Develop Bugs

[Q] Signal Booster placed inside Battery?

Has anyone tried that little patch thing you place inside your battery compartment that supposedly boosts your signal in spotty areas? Thinking of ordering a few, I can switch carriers, replace my prl, but I cannot build another Carrier Tower to give my part of the city better reception, it's pretty decent in other areas of the same city, but HORRIBLE in my region. 50% time without signal next to a window, and 99% time without signal indoors.

I had been wondering if there was a way to bring 4g indoors here. I can get a signal if I put my phone in a south window, but as soon as I move 6 inches away from the window it drops.
Perhaps an antenna that I can mount outside and run a wire inside to an indoor antenna.?
sent from my secret underground bunker

mjben said:
I had been wondering if there was a way to bring 4g indoors here. I can get a signal if I put my phone in a south window, but as soon as I move 6 inches away from the window it drops.
Perhaps an antenna that I can mount outside and run a wire inside to an indoor antenna.?
sent from my secret underground bunker
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Its called LTE!!!!
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Shinydude100 said:
Has anyone tried that little patch thing you place inside your battery compartment that supposedly boosts your signal in spotty areas? Thinking of ordering a few, I can switch carriers, replace my prl, but I cannot build another Carrier Tower to give my part of the city better reception, it's pretty decent in other areas of the same city, but HORRIBLE in my region. 50% time without signal next to a window, and 99% time without signal indoors.
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Pretty sure these things are snake oil.....

XxLostSoulxX said:
Its called LTE!!!!
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Yup i am gonna agree... Droid 4 Friday!!

RyleyinSTL said:
Pretty sure these things are snake oil.....
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bought 40 for 10 dollars on ebay one time. sold em for 2 bucks each. they didnt do a damn thing. hehe

austin420 said:
bought 40 for 10 dollars on ebay one time. sold em for 2 bucks each. they didnt do a damn thing. hehe
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Knew it was a scam when thet showed full bars in an elevator.

kennyglass123 said:
Knew it was a scam when thet showed full bars in an elevator.
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Yeah, those things don't do jack.

The way they advertise them is a scam! They are for sure no antenna booster in any way.
What it does do at least for me is increase your signal some if you have some signal. If you are in a building and do not get any signal at all this device is not going to give you any either. If you do how ever get one bar in an area you might now get two.
I work in some areas were service is iffy outside and doesn't work at all inside. I would drop calls a lot on the outside. I bought 2 of the things "only paid $2 total" and put them in. I drop less calls on the outside but I STILL DO NOT GET SIGNAL INSIDE! which I didn't expect to.
So what I think they really do is expand the antenna size a little and make your signal a little more stable in areas it comes and goes.
Anyways I waste $2 on some dumb stuff so figured I would give them a try! Goodluck

The only way u can increase ur signal strength inside a building is, either have a tower no more than 3 miles away from ur location or have a micro-mini tower inside ur home or place of business. Those are the only ways.
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But once sprint updates they're network and improves they're towers the way they are stating to do, signal all around is going to be tremendously improved.
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I'm not saying this stuff is cheap but it does work and they do have lte amplifiers too. I installed their large building kit where there was usually 0-1 bars 20,000 sq ft building 3-6 bars after install
http://m.wilsonelectronics.com/
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jbadboy2007 said:
I'm not saying this stuff is cheap but it does work and they do have lte amplifiers too. I installed their large building kit where there was usually 0-1 bars 20,000 sq ft building 3-6 bars after install
http://m.wilsonelectronics.com/
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well, what is - is, those boosters are a very low magneticj applicator. they honestly don't work. i've seen one used first hand, and have seen many reviews on how they don't work. they are just a gimick.

The products I linked are external antenna connected to amplifiers connected to internal antenna but those are for buildings they do have other types of amplifying boosters for mobile and houses. But as I said not exactly cheap but for the money you will get great performance almost like your own cell tower at your house.
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Thinking of getting airwave.. Can it allow me 4g?

