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SignalCheck - Android app to monitor your Wi-Fi/2G/3G/4G LTE/5G-NR signal strengths


mikejeep

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13 hours ago, mikejeep said:

I hope nobody is afraid to bring anything to my attention..? I know there are Samsung changes that I need to get in there. Just the same old song from me, haven't been able to get enough time to update the app. It does weigh on me, I take a lot of pride in the app and hate when updates lag! Unfortunately real life (and real job) have to take priority.. stop if you've heard this before.. ?

-Mike

Quite a number of us have been looking at this issue for months, which I call Sequential GCI Sectors (SGS). For those unfamiliar it eliminates the special 8T8R market GCI and reorders all GCI band sectors first by sector then by band.  Without software help this is uncomprehensible to most people.

It took a while to get a reasonable sample of data from all sectors from various sites in various tracked markets.  Sprint was also making changes and initially had various models in different markets.  This has only been seen in Samsung markets, although I have looked at data from ALU and Ericsson markets. It should be noted that Mini Macros and B41 small cells are not affected.  It now seems to have stabilized for a while around what is shown in ingenium's chart:

6 hours ago, ingenium said:

Here's a spreadsheet that I put together that shows the new GCI layout, along with some example setups (with earfcns). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zhb37AO4gh2kWOz598FBrWKK478RvujRzN1G4TDLcF4/edit?usp=sharing 

Implementation is growing and is getting faster.  Through the many logs I analyze I have seen it pop up in more and more markets.  Still uncertain as to the reason.  The latest theory is for 4x4 MIMO and 256 QAM with a long line of failed theories behind that one. 

There are areas of uncertainty surrounding 1) counties with portions of various b41 radius on different frequencies and 2) the handling of 4th and 5th carriers.  We are hoping that Sequential GCI Sectors (SGS) in Columbus and Cincinnati will soon spread to such areas so we have a better data sample.  Currently we only have the area around Youngstown to work with in this regard.  Joski1624 has been key in this along with ingenium.

7 hours ago, Flompholph said:

I am afraid because it will then make sprints choice to change B25 and B26 sectors real. The changes are only confirmed on less than 10% of Pittsburgh sites. It just screws those of us that use scripts to sort our logs. It almost eliminates phones that don't show EARFCN from contributing data because of the mixed (old/new) sectors. I also lose the ability to have a continuous log that I can just dump data into then keep the best data when it gets to big because because of the changes. 

I have handled this with a cutover date for GCIs and tracking expired b41 GCIs.  Early on implementation stretched out over a couple of weeks, but it now seems entire sites are done at once.  I process logs first to find any Sequential GCI Sectors (SGS) sites which are ranked into Yes, Maybe, and No.  "Yes" is determined unique GCI endings which can be increased if you have detailed spreadsheet data on the site that is reasonably current.  These become Approved SGS sites with the earliest one becoming the cutover date which is stored for future use.  "Maybe" are unique GCI endings that don't have an expected EARFCN.  Many of these are transition errors but a signification number are for sites where more data is needed.  These become possible SGS sites and are flagged for followup. 

The approved SGS site data is then processed for new carriers and missing/changed PCIs.  B41 is converted back to its old GCI including GCI sectors for this purpose plus to provide data for the expired B41 sites.  The expired b41 sites is also used for Mini Macro GCIs that have been replaced with 8T8R in case they appear elsewhere in the future.  This effort allows old spreadsheets to be retained.    Should a market fully convert (none found so far) to Sequential GCI Sectors (SGS) it will be worth revisiting this multi-step process to simplify it. 

The unresolved issue of sites in counties with portions of various b41 radius on different frequencies is the most difficult for SCP.  Sheets may have to track earfcns for those areas and/or store the SGS sectors for them to be properly rebuilt for SCP "national" logs. 

