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

[digiblur]

22449 and 22408 we are in Utah market. Running 513 and 512 prls

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

Welcome to the world of testing SIDs on 1x800! 22449 is Puerto Rico.

[bosox801]

Welcome to the world of testing SIDs on 1x800! 22449 is Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico isn't 45 degrees!!

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

 

[mikejeep]

Welcome to the world of testing SIDs on 1x800! 22449 is Puerto Rico.

Who says that is testing? Google says it's only 3087 miles between Utah and Puerto Rico.. that's a piece of cake for 800 SMR to travel!

 

-Mike

[digiblur]

Who says that is testing? Google says it's only 3087 miles between Utah and Puerto Rico.. that's a piece of cake for 800 SMR to travel!

 

-Mike

There's also kinda a licensing issue there as well with 800SMR.

[bosox801]

There's also kinda a licensing issue there as well with 800SMR.

licensing issue?

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

 

[mikejeep]

Updates to both SignalCheck Pro and SignalCheck Lite have been released and should be available on Google Play within the hour! Version 4.17L never ended up being released for Lite users because this update was going to be coming out quickly. Version 4.171 is a fairly minor maintenance update:

 

Removed recognition of Sprint LTE Band 41 connections due to inaccuracies.

I thought Sprint was activating Band 41 sites in a certain distinct manner, but that proved to be wrong for now. As Sprint continues the rollout of 2500/2600 MHz sites, and tri-band devices gain in popularity, hopefully this can be restored.

 

Resolved issue with missing LTE GCI and frequency information on HTC devices running Sense 5.5.

HTC tweaked some things in their latest software.. huge thanks to mrrogers1 for helping me get this fixed!

 

Resolved issue with BSL continuing to display after connection is lost. (Pro)

In certain situations, you would see "No connection" for 1X, but a stale BSL would remain displayed. All fixed.

 

As always, huge thanks to all of you for your support, and my beta testers for their reports.

 

-Mike

[afazel]

I didn't see anyone mention it, but on my Nexus 5 my SNR for LTE always shows 30 dB. It also doesn't show my 1x signal when I'm connected to LTE, but I think someone reported that to you already.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[mikejeep]

I didn't see anyone mention it, but on my Nexus 5 my SNR for LTE always shows 30 dB. It also doesn't show my 1x signal when I'm connected to LTE, but I think someone reported that to you already. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Hmm.. thank you for the report. I was not aware that the N5 was hiding 1X while on LTE; someone said the G2 was doing it. I just went through the N5 users thread, apparently it is an issue.

 

Can you (or anyone else) confirm that you have an actual live 1X connection when SignalCheck is showing nothing there? Is there any sort of engineering screen that shows apparent valid 1X data while you're connected to LTE?

 

I am not trying to downplay or brush aside potential problems in the app, but with the G2 and N5 not "officially" launching until Friday, and a variety of issues plaguing early users of both devices, I'm leaning more towards some software glitches on these phones. That being said, I do have one idea, and I'm working on something for G2/N5 folks to test out, should be ready for testers by tomorrow afternoon. PM me your e-mail address and a quick note saying which device you have, and I will send it when ready.

 

-Mike

[afazel]

I'll let you know tomorrow when I'll actually have people calling me. I did receive a call earlier when I was on LTE and SignalCheck didn't show any 1x.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Turas]

It would have to drop the LTE connection while on the voice call since the phone does not support SVDO or SVLTE.

[kct1975]

Hmm.. thank you for the report. I was not aware that the N5 was hiding 1X while on LTE; someone said the G2 was doing it. I just went through the N5 users thread, apparently it is an issue.

 

Can you (or anyone else) confirm that you have an actual live 1X connection when SignalCheck is showing nothing there? Is there any sort of engineering screen that shows apparent valid 1X data while you're connected to LTE?