Ok just moved into a new apt that has poor 3g signal with 2 bars and was suggested by sprint to get the airwave with my high speed Internet.. Well I was wondering I'm like a mile maybe 2 away from 4g, will it boost me into 4g coverage or just give me good signal within the home??
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Doesn't help with 4g, but reception is way better.
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The Airave doesn't boost signal, it's a femtocell, which is essentially a mini cell tower. It's 3G only and doesn't broadcast a 4G signal of any kind.

What datajosh said... And with wifi your data travels over that very fast.My two cents: I am so glad I have an Airave. I live in a fairly wooded area and both 3g and 4g (which I can get in town by the way) don't work well at all - for any carrier. I've had sprint up here for about 5 years and was looking at Verizon and ATT but neither could even get the anemic reception on 3g/1g I was getting on Sprint. Got an Airave and my signal is freaking great! I can walk out of my place to my garage about 50yds and still be on my unit. My sister got one because she too was was having issues down in SoCal (and the family has FIVE phones!). Now they can all get super reception. I set up my unit (and my sisters too) to be 'off' my network in a DMZ. Configured my router to allot an IP as DMZ and let the Airave use it as the 'public' IP. That way that traffic doesn't 'mix' with my local net and wifi. Lastly I just went to Amazon and baught mine for like $50.00 U.S. My sister made calls for about a week and finally spoke to the right person(s) and got one free!

I just got the Airave and the only thing I can see improved on is the reception of my calls (I get 5 bars instead of 2)
4g is the same
and 3g is still slow as heck..
also it has a build in GPS.. to tell you where you are..
It has about a 300 foot radius so if you go past that point you most likely will jump to another tower.
and when making and getting calls you get 3 beeps letting you know you are on the Airave. also dialing *99 will give you a message to let you know you are on the service.

If I am not mistaken the air rave is for call quality. 4g is purely data. Why wouldn't you just use wifi?I would think 4g would be slower than wifi anyhow. Feel free to call BS on this.

it only help with cell service.
you just get the air wave. ( they should offer it for free..)
and get on wifi network.

Have one myself. Great for calls and SMS/MMS but the data speeds are maybe half the speed of my DSL. I just use wifi for anything but calls, makes sense to me. Sprint had recently changed something with their towers out here and we were left with absolutely no service on my property. Sprints corporate numbers, including the CEO's, are not hard to find. I called and tore them a new one, I wasn't letting them get off easy with this one, being a sprint customer for yeeeaaarrrss. Long story short I got a free air rave for life out of it which I think was fair of them to do.
Just a note, if you have low bandwidth and you make calls while downloading stuff or just eating the bandwidth in general, you will have stupid delays in you conversations. Its just awkward.
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Not true about data speed on my airwave at home i was at 2.5mbps
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Why not just connect to the wifi of your home network...
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daniel4653 said:
Not true about data speed on my airwave at home i was at 2.5mbps
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Well maybe their speeds vary, but the whole point is if you have an air rave you most likely have wifi so why not just use that for data? The air rave is completely dependant on the broadband connection, its not like a range extender for sprint tower signal. I'm sure the phones modem has a lot to do with it as well.
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i heard sprint will give you one of these free if you call and complain about the service in your house....any truth to this, cuz i cant text or call in my house if my depended on it

Oops blank post. I meant to say, read this thread...two people have said they got one from sprint for free...I was one of them. Do you read through posts before you ask a question at all?
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ShinigamiH4ck3r said:
i heard sprint will give you one of these free if you call and complain about the service in your house....any truth to this, cuz i cant text or call in my house if my depended on it
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YES & No!
If you have poor/fair service in your home, then just search xda forums for info on how to get it, or just PM me and I'll give you the info. I have very poor service in my home with sprint, that I just moved to. I and my family would all have to walk outside in the yard, to get a signal that was less likely to drop in the middle of the call. Even then, we only got 1-2 bars at most. In my house, we either didn't get a signal at all or it would drop out if we moved around.
I called the Sprint Retention line, and explained to them my issues with the service in my new home. I told her that I had searched the Sprint coverage map, and my area was listed with "Fair" service. She had me hold for just a few seconds to look up my address on their coverage map as well. Then she came back and explained the Airwave to me. I had never mentioned an airwave to this point.
She said that she had to check my area's coverage before offering it, because they've received a ton of request from people lately for this device, and many of them were in "excellent" coverage areas, and were simply calling because they heard they could get it for free. Just to have it I guess. Anyways, if you are in a poor-fair coverage area, and have real issues with coverage/dropped calls. Yes, they will send one for free and then not charge a dime. You just have to agree that it's their property and is to be returned at end of contract/service-termination.