Markets with sheets will want to let SCP know the approved SGS sites as users may not be on the right band or sector to know independently. This way regular sites could be stored in their compressed format while only the SGS sites would need more entries. SCP may need to track SGS sites for markets without sheets based on past key GCI sectors. 

This may also be the right time for SCP to allow the direct importation of true site lat/longs as RSRP allows for easier detection of EARFCNs in transition. 

Another issue that would help is a more resilient error handling (retries) for rooted modem earfcns.  Currently this is often tripped by other apps such as LTE Discovery (used for its airplane mode like ability) or Network Signal Guru  (for bandwidth, MIMO and QAM detection).  Presently you must exit and restart SCP to regain EARFCN detection in such cases.

Based on past history, it is safe to assume that Sprint will not totally upgrade all sites in a market to Sequential GCI Sectors (SGS), but  it will likely dominate  -- it will just take a while in true Sprint fashion.  Many of us S4Gru folks have retained older phones  (I have 4) for assigning to different signal tracking purposes.  The general public often has older phones just like these as their main phone.  Without Sequential GCI Sectors (SGS) support older phones in SGS areas may soon become worthless for interactive signal detection and learning. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Mike, over the last two days, SCP has suddenly started triggering the system battery usage warning. I've tried killing the app, restarting, and rebooting the phone. It won't go away. The notification icon for SCP has also disappeared. I have not uninstalled and re-installed the app yet, I want to let you know. I will send a bug report in a moment. 

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SGS Reference Table (Sequential GCI Sector)

                           

Band/Sector  SGS              SGS      Band/Sector

B25  -A       00              00       B25  -A

B25  -B       09              01       B25#2-A

B25         12              02       B26  -A

B25#2-A       01              03       B41#A-A

B25#2-B       0A              04       B41#A-B

B25#2-Γ       13              05       B41#A-Γ

B26  -A       02              06       B41#C-A

B26  -B       0B              07       B41#C-B

B26         14              08       B41#C-Γ

B41#A-A       03              09       B25  -B

B41#A-B       04              0A       B25#2-B

B41#A-Γ       05              0B       B26  -B

B41#B-A       0C              0C       B41#B-A

B41#B-B       0D              0D       B41#B-B

B41#B-Γ       0E              0E       B41#B-Γ

B41#C-A       06              0F       B41#D-A

B41#C-B       07              10       B41#D-B

B41#C-Γ       08              11       B41#D-Γ

B41#D-A       0F              12       B25 

B41#D-B       10              13       B25#2-Γ

B41#D-Γ       11              14       B26 

B41#E-A       15              15       B41#E-A

B41#E-B       16              16       B41#E-B

B41#E-Γ       17              17       B41#E-Γ

B41#F-A       18              18       B41#F-A

B41#F-B       19              19       B41#F-B

B41#F-Γ       1A              1A       B41#F-Γ

Keep this for use on phones without EARFCN reporting at SGS sites until SCP can handle them.

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  • 1 month later...

Well, I know there's no Signal Check for IOS...but how I wish there was. That said...is there an IOS app that can tell a user what Signal Check ferrets out? None and I mean none of the apps I've tried can tell you what network you are roaming on. Maybe Apple prevents the hardware from divulging that info? 

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1 minute ago, greenbastard said:

You've answered your own question. 

 

Outside of jailbreaking, there's not much else to do to get that info.

I'd like to jailbreak...but alas, I am a beta tester so it would go right back to jail with every update which is sometimes days apart!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Good news.. SignalCheck Pro update coming within the hour on Google Play! Below are highlights of the changes; I will come back and add some more details within the next few days. Sorry it took so long (I know, I say that every time) and there is still plenty of work to do.. a major issue I have already started work on is having Sprint site notes appear regardless of the PLMN your device is reporting (some new phones are showing 312530 instead of 310120). 

