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

[mikejeep]

On 6/27/2021 at 6:56 PM, Jeff68005 said:

New phones and not do good T-Mobile tower powers.  I became interested in our hobby again.  Loaded Signal check Light and Pro.  Dropped a few  shekels  in the SC kity

Now I am getting SC Pro need to set some permissions.  Cannot find the way to check my permissions so I can check that out.  Woutd you kindly point me to a way to check and approve some permissions in SC Pro??

Thanks! To check permissions, it varies slightly by device but generally you should be able to long-press on the SignalCheck Pro icon in your app list, and then click something like "App info". One of the menu options should be Permissions. The app cannot fully function without Files, Location (all the time), and Phone permissions granted. Limiting those will limit functionality.

[dkyeager]

On a T-Mobile OnePlus n200 5g, the Mobile Data:active etc always changes as it should but the screen below does not always change while stationary. Android 11. Diagnostic sent.

 

Also *#*#4636#*#* is the closest to diag screens.  Thanks.

[Jeff68005]

Wish List / to do list

Most apps have exit options to discontinue use of the app.

Please add  exit option to all versions of SignalCheck.   I prefer not to have to go into system app list to stop the app.

[Dkoellerwx]

15 minutes ago, Jeff68005 said:

Wish List / to do list

Most apps have exit options to discontinue use of the app.

Please add  exit option to all versions of SignalCheck.   I prefer not to have to go into system app list to stop the app.

It's there? Also if you paid for pro, no reason to run the lite version. 

[Jeff68005]

21 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

It's there? Also if you paid for pro, no reason to run the lite version. 

Thank you for that suggestion.

When I open the three dots in the upper right,  I do  not see an exit option for when I want to turn the app off.  I would appreciate it if that choice was in both versions.

Also do we have a way to provide suggetions / feedback to developer of LTE Discovery app ?

[IrwinshereAgain]

46 minutes ago, Jeff68005 said:

Thank you for that suggestion.

When I open the three dots in the upper right,  I do  not see an exit option for when I want to turn the app off.  I would appreciate it if that choice was in both versions.

Also do we have a way to provide suggetions / feedback to developer of LTE Discovery app ?

Are you running the lite version on one phone and the pro version on another phone?

[Jeff68005]

2 hours ago, IrwinshereAgain said:

Are you running the lite version on one phone and the pro version on another phone?

Yes, I have done that too.  One phone Google Chrome has problems and I am trying to deal with that too. Something(s) are eating my battery for breakfast and lunch.

I was running both on different settings and getting different results on each.

Example  800 on one and 600 on the other.

Regardless, IMO, all apps need to have an exit or off option.

[jf15219]

On 6/23/2021 at 7:07 PM, mikejeep said:

I do have a new update in the works that improves 5G data, but only if the phone is reporting it.. send a diagnostic next time you're connected to standalone 5G and I'll see if it's reporting anything else I can use. Non-standalone does not report much right now on any device.

It seems like the info is missing when Wifi is off but present when Wifi is on?

[PedroDaGr8]

On 6/30/2021 at 5:05 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

With Sprint it's based off GCI patterns that were consistent among each equipment vendor, so every region followed the same rules (for the most part). Not sure we've seen as consistent GCI rules for other carriers.

Based on my observations, T-Mobile uses Sector IDs to identify carriers:

Sectors 1-F: B66

Sectors 11-1F: B2 - Carrier 1

Sectors 21-2F: B12

Sectors 61-6F: B71

Sectors 111-11F: B2 Carrier 2

Sectors 131-13F: B41 Carrier 1

Sectors 141-14F: B41 Carrier 2

I was able to check these out in three entirely different markets (Washington, Kentucky, and Florida) and these patterns held true. That being said, I did see a single tower broadcasting B66 in Sector 188 (Tower 1003913) in Lexington but have not seen that otherwise. Not sure what that sector ID denote (some sort of mini-macro, home router, etc.)

[Dkoellerwx]

4 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Sectors 1-F: B66

Sectors 11-1F: B2 - Carrier 1

We have 01-03 for B66.

0B-0D for B2.

3D-3F for B71. 