I have one in my home as well. Works great. it doesnt support 4g but any sprint device will work with it. I get about 2-3 megs down with it running 3g.

I have a airave but get nowhere near the range some of you claim. Is there a way to boost it's range? I'm lucky to get 50 feet. Sorry if this is a hijack.
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Free airaves
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1407446

JDinAZ74 said:
I have a airave but get nowhere near the range some of you claim. Is there a way to boost it's range? I'm lucky to get 50 feet. Sorry if this is a hijack.
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sprint.com --> mysprint --> my preferences --> manage my airave --> range settings

Doctor_XXX said:
sprint.com --> mysprint --> my preferences --> manage my airave --> range settings
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Awesome thank you.
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Actually, my Airave sucks. Somebody else in my building has one that is locked to their phone number, and my ET4G always get confused and connects to that one. It basically keeps me from making any phone calls in my house. I have to go all the way into the street to call.
So, please be kind and don't lock down your airave to your account.
Also, even when it does work, I still get **** data speeds.

Sprint Airave tech finally confirms an issue between S3 LG2 modem and Airave!

I have been talking to Sprint everyday since LG2 was released. Nothing but problems staying connected to Airave. Sometimes I loose 3g for hours, sometimes it drops to 1x, and sometimes voice and data are lost. So, I'm back on LF9 modem as it seems to be the best modem right now. They have done every test on Airave possible, communication between them and Airave is perfect. My brother has HTC EVO LTE and when he comes over, he has none of these issues on Airave. Pretty much narrows it down to the S3 modem itself or modem firmware.

joeyhdownsouth said:
I have been talking to Sprint everyday since LG2 was released. Nothing but problems staying connected to Airave. Sometimes I loose 3g for hours, sometimes it drops to 1x, and sometimes voice and data are lost. So, I'm back on LF9 modem as it seems to be the best modem right now. They have done every test on Airave possible, communication between them and Airave is perfect. My brother has HTC EVO LTE and when he comes over, he has none of these issues on Airave. Pretty much narrows it down to the S3 modem itself or modem firmware.
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i have lg2 modem and my airave works fine..never had problems

eyecon82 said:
i have lg2 modem and my airave works fine..never had problems
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I wish I could say the same, LF9 working better, could be my ISP also, recently found out Lousiana Suddenlink customers statewide had internet issues.
this message brought to you by my GalaxyS3

My GS3 will only connect to my Airave for data, not voice. Power cycled both the Airave and the phone multiple times and nothing I do can get the thing to use the Airave for voice. I can still call out and receive calls, but i'm connected to a native Sprint tower. I don't get the usual tone you hear when you're connected to an Airave, the mobile light doesn't blink, and there's zero bandwidth usage on my router when calling. I can verify through my router that it is definitely connected to the Airave for 3G data though as I can almost peg my slow-ass 1.5 mbps DSL.

My Airave connects fine, but is as bad as it's ever really been. Only get about one or two walls worth of penetration with the stupid thing, it's pretty worthless in larger homes. In 2 bedrooms, the back yard, garage, and office the Airave just causes dropped calls. What I could use is a "Roaming Only" button, as there is very strong Verizon service in the area (those handful of times the phone goes to roaming are very good times).
This happens with the OG Epic, E4GT, GS3, iPhone 4S, and an old blackberry. If only they allowed us to up the xmit power on the things or install better antenna's.

I had LG2 and my airave was working okay. I have lg8 now and it seem to be working the same.