 

I am not trying to downplay or brush aside potential problems in the app, but with the G2 and N5 not "officially" launching until Friday, and a variety of issues plaguing early users of both devices, I'm leaning more towards some software glitches on these phones. That being said, I do have one idea, and I'm working on something for G2/N5 folks to test out, should be ready for testers by tomorrow afternoon. PM me your e-mail address and a quick note saying which device you have, and I will send it when ready.

 

-Mike

Mike,

 

I have an HTC One [M7], and I have noticed that happens to me too.

 

The first few times, I thought the 1x signal bar provided by SignalCheck were hidden because I had too many notifications, but then I noticed it when I had cleared the notifications.

 

If I see it happen again, I will take a Screen Shot.

[jefbal99]

Hmm.. thank you for the report. I was not aware that the N5 was hiding 1X while on LTE; someone said the G2 was doing it. I just went through the N5 users thread, apparently it is an issue.

 

Can you (or anyone else) confirm that you have an actual live 1X connection when SignalCheck is showing nothing there? Is there any sort of engineering screen that shows apparent valid 1X data while you're connected to LTE?

 

I am not trying to downplay or brush aside potential problems in the app, but with the G2 and N5 not "officially" launching until Friday, and a variety of issues plaguing early users of both devices, I'm leaning more towards some software glitches on these phones. That being said, I do have one idea, and I'm working on something for G2/N5 folks to test out, should be ready for testers by tomorrow afternoon. PM me your e-mail address and a quick note saying which device you have, and I will send it when ready.

 

-Mike

Mike, there is a report in the N5 Users thread that the 1x radio appears to be completely shutting down while on LTE.  Check out this post

[afazel]

Mike, there is a report in the N5 Users thread that the 1x radio appears to be completely shutting down while on LTE. Check out this post

That can't be right. I'm on LTE now and just had my wife call me. It worked fine.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[jefbal99]

That can't be right. I'm on LTE now and just had my wife call me. It worked fine.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

reread the post linked.  calls come in and go out fine, but when there are no calls, the 1x appears to be down.

[afazel]

reread the post linked.  calls come in and go out fine, but when there are no calls, the 1x appears to be down.

 

Thanks, didn't notice that. It seems unlikely, though. How would the phone know a call is coming in if the phone radio is not on?

[jefbal99]

Thanks, didn't notice that. It seems unlikely, though. How would the phone know a call is coming in if the phone radio is not on?

Qualcomm magic?

[mikejeep]

Mike, there is a report in the N5 Users thread that the 1x radio appears to be completely shutting down while on LTE.  Check out this post

 

Thanks, I saw that.. I started following the G2 and N5 threads just so I could keep tabs on what people were seeing in the app. At least everyone is seeing the same thing.

 

I do not know how they could completely turn the radio off, but the data certainly seems to be hidden for some reason, not sure if it is intentional or not though. Would be interesting to see if the Verizon G2 has this behavior, since that would also be CDMA.

 

-Mike

[mikejeep]

I have an HTC One [M7], and I have noticed that happens to me too.

 

The first few times, I thought the 1x signal bar provided by SignalCheck were hidden because I had too many notifications, but then I noticed it when I had cleared the notifications.

 

If I see it happen again, I will take a Screen Shot.

 

Hmm... does it always happen, or just occasionally? Are you on a stock ROM? Which version of Android? If you are on 4.4, maybe that is the common thread, not LG...

 

-Mike

[WiWavelength]

I do not know how they could completely turn the radio off, but the data certainly seems to be hidden for some reason, not sure if it is intentional or not though. Would be interesting to see if the Verizon G2 has this behavior, since that would also be CDMA.

 

We have a number of recent posts on this phenomenon -- both in this thread and in the Nexus 5 thread.  I am not sure where to respond.  But I will at least run down the basics here.

