vB Easy Archive - 8900 Signal Strength stinks....How do I make it better? (new antenna?)

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8900 Signal Strength stinks....How do I make it better? (new antenna?)
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Posted by: Drex04

I just changed providers from T-Mobile to Verizon due to many dead zones in my area. My GF has verizon and she never drops a call...

I picked up an 8900 today and it's a nice phone but when I went for a ride with my new phone and her Motorola T730 she always had a much better signal strength. There were times where I had NO service and she had 2-3+ bars. This upsets me a lot because I thought by switching over to Verizon I would not have to worry about dropping calls anymore while driving but now apparently my phone is holding me back.

Are there replacement antennas that will get me a better signal? Anything else I can do besides return the phone for something else?

Posted by: centran

I have not really spent much time searching about that becuase I have goot reception. However, I always questioned if the replacement attenna actualy helped reception or are just to rice^H^H^H^H mod your phone and make it look nice.

Any good good review/test site about cellphone and cellphone mods?

Posted by: glockjs

aftermarket antennas usually make the signal worse. you can try the little signal boost things but i doubt those work too well. i could be wrong though. the fact is some phones work better on certain systems than others. i dont think there is a whole lot you can do.

Posted by: vox8900

The aftermarket antennas won't do much for the 8900 except for looks. Let alone they are just made out a solid piece of steel like was posted in another post, the antennas on our phones don't do crap for reception anyways. The antennas are only there for self gratification, you can take them off and get the same reception. I tested this in all reception areas, in an area where I got all 5 bars and where I only get 1 bar. No matter if I had the antenna on or screwed off the reception never changed.

Posted by: jatman

You simply can't compare signal strength indicators between two differing make/models of phone! There is no standard, agreed relationship between the 'number of bars' and the phone's likely performance.

Some phones seem to indicate pure RF signal strength on their meter. Others (especially CDMA-based) display an interpretation of the 'goodness' of the signal based on the pilot strength, sum of all the other interfering signals, etc. This can cause the signal strength to vary wildly over short time periods even when your phone is stationary. And the software guy might have been dead wrong in his estimation of how the phone was going to perform in the real world.

What really matters is how the phone works! My old Samsung 8500 would drop calls all the time while it displayed 2 bars. The Audiovox 8900 runs like a champ with zero bars.

Go figure.

And, while extending the antenna may not seem to improve the phone performance (because by design, with CDMA, the phone and cell station are continuously adjusting their transmit power to maintain a barely functional connection in either situation) it's safe to assume that the RF absorbtion tests were made with the antenna deployed. If you care about such things, you should yank the thing out when you use the phone.