Sprint Signal - Motorola Q Forum

KevinKeeley · 07-28-2007, 04:52 PM

Hey,

Does anyone else who has sprint get a poor signal? I got my q around two weeks ago and I seem to get really poor reception in the area where I live. This is especially the case in buildings, but has happened outside too. At first I thought it was just because I was in the building, but after looking at other things I began to wonder if it was my phone. First off, other people with other cell phone companies get a good signal. Second, I was standing next to someone who has sprint also and I was comparing our phones, he seemed to get two bars better than me in thet same spot. I am in a good signal area according to sprint. It is annoying not getting good cell phone coverage in my apartment. Like I said, I have compared with others and I seem to be getting a worse signal. I don't live right near a spirnt store, so I don't really want to drive the distance just to hvae them tell me sorry we can't do anything about it. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks!

Kevin

K3SRK · 07-28-2007, 05:00 PM

Sprint has a crap signal everywhere I go. I'm not surprised it stinks near my house but big cities don't fare much better.

kellybrf · 07-28-2007, 05:41 PM

ive traveled pretty frequently in the midwest and east coast and, side by side, my various sprint phones have outperformed my various vzw counterparts.

as for the q specifically, it tends to pull a decent signal. nothing spectacular, but nothing below average either.

winotree · 07-28-2007, 05:55 PM

Yes--that can be frustrating, I know, but dial *18. That is the number for Sprint's Cell Tower Signal Enhancement, and please don't ask me to remember who told me--but it works! I locks onto your present location and boosts your signal by at least one bar (I've gotten a two-bar boost @ some locations).

This presupposes the need to dial *18 at each low-signal location but it's as free as I can see on my statements and it works. My work suprervisor tried it on her Sprint phone in a blank spot in north central Texas (Stephenville) and was pleased with the results.

Hope to hear (no pun intended, but it's a good one!) that you and everyone else out there w/Sprint finds this useful.

PFMQ

fusion1 · 07-29-2007, 03:07 PM

To those that responded to Kevin Keeley's first post, you didn't address why one sprint phone has two bars higher signal strength than his Moto Q. Saying Sprint service sucks isn't probably what he wanted to hear either. My guess and it is only a guess is the phone is defective. My moto Q in more metro areas gets great coverage - 4 bars!!! Where I live it is 2-3 bars consistently which I am happy about. One place where I work at, frequently it will go to roaming or no service. I will have to try that *18 trick. Thanks for that tip!

bandit8706 · 07-29-2007, 06:43 PM

How did the *18 work for you? I am very curious.

daggett003 · 07-29-2007, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by winotree

Yes--that can be frustrating, I know, but dial *18. That is the number for Sprint's Cell Tower Signal Enhancement, and please don't ask me to remember who told me--but it works! I locks onto your present location and boosts your signal by at least one bar (I've gotten a two-bar boost @ some locations).

This presupposes the need to dial *18 at each low-signal location but it's as free as I can see on my statements and it works. My work suprervisor tried it on her Sprint phone in a blank spot in north central Texas (Stephenville) and was pleased with the results.

Hope to hear (no pun intended, but it's a good one!) that you and everyone else out there w/Sprint finds this useful.

PFMQ

Thanks,

My sprint phone works pretty good almost as good as my Nextel. I will have to try the *18, I have a once-in-a-while deadspot at my desk in work.

I'll let everyone know how I make out!

tdcrone · 07-30-2007, 11:29 AM

Not a lot to add, but I will anyway. =)

1) Sprint and Verizon, for most of the Sprint plans available with the Q, should both have similar signal strength. Don't bother comparing to ATT/Cing/Tmo/etc. I've been mostly happy with the Q's reception but it isn't great, not like my analog phones of yore... not that I'd want to use the Q in analog mode, the battery life is short enough as it is. And inside a building 3' really can make a difference, you could be getting a window or a reflection depending where you are sitting or how you are turned.

2) I work near an airport, but it is quite hilly. I always show very good signal at work but (as the fellow at the Sprint repair shop pointed out) signal != SNR, so even though I have strong signal it is often noisy to the point of being unusable. He suggested I look at the SNR instead of the signal meter when I sit down somewhere. I keep meaning to look for a home screen that shows SNR...

3) My Sprint Q also turns off its radio, mystically, once it's been on more than 2-3 days. It shows on but it is not receiving calls, sometimes it gets data and sometimes not. The Sprint repair people just told me not to do that, they don't support the phones being on more than 23 hours per day (?! but that's what they said). The smarter tech suggested rebooting when I got in the car every morning.

norm007 · 07-30-2007, 11:54 AM

when do you put in the *18???
when you dial??? ex. *18(xxx)-xxx-xxxx????
or just when your on standby?? and if on standby do you hit *18 and then send and thats it???
no stupid questions??? just stupid layout of questions;)

norm

carlg · 07-30-2007, 08:54 PM

Until I signed with VZW last thanksgiving, I was a sprint customer for almost 7 years. I had 3 different phones in that period,( 2 sanyos and one samsung)' and with either phone, once I got off of a main highway or interstate, Sprint's signal degraded rapidly. I had always heard that sprint had reception problems in areas off of the "main drag", but I actually experienced that myself. My VZW "Q" seems to get great reception in all the areas that my Sprint hardware failed.