B41 is on a completely different GCI, but ends with 83-85

[Trip]

17 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

We have 01-03 for B66.

0B-0D for B2.

3D-3F for B71. 

B41 is on a completely different GCI, but ends with 83-85

Some of the sector IDs are similar here in the DC/VA/MD/PA region.  (All values hex.)

B41 is 83-86/8D-90.

B2 second carrier is 6F-72.

B71 is 3D-40.

The other three bands.  Newer setups follow that pattern:

01-04 B66/0B-0E B2/15-18 B12

But older sites vary wildly.  In some places, it's 01-03 B66/04-06 B12/07-09 B2.  In others, where LTE was first deployed on B2, B66 and B2 are flipped.  If B66/B2 were deployed long before B12, then B12 might be on 15-18 but B66/B2 on 01-03/07-09.

4-sector sites are more or less unpredictable.  In some cases, it's 01-04 B66/05-08 B12/09-0C B2.  In some areas, B66 and B2 are flipped, as above.  In some places, it's the 3-sector pattern but with 0A, 0B, and 0C used for the fourth sector in no particular order.

And then, of course, the site ID part of the GCIs are a trainwreck.  Some sites have as many as 7 different GCIs, though most of those are being consolidated into fewer now.  Most B41 sites are now on a single, separate GCI, though at first they were split across three.  B71/B12 panels have their own GCIs.  Band 66 can sometimes also have a separate GCI from Band 2, but that's pretty uncommon.  Some 4-sector sites have separate GCIs on the fourth sector, as well.

- Trip

[Trip]

Verizon, in my experience, is very consistent, but their sector IDs are decimal.

1/2/3 is 700

12/22/32 AWS

13/23/33 AWS (second carrier)

14/24/34 PCS

15/25/35 PCS (second carrier)

16/26/36 850

17/27/37 850

=====

AT&T has a pattern for some bands, but newer bands don't have one.

01-04 B5

08-0B B2

0F-12 B12

16-19 B66

In between are a bunch of DAS reservations, basically repeats of the above sequence for various DAS or small cell configurations.

95-98 B30

Then anything else like B2 second carrier, B66 second carrier, or B14 are just sort of randomly tossed into the A0-FF range, varying market to market.

=====

US Cellular had been using different GCIs for B5 and B12, offset by 0x2000, but has recently been upgrading sites to a single GCI following this pattern:

01-03 B12

0B-0D B5

15-17 B2

1F-21 B4

29-2B B66

- Trip

[RAvirani]

1 hour ago, Trip said:

Verizon, in my experience, is very consistent, but their sector IDs are decimal.

1/2/3 is 700

12/22/32 AWS

13/23/33 AWS (second carrier)

14/24/34 PCS

15/25/35 PCS (second carrier)

16/26/36 850

17/27/37 850

This is in an ALU market right?

Verizon is also very consistent with their eNB splits. Sites with CA across all bands use a single eNB. Sites where midband is not allowed to aggregate with lowband have midband assigned to 300,000 (or sometimes 600,000) + the lowband eNB. On rare occasion, to disable CA altogether I’ve seen AWS on 300,000 + the lowband eNB and PCS on 600,000 + the lowband eNB. 

[mikejeep]

On 7/3/2021 at 8:27 AM, dkyeager said:

On a T-Mobile OnePlus n200 5g, the Mobile Data:active etc always changes as it should but the screen below does not always change while stationary. Android 11. Diagnostic sent.

Thanks, I'll take a look but I will warn that may be intentional by the OS and likely beyond my control.

 

On 7/3/2021 at 8:27 AM, dkyeager said:

Also *#*#4636#*#* is the closest to diag screens.  Thanks.

Android no longer permits third-party apps to use dialer codes.. I can only link to other activities if you know the actual system name of it (ie "com.blueline.signalcheck").

[mikejeep]

On 7/3/2021 at 8:30 PM, Jeff68005 said:

Wish List / to do list

Most apps have exit options to discontinue use of the app.

Please add  exit option to all versions of SignalCheck.   I prefer not to have to go into system app list to stop the app.