  • Added indicators for AT&T LTE band 14 FirstNet cells.
  • Added indicators for Clearwire LTE band 41 third carriers.
  • Added indicators for Rogers LTE band 2, 4, 7, and 17 cells.
  • Added option to disable adding/editing site notes from the main screen. (Pro)
  • Added option to use new patterns to identify Sprint LTE cells in Samsung markets reconfigured in 2018. (Pro)
  • Added system shortcut for voice band mode selection. (Pro)
  • Added workaround for improper identification of some band 66 and 71 cells due to a known Android bug.
  • Changed action bar icon on main screen to be animated; new option to use previous static icon. (Pro)
  • Changed action bar title on main screen to match user-selected text color. (Pro)
  • Changed alerts to be off by default. (Pro)
  • Changed diagnostic routine to use SSL.
  • General internal code enhancements.
  • Improved runtime permission handling.
  • Resolved issue with app closing when Preferences menu is selected or orientation is changed and Background Service is disabled. (Pro)
  • Resolved issue with invalid LTE neighbor cell displaying with PCI 0 and 0 dBm. (Pro)
  • Resolved issue with some incomplete LTE indicators when option for new Samsung markets is enabled. (Pro)
  • Updated references to new domain (signalcheck.app).

 

As always, I appreciate everyone's support. Please help me out by submitting a review on Google Play after you update!

-Mike

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Mike,

I just last night got a new Moto E5 Play (Unlocked) for AT&T.  I've locked it to Band 14 and here it is:

https://imgur.com/a/yI1vVEz

Would it be possible to instead call it "LTE 750" rather than "LTE 700" to be able to differentiate it at a glance from Band 12/17.  I know that will make it inconsistent with Verizon, but Verizon only has Band 13, no 12/14/17 to confuse it with.

- Trip

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4 hours ago, Trip said:

Would it be possible to instead call it "LTE 750" rather than "LTE 700" to be able to differentiate it at a glance from Band 12/17.  I know that will make it inconsistent with Verizon, but Verizon only has Band 13, no 12/14/17 to confuse it with.

Or Maybe "LTE 700PS"?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/27/2018 at 10:49 AM, Trip said:

I just last night got a new Moto E5 Play (Unlocked) for AT&T.  I've locked it to Band 14 and here it is:

https://imgur.com/a/yI1vVEz

Would it be possible to instead call it "LTE 750" rather than "LTE 700" to be able to differentiate it at a glance from Band 12/17.  I know that will make it inconsistent with Verizon, but Verizon only has Band 13, no 12/14/17 to confuse it with.

Sure, I can do that. I'll just have to make new icons because there are no "LTE 750" ones yet. I'll make a note to get this done It will be in the next beta update so you can make sure it works properly. Aiming for late next week right now.

 

On 10/27/2018 at 1:31 PM, swintec said:

i like the voice band mode selection feature and to me, should be #1 on the above list of changes.  testing for adding LTE band selection in the next release? ;)

Glad it's useful for you! Unfortunately, I don't know of a method to select LTE bands yet.. the Voice Band Selection menu is built into Android, I just wasn't aware of it until someone showed it to me. LTE band selection is a different animal, that's usually configured on an engineering screen which is 1) inaccessible to third-party developers and 2) different on each device. But if I can find a way, I'd love to do it!

-Mike

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  • 1 month later...

A public update to SignalCheck Pro 4.51 is ready! It should be available on Google Play within the next hour or so. There are a few significant changes behind the scenes that are tricky to describe, but the end result will (hopefully) be less (no?) scenarios when the app becomes "stuck" and struggles to display band information until you connect to a new site.

Also, Sprint users will see site notes that have been stored with any Sprint-owned PLMN ID, including some of the odd ones popping up lately (312530 most notably).

A new icon will indicate when Wi-Fi Calling is active; it appears to be reliable, but there are occasional moments where the OS does not seem to realize it has switched on/off. I will continue working on it.