 

Since the Nexus 5 is a non SVDO, non SVLTE handset, it is connected to only one airlink at a time.  This may seem foreign now, since we grew accustomed to first SVDO, then SVLTE over the past few years.  But some of you should recall the years prior to SVDO handsets.  You could have an active EV-DO data session yet still receive an incoming call -- even though EV-DO did not support circuit switched voice.  The data session was paused, as the handset dropped back to CDMA1X to take the call.

 

Something similar is happening in this case.  Support is baked into the 3GPP protocol.  Since SVDO and SVLTE are out of the equation, the handset camps on LTE.  Meanwhile, the CDMA1X radio is off because there is only one radio path.  When a call comes in, LTE signals the handset to drop back to CDMA1X for circuit switched voice.  Then, the CDMA1X radio comes alive.

 

This may sound complicated, but it is almost exactly what happens to those high and mighty W-CDMA users.  I have posted this numerous times, but many people fail to realize that almost no W-CDMA handsets support SVLTE.  They idle on LTE, but LTE signals them to drop back to W-CDMA or even GSM for circuit switched voice -- much as described above with LTE and CDMA1X.

 

Oh, to add one more thing, I would have to double check, but I expect the VZW variant G2 supports SVLTE.  So, it may behave differently from the Sprint variant, which does not support SVLTE. 

 

AJ

[mikejeep]

Oh, to add one more thing, I would have to double check, but I expect the VZW variant G2 supports SVLTE.  So, it may behave differently from the Sprint variant, which does not support SVLTE. 

 

Verizon's page on the G2 confirms that their model does support SVLTE.

 

-Mike

 

(EDIT: I completely misread your post somehow, you had already answered exactly what I originally asked.. I think you nailed it.)

[jefbal99]

AJ being really f'n smart

 

AJ

 

That post needs to be added to the FAQ

[kct1975]

Hmm... does it always happen, or just occasionally? Are you on a stock ROM? Which version of Android? If you are on 4.4, maybe that is the common thread, not LG...

 

-Mike

Mike,

 

It only happens occasionally.

 

Also, I am running stock HTC Sense 5.0 with the newly installed Android 4.3.

[kct1975]

 

Something similar is happening in this case. Support is baked into the 3GPP protocol. Since SVDO and SVLTE are out of the equation, the handset camps on LTE. Meanwhile, the CDMA1X radio is off because there is only one radio path. When a call comes in, LTE signals the handset to drop back to CDMA1X for circuit switched voice. Then, the CDMA1X radio comes alive.

 

AJ

Maybe this is the wrong place to ask this, but your post AJ, got me thinking...

 

I have noticed that when my phone is on 1x only, I seem to not have a data connection. What I mean, is I cannot do a Google search, browse the web, or use any apps that require data (like Tapatak) when I only have a 1x connection.

 

So my question is...

Is the 1x connection on Spirit only used for Voice and Text?

 

[WiWavelength]

So my question is... Is the 1x connection on Spirit only used for Voice and Text?

 

No, CDMA1X supports voice, data, and SMS -- just not voice and data simultaneously.  And if you go back to 2002 when Sprint launched PCS Vision, that was CDMA1X data.

 

Now, what you have experienced is a CDMA1X connection without a data session.  If you look at the status bar in that situation, the "3G" indicator should be absent.  Given time and capacity, the data session and "3G" indicator will return.

 

AJ

[gnoj]

My handset (GS4) doesn't accurately report Sprint's Band 25 PLMN ID (310120) to SignalCheck, so ironically the dropdown notification was more accurate for me for that connection before the 4.17 update, since it showed "Sprint" as the carrier for both connections, although I understand it was just repeating what it saw for 1X. Now that notification randomly switches between showing "Samsung" as my LTE carrier to showing no carrier name at all. The main screen shows "Carrier: Unknown (310000)." 

 

It's not that important now since I know the only sort of LTE connection the phone can have is to Sprint's Band 25, but that may change in the future once LTE roaming on PCS begins. Perhaps the reporting issue will be resolved in the upcoming 4.3 or 4.4 firmware update.