The "exit" option only exists on SignalCheck Pro because that actually shuts down the background location/logger/icon services that are available with that version. Those extra features do not exist in Lite, so there is no reason for it. The "exit" option does not kill the actual SCP process like it would if you go into the system screens and Force Stop it like you are doing.

Best-practice Android design principles are to not include an "exit" feature because the OS prefers to handle memory management, and if you reopen the app an hour later, you may have used more resources to kill and restart it than if you just left it idle in the background.

[mikejeep]

On 7/9/2021 at 10:01 AM, jf15219 said:

It seems like the info is missing when Wifi is off but present when Wifi is on?

What you are seeing may have something to do with how Wi-Fi calling is configured on the network side, perhaps it is causing LTE to reconnect. The app will not show/hide mobile connection information based on Wi-Fi status.

[Trip]

10 hours ago, RAvirani said:

This is in an ALU market right?

Verizon is also very consistent with their eNB splits. Sites with CA across all bands use a single eNB. Sites where midband is not allowed to aggregate with lowband have midband assigned to 300,000 (or sometimes 600,000) + the lowband eNB. On rare occasion, to disable CA altogether I’ve seen AWS on 300,000 + the lowband eNB and PCS on 600,000 + the lowband eNB. 

No idea of the equipment vendor.  I'm bad at that sort of thing.

But I've seen the 300,000 and 600,000 offsets in certain places.  In most of those places, it's now been shifted back to the normal GCI.

- Trip

[RAvirani]

1 hour ago, Trip said:

But I've seen the 300,000 and 600,000 offsets in certain places.  In most of those places, it's now been shifted back to the normal GCI.

- Trip

Generally speaking, Verizon tends to split eNBs (disable lowband-midband carrier aggregation) on sites with high lowband usage. I’ve noticed that as infill sites come online and density increases, a lot of previously split eNBs have been unsplit. 

[Trip]

Mike,

I'm sure you've been busy, but when will a new update go out to non-Beta members?  I tried to put an updated version of my T-Mobile/Sprint database on my wife's phone and because the versions are different, it managed to trash the database completely.  I had to drop all the data in SCP to get it to work again.  So she currently has no database in her phone.

- Trip

 

[RAvirani]

Moved BETA feature discussion to the Premier Sponsor's "Nationwide signal check database" thread!

[mikejeep]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:23 PM, Trip said:

I'm sure you've been busy, but when will a new update go out to non-Beta members?  I tried to put an updated version of my T-Mobile/Sprint database on my wife's phone and because the versions are different, it managed to trash the database completely.  I had to drop all the data in SCP to get it to work again.  So she currently has no database in her phone.

My apologies, I have been crazy busy.. I have been trying to get one last beta together that should tie up several loose ends, which I will hopefully be able to push out to everyone soon after that. I've been working on that all day today. In the meantime, you should be able to restore her old database fairly easily. When you import a database, it creates a backup of the existing database in the SignalCheck folder.. the filename will be the timestamp of whenever you tried to import the other one.

[Trip]

I, uh, completely forgot about that.  Thanks, I'll have to get a hold of her phone later and try it.

- Trip

 

[stlman314]

SCP has been crashing like crazy for me. Is it possible my DB could be cause issues? Was doing it on my S20+ and now doing it on my S21 Ultra as well. 

[jreuschl]

So far can't tell any issues on Android 12 beta and S21 but if the author wants any specific testing let me know!

[belusnecropolis]

I am using the Samsung A71-5G on ATT. I recently noticed the 5G icon appear on my phone! I am guessing it is n66 since there is no n5 license for AT&T in my market. I looked in my logs but did not see any 5G info when I exported them pertaining to 5G cells or trail data. I am also guessing it is DSS because I was locked to bands 30/66/14 for LTE and I could still see all of the usual band 66/30 carriers. Band 14 was my PCC during this event. Would it help to send you a log when I notice this occur again? Or if it is of no value let me know. I am going to go hunt the signal down with a modular radio later anyway but if this would provide value to the app I would be glad to help out however I can. I will save any info I get when I confirm with my modular radio, I just set that radio to the same IMEI as my phone for easy sim swapping and it should behave the same.