zero bars or "no signal" messages on TDMA as well.

Suddenly, just as we crossed the county line into Klamath County, BOOM!.... 4 bars on TDMA roaming on presumably Edge Wireless! TDMA continued to roam all the way on Hwy 58 and south on Ore. Hwy 97 through Chemult and back on Hwy 138 West past the north entrace of Crater Lake National Park to our stay Friday night at Diamond Lake Resort, about 10 miles north of Crater Lake NP.

At the resort, I did get two bars on the TDMA phone and could make a call - only got my sister-in-law's voice mail, so couldn't verify call quality. GSM was dead all the way past Oakridge on Hwy 58.

Saturday morning, we headed into Crater Lake NP in through the north entrance and down the west side of the lake to the visitor's village. The signals got stronger as we went in - 4 bars on TDMA (still roaming) and 2-3 bars at times on X426 ( I forgot to bring the V600). We could make calls on the X426 when we stopped for photo ops, but when moving there were lots of dropped calls.

Once we started heading away from the visitor's village on rim drive all the way around the lake crater, both TDMA and GSM signals got weaker and GSM flatlined about halfway across the lake on the east side. TDMA hung on but I only got 1 bar, so I am not sure if I could have made a call if I wanted to.

On the way back Sunday morning, we took Hwy 138 west all the way back to Roseburg and back up I-5 to Portland.

Hwy 138 is a cellular wasteland - but it is one of the most spectacular roads I have driven and I highly recommend it to anyone. The road snakes along the North Umpqua river in a deep canyon with incredible rock walls towering above and dense coniferous forests on both sides - both TDMA and GSM flatlined all the way from Lemolo Lake to close to Glide. Just past Glide, both TDMA and GSML picked up native signal and it was smooth sailing all the way back to Portland.

This was my first trip to this part of Oregon, and overall, I was impressed with the amount of coverage TDMA had (although a good chunk of it is roaming). GSM has made some inroads, so to speak, but past 20-30 miles from the I-5 corridor, it died out pretty fast. I think there is a lot of improvement to be had in this regard.

All in all, it was a very satisfying trip - great sightseeing, excellent hiking in and around Crater Lake and some good phone signal-watching as well.

I hope this isn't old news to everyone and is of interest to somebody. If not, I still had a good time!! :cheers:

 

I forgot to mention that a good chunk of roaming of my TDMA phone on Hwys 58, 97 and 138 was ANALOG.

That's why some of us out West like good ol' AMPS backup.....