Other pesky bugs were also squashed. The full change log for this release is below:

  • Added additional indicators for AT&T LTE band 14 FirstNet cells.
  • Added icon to indicate when Wi-Fi calling is active. (Pro)
  • Added indicator for Sprint LTE band 41 small cell second carriers.
  • Added indicators for AT&T LTE band 2 small cells.
  • Disabled support for Android 2.3 – Android 3.2.
  • Changed LTE band 14 to display as LTE 750.
  • Changed primary PLMN ID source on Android 7.0+ devices.
  • Implemented Android Oreo notification channels. (Pro)
  • Improved Sprint LTE site notes to appear across multiple PLMN IDs. (Pro)
  • Minor adjustments to animated action bar tower icon. (Pro)
  • Resolved force closes when Background Service is disabled.
  • Resolved issue with app auto-launching regardless of Launch on Device Boot preference setting. (Pro)
  • Resolved issue with cached diagnostic reports not sending.
  • Resolved issue with missing LTE band data when PLMN ID changes.
  • Resolved issue with Show Mobile IP Address failing. (Pro)
  • Resolved issue with some Sprint LTE band 41 cells showing improper MM and SC indicators.
  • Updated PLMN 310580 to Inland Cellular.

There are plenty of other improvements still in progress; they will be released as I have time to get them finished, tested, and reliable. I appreciate everyone's support!

Thanks,
-Mike

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Hey Mike,
Thanks for your ongoing work! I can't find how to enable the wifi calling icon on Sprint HTC u11 in Pro.
TIA
David
Thanks David! The icon is automatic, it should just show up on the main app screen. If you're not seeing it, perhaps your U11 just doesn't report it to the OS. Shoot me a diagnostic report when you know WiFi Calling is active so I can see if there's anything I can do about it.

-Mike
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30 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Is this likely because, I did the beta update for Dec security patch that also has Android 9?

Is this Samsung One UI? So you lost all the extra information?

 

 

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I don't know but I don't want that to happen to me!
Yeah wish I hadn't put in to get this update. Not sure if I will get the better not beta version now when that comes out

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

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9 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Yeah wish I hadn't put in to get this update. Not sure if I will get the better not beta version now when that comes out

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
 

You'll get the stable version when it's out, otherwise you can always just wipe and flash the stock unlocked software through Samsung Smart Switch or whatever it's called now. RE Signalcheck data: mine is fine on the Beta 4 on my Sprint S9+. All my extra information is still there. Perhaps reprovision your data (if that works on unlocked model)? 

 

EDIT: you can always just leave the Samsung 9 Beta and flash back the stable software at any time. It does factory reset your phone though.

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You'll get the stable version when it's out, otherwise you can always just wipe and flash the stock unlocked software through Samsung Smart Switch or whatever it's called now. RE Signalcheck data: mine is fine on the Beta 4 on my Sprint S9+. All my extra information is still there. Perhaps reprovision your data (if that works on unlocked model)? 
 
EDIT: you can always just leave the Samsung 9 Beta and flash back the stable software at any time. It does factory reset your phone though.
I have no clue how to do that.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

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Is this likely because, I did the beta update for Dec security patch that also has Android 9?


It looks like you didn't grant SignalCheck the Location permission it would have requested. If you permanently declined it, go to your device's Settings menu and selecting Apps > SignalCheck Pro > Permissions and granting it there. All 3 of the requested permissions (Phone, Location, Storage) needed to be granted for full app functionality.

-Mike
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It looks like you didn't grant SignalCheck the Location permission it would have requested. If you permanently declined it, go to your device's Settings menu and selecting Apps > SignalCheck Pro > Permissions and granting it there. All 3 of the requested permissions (Phone, Location, Storage) needed to be granted for full app functionality.

-Mike
I just looked at all that and, it still didn't work. [emoji50]

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

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I just looked at all that and, it still didn't work. [emoji50]

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

Op now it's working. Accept now the GCI disappers when I turn my GPS off. It never did that before

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

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