Sprint is sending me the new 2.5 airave device to replace my 2.0 one should have it shortly. Hopefully the new software in the 2.5 will work better. Been having your same issue since I got the device on lf9
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Can you physically tell a difference on the 2.5 from the 2.0. I recently got a new airave and was wondering which one I got.
Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

Seems like most people have had a decent experience with the Airave? I just ordered one off of ebay. Hoping to get more than 1 freaking bar in my apartment. I drop calls all the time and I have to go outside or stand near a window to get more than one bar. Hoping this will get me a couple more bars. Only spent 37$ for it...so it's not a huge loss if it doesn't work as advertised. I tried to get one free from sprint but alas, they however did say they would pay the 5$ or whatever it is per month so hopefully they'll still do (been a few mths) that when I call them up and tell them I have an Airave.

Yes the 2.5 is smaller and will have airave 2.5 on it. But now I'm running into an issue to where the GPS is saying I am in Austin when I am 20 minutes from downtown Dallas. Call quality has increased but data drop still to 1xrtt however it does pick back up evdo rev a quicker.
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Here is a pic
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blazerboy567 said:
Yes the 2.5 is smaller and will have airave 2.5 on it. But now I'm running into an issue to where the GPS is saying I am in Austin when I am 20 minutes from downtown Dallas. Call quality has increased but data drop still to 1xrtt however it does pick back up evdo rev a quicker.
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I dont understand why people care if it has 1xrtt or evo rev a, or whatever!!
just turn on the darn wifi and who cares!

I don't pay sprint for data usage and pay Verizon fios for data for nothing. Plus I game don't need excessive bandwidth sucking my latency. Plus the arrive only uses a small amount of bandwidth to convert ur isp signal to evdo rev a
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blazerboy567 said:
I don't pay sprint for data usage and pay Verizon fios for data for nothing. Plus I game don't need excessive bandwidth sucking my latency. Plus the arrive only uses a small amount of bandwidth to convert ur isp signal to evdo rev a
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that still doesn't explain why one can't just turn on the wifi? you are saying too much bandwidth speed is not good?

Pc gaming not on the phone lol
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blazerboy567 said:
Pc gaming not on the phone lol
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ah ok.....i get it..you want to save bandwidth for your PC...lol..sorry..my bad
that makes sense...but when people try to use 3g data and complain from an airave, it's a moot point because most phones have wifi now

Yep add tends to stop me from typing in details lmao
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Stock LG2
Sprint sent me an Airave due to poor signal at work. I use WiFi for data while I'm at work so that has never been an issue. I installed it in my server room (one wall between my office and the Airave) and I get full bars. I walk to my company's neighbor which is connected to our buisness and it drops to two bars (three wall and about 40' destance). The signal does drop but its still usable. Over all I am very happy with the product.

Does anyone have any specs on the differences between the 2.0 and 2.5?
Personally I hope they fix the issue of it needing to be in FRONT of your router (right off the modem). Or at least make it so the airraves internal router boots up first before it tries to connect to the sprint service.
Should my device lose power I always lose internet for about 15-20 min while the stupid device boots up and connects... Thankfullyl i'm on a battery backup, but it can be annoying.

DroidGnome said:
Does anyone have any specs on the differences between the 2.0 and 2.5?
Personally I hope they fix the issue of it needing to be in FRONT of your router (right off the modem). Or at least make it so the airraves internal router boots up first before it tries to connect to the sprint service.
Should my device lose power I always lose internet for about 15-20 min while the stupid device boots up and connects... Thankfullyl i'm on a battery backup, but it can be annoying.
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i have the old one and I don't need to keep it in front of the router...i just plug it in the router like I plug in my computer to the router

Speedtest

How are my results? My 3g here in Boston flat out sucks, so I know these results aren't going to be great
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?
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Sorry to see those numbers. I Get OK number sitting in my house.
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Those speeds are definitely slow. They're sufficient for browsing forums, but loading pictures and music will be a hassle. Completely forget about video.
Luckily, Boston LTE is being deployed now so it'll hit your neighborhood hopefully sooner than later.

