mmark27

Couldn't get a picture, but there was a crane working on the west Washington tower in Madison just now

Booyah!!  I just checked out most of the ones we were missing in Madison.  Most are all accounted for.  We are DUE for a big, big, big batch of acceptances and the entire city lighting up!!!!!

That was quite the little road trip I just went on.....

EDIT:  The one on the north side by the crazy house is done but I couldn't get a picture, no good angle without causing a serious crash. 

Well, the crew from the Prairie St water tower on edge of Fitchburg and Madison has moved to Home Tree this am! At Seminole and PD roughly, in Fitchburg. Trailer (same one from other site) on site and guys climbing the tower. I'm home today doing some painting so I'll try to get over there at some point. And around to other sites yet to be pictured in Madison. I think there appears to be 2 crews in our area.

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I've been out hunting the whole time man. It doesn't pay to take pictures anymore because most of the towers in my area have NV panels up already. So we're all waiting for an unseen delay at this point.

yes I know you've been hunting, sorry didn't mean to lump everyone together. I just get tired of the complaining from some without any real contributions to the rest of us or site (not meaning financially).  Okay, back on topic.

I agree with rebuking that cluster theory.  The tower here in Madison by the airport just got accepted and its live.....it certainly hits the urban area.  I think that the best reason I've heard is from lilotimz on another thread about the "Winter Push" where they're not spending time getting towers accepted because that takes more man hours, instead they are just busting arse on as many towers as possible before the freeze.  Then go back and work on acceptance checks, testing and paperwork.  For that I'm okay with if true! (And if they come online before the Spring...)

Sad fact is you could back date these posts one year and they would be close to current. Yes I realize some LTE has rolled out. Big picture is it's 4th quarter 2013 and there is little to no confidence the Milwaukee area will be officially announced.

Yes, however, persons in Milwaukee could be helping to instill some confidence in movement if they were hunting and photographing towers.  Instead of just saying "there's no LTE and therefore no work".  There are very few towers in Madison that are not being worked on or having NV equipment installed. You'd probably find the same if there was more effort in MKE.

The 3g signal is way better this morning on the west side of Madison.  I know that really does not matter for LTE, but maybe Sprint is ramping up the testing.

Well, yes and no.  What are you getting for speed tests?  If you're getting over 1-2 mbps down and 500+ kbps up, then that's an improvement and it usually accompanies sites that are now close.  However, last time I was at Don Miller Dodge over a month ago, right next to the Tokay tower, I was pulling 2mbps+ downloads from that tower on eHRPD 3Geez.  I was out that way over the weekend and wasn't getting that, so perhaps an improvement is a good sign???

Anyone else getting bored with network vision rollout? It's so friggin slow I almost don't care anymore.

Things are happening, towers are being worked on. It's coming.

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Blanked again on the Acceptance reports from last night! Unfortunately, the new in progress sites didn't make the map either.

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I drove around the west side/near west side today.  Nothing being done, no increase in signal, so it looks like no luck on the west side.  I'm rather shocked that Sprint did not fire up the tower on Tokay Blvd.  That one has been done for awhile now, and still nothing.

I mapped out a few more blips of LTE along High Point Rd.  When I came to the top of the hill where the water tower was, my phone lit up into LTE.  The engineering screen said that it was a different tower than the Middleton one, perhaps it was the High Point Tower testing?  I also was able to pull blips of LTE on the eastside, then again along East Wash.  It'll happen one of these days.  When I spoke to the guys this AM, I was just yelling up to them on the cherry picker, ha. If they were on the ground, I would have asked more questions about other towers.

So did you check out the aforementioned towers in my post on the West Side?  Did you take any pictures?

Other towers someone still needs to get pictures of include:

EAST MADISON the one on Buckeye past the interstate as well as the one behind Super Walmart on South Towne drive. 

WEST MADISON the one on the catholic school by Gammon and Sauk, Pleasant View GC entrance, Hilldale (was just there two weekends ago and there was no work on it yet).

I'll attempt to fabricate reasons to drive those routes, but don't get out there enough. I'm keeping a daily eye on West Wash, Fish Hatch and the Beltline and of course, Home Tree....the last remaining Fitchburg tower.

High Point Rd in Madison, WI

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That one is not finished anyways. Looks like it is missing the 800 RRU on the right side and has cables hanging down.

Correct. Technically, none of them around here are finished as they aren't officially accepted by Sprint. :-) however, this one is actively being worked on.

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Unfortunately Madison is a part of the area that the Milwaukee teams cover.

My best guess just from sites they've tested is that the Milwaukee team works Sheboygan and down and they cover everything West out to Madison and maybe even a little further. I cannot remember if they were apart of the dells testing or not.

Okay. The way you wrote that earlier, it sounded like you meant Milwaukee proper only. Hopefully they get back here soon!

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This site is near the Fitchburg Super Target on the water tower.....so basically all the towers around me are finished, which I guess is a little FU from Sprint and all my complaining about service. Sorry DAN HESSE! Please upgrade home tree!

There was machinery on site, cherry picker, backhoe, and things were substantially torn up, so they are actively working on this site for the rest of the backhaul and cabinets too. I just took shots of the antennas that were going up.

There was Toyota Highlander idling nearby and the guy appear to be focused on the site as well. IS that person on here??? I was in the Dodge Durango with a glovebox that can fit 2 turkey sandwiches, or 70 PACKS OF GUM, Say What? 70! (Anchorman 2/Durango spots)

As you can see one of the antennas only has one RRU and wires are still dangling. They aren't really pinned up on any of the antennas yet. It's interesting that these 3 NV antennas are pointed away from my tower, which isn't far away. There's nothing on the backside of this water tower.