My speeds
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It's not sufficient to do anything. All I get are "cannot load, tap to retry". I can not even text that's, how bad it is. When do you think lte will be here in Boston? A Sprint rep told me it was being turned on the day before hurricane Sandy, we had an outrage then... I think she was full of it but hey maybe?!
If I'm not on wifi, I can't use my phone... I'd this normal in such a main, big city?
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Dea30 said:
It's not sufficient to do anything. All I get are "cannot load, tap to retry". I can not even text that's, how bad it is. When do you think lte will be here in Boston? A Sprint rep told me it was being turned on the day before hurricane Sandy, we had an outrage then... I think she was full of it but hey maybe?!
If I'm not on wifi, I can't use my phone... I'd this normal in such a main, big city?
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3G and the 2G (1X network) are completely different. 2G is responsible for texting and talk. If you're having trouble making calls and texting then it is likely due to either;
An outage in your area.
Or,
Tower upgrades in your area.
My only guess is that since Boston is a live market, they're working on your towers and you'll probably experience much better 3g speeds aswel as 4g speeds when the upgrades are complete. I'd hold out and see how well Sprint does with the upgrades. Nearly 100% of people that had similar speeds to yours are now perfectly satisfied with Sprint's Network Vision platform.
~OS

I get LTE in Wellesley and Worcester now. I've been getting it most everywhere I go. I haven't been to downtown Boston, but pretty much everywhere else has it for me. I even get it indoors in most places.
I actually leave my phone on LTE/ CDMA and get similar battery life as on CDMA only.
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Reception In Fringe Areas

Does anybody else have horrible reception problems in week signal areas?
I know how that sounds... but, what I mean is in the city, with the corporate PRL (56xxx) and the LJ7 radio, I get better signals then I ever have with my Moment or S2, roaming or native.
However, when I go out of town into a Cellcom area, I drop to no signal unless I am practically on top of a tower.
My Sprint tablet and S2 get decent roaming signals ( 2-3 bars) while my S3 gets no service, despite multiple combinations of radios and PRL's.
Any ideas? Bad antenna connection? Bad phone?
Thanks!
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I've noticed the signal roams and just flat out drops in certsin areas. Maybe it's just the antenna? I'm in So Cal.
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xTMFxOffshore said:
I've noticed the signal roams and just flat out drops in certsin areas. Maybe it's just the antenna? I'm in So Cal.
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I'm in Wisconsin.
I have also noticed that my phone roams more often than any other Sprint device that I have.
The S2 and S3 should be identical as far which cellular frequencies they listen to... so there shouldn't be any reason that the S2 gets service in 90 percent of the places the S3 doesn't even get roaming service.
I wonder how likely it is that the antenna write somehow got disconnected when I dropped the phone at some point in the past?
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I live in an area that is rated as "Good / Best" for Voice, with solid 3G coverage (per their site map & past phone experience) but do not have LTE available here yet.
I've had the GS3 for < a day and was able to test side by side just moments apart from deactivating my old HTC phone.
I immediately went from a 3 year old phone getting -80dBm to -92dBm on the GS3. I have used the 3G on my HTC phone day in and out here for the entire 3 years of the phone, when suddenly, the GS3 was timing out while trying to download Google Chrome from the Play Store. Web page loads are bursty... hot/cold/hot/cold and SpeedTest.Net App seems to confirm the story...
I could not complete SpeedTest.Net due to "communication issues" nor download anything until I forced the phone to CDMA only. Unfortunately, even though I can now USE the phone, the speeds are still kinda rough:
Pings are ranging 800ms - 1300ms consistently ( I was used to 200ms or less )
Downloads are 30-80kbps, I was used to 350-500k.
Brief Real-world testing of moving through web pages, loading videos and browsing the playstore also lean towards the numbers I'm seeing.
Not sure about what to do. Maybe the HTC EVO 4G LTE would have better signal. It's hard to determine without personally testing, there's a LOT of complaints both ways, on both forums. I'll continue to evaluate and give it a chance to improve. Maybe it was a bad night last night.

The word thing is that I get better speeds and reception on Sprint's network in Milwaukee than I do with my S2.
As soon as I leave the city, or even leave Sprint's network, the S3 becomes prone to LOS while the S2 chugs along happily.
And, as I said before, this is with the same PRL.
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I've been noticing a lot more random LOS, and other signal issues in areas I've had signal before, and good signal at that on both my Photon and iphone. Is there a better PRL or Profile to use that will improve this or is it just something on Samsung's end that is gonna be what it is?