Milwaukee proper maybe but the outskirts West of 94 were just completed not too long ago by them.

Tower crews may be working still but the test teams are the ones on standby.

How's about around Madison?

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Well, I don't know what is going on today, but I am not getting any data or signal on the west side of Madison.  I called into Sprint to find out, and according to the Cust. Care manager, he does not even see a tower that's on Tokey Blvd or any towers on the West side.  According to what they are seeing, everything is fine.

 

How can this be when that tower has been a Sprint tower for years?

Most Customer Care people have no idea at all, I wouldn't take as a bad sign of anything.  (no offense to any lurking on these forums, but seriously, there's only so many times I can 1) update my profile, 2) update my PRL or 3) power cycle my device)

It is really frustrating though, that's for sure. 

That's what happened with the Middleton and Rimrock towers. Weak at first, then slightly stronger. Have you updated your PRL?

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Ok, so i did a bunch of sensorly mapping at that tower near demetral fields, hopefully that shows up shortly. Speed test got me between 9 and 13 mb down.

Also went out to the tower at 30/90-94 I see 4g equipment, but doesn't look like the ones I've seen pics of. Would be interested to hear your guys two cents.   

These are your NV antennas from your picture: 

Also went out to the tower at 30/90-94 I see 4g equipment, but doesn't look like the ones I've seen pics of. Would be interested to hear your guys two cents. https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/109122972571752715062/albums/5935359360757544529/5935863190397268018?pid=5935863190397268018&oid=109122972571752715062

First off, it's easier to get a free Imgur account and post the direct links to pictures in the thread so they appear inline. The mobile app works well too. I'll put instructions in my signature later.

Second, your first pic, bottom rack is Sprint. Second pic is a bit more confusing but without getting a clearer shot, I'd say the second to the top rack is Sprint NV, just spaced weird. It would be easier to tell if we could clearly see the wires into those antennas. Eitherway, post up the second pic to the In Progress thread with the site ID in the sponsor section so Rickie can dump a white pin on it!

EDIT: took a closer look at your pictures on my computer since you've uploaded them to the site. It is clearly like the second "rack" which is like the third set of antennas down from the top. You can see the 800 and 1900 RRUs attached to the antennas and there also seems to be a lot of wires into those antennas too. 

Thanks for the speed tests! I see them on Sensorly!

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I can open the map in Chrome on my phone, and I can zoom in just fine, but I find it extremely hard to scroll around the map. It always just moves the web page back and forth instead of actually moving around the map It's like you gotta hit the screen just right to be able to move around the map. Is there a certain way to do that?

 

I also have starred all the towers in the general Milwaukee/Waukesha area on my google maps account, but the few times I travel outside my zone, I'd like to be able to use the map on my phone to see other areas too...

So, I use Chrome Beta on my S4 and I have no problems with the panning and pinch to zoom on the map anymore (a few weeks ago that was an issue).  I use the Chrome (non beta) on my N7 (2012) and it works fine too.  I guess make sure your Chrome is up to date?  You can try to use the Firefox, it's always worked there for me.  But yes, it is clunkier than on a desktop for sure. 

Does anyone have a good way of viewing the NV Sites maps on mobile devices? I'm thinking about going on a tower hunt and it would be very convenient to use those maps on the run... as it is, getting to those maps on a phone is very clunky.

 

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Use Chrome or Firefox on your S3. Both work fine to display the maps. You have to use the web view and not through Tapatalk app. 

What I also did was to go through and star every tower in our area on my google maps (just double clicking on the tower gets you to that location in google maps outside of S4GRU) so they would show up in my google maps app and I could actually navigate to them since they were saved locations.  However, remember to NOT share any of that information with anyone that isn't a Sponsor to this site as per the forum guidelines. 

I just checked the area around Tokey Rd, and still nothing for LTE.  I hope Sprint hurries up and flips the switch on..

yeah, when I saw the Sensorly for the Eastside, I immediately had my wife disconnect from WiFi and toggle her airplane mode since she works in Research Park.  She confirms that nothing is broadcasting from the Tokay tower.  I really want to know what's up with that tower as the crew told me, and I asked explicitly, that the backhaul was already in place running to the tower. In fact, the guy showed me the inside of the box where they were connecting the tower fiber to the backhaul fiber as the guy was making connections....in July.

I am also not sure if that's the only tower lit up.  If you look at the rest of downtown Madison, there seems to be more purple....and darker purple, in the Isthmus, which can only really mean more towers may have lit up unless it's pulling from that tower near Kraft foods.

Thanks.  I know that La Crosse has LTE on the initial 1900 mhz spectrum, but was wondering if/when they might be getting the other LTE spectrums (800 mhz, 2600 mhz).  Is the goal of Network Vision to eventually upgrade every single Sprint cell tower, or just the ones in major cities?

I don't think anyone has any solid info on when sites will be upgraded to include the other LTE spectrum. That'll probably be some time next year. I think they're just trying to go balls-to-the-wall on getting the initial 1900Mhz LTE deployed so they try to catch up to the other carriers.

Well, the equipment they're installing for 1900 LTE will do the 800 LTE as well, so that's just a flip o' the switch on their end.  However, the 2600 will require more hardware, I'm not too concerned about it because the 800 will be what puts them on par with everyone else. 

Thanks.  I know that La Crosse has LTE on the initial 1900 mhz spectrum, but was wondering if/when they might be getting the other LTE spectrums (800 mhz, 2600 mhz).  Is the goal of Network Vision to eventually upgrade every single Sprint cell tower, or just the ones in major cities?

Most every tower.  Like 99% of them. There's only a few that won't be, but you can rest assured that most ones that you hit will be updated.