The_Chemist

Thanks for the ERP/EIRP figures. I'm glad to see they were included in the teaser!

I have a few questions about ——-----------, that I'm hoping someone with expertise here can answer. This site was formerly owned by AT&T, located behind the Harrisburg PA UPS Hub in Steelton/Swatara Township. It is currently owned by Crown Castle and is used by AT&T and Sprint. I live on the South side of this tower by about 0.5 nautical miles. I work on the North side of this tower by about 0.25 nautical miles. This site is NV accepted and operating. Recently within the last 3 weeks or so, I noticed my signal at home is abysmal. I called Sprint to inquire. The first call I made, I was told there was no problem. After another week, I called again. Someone with a little more knowledge of how to use their diagnostic tools was able to dig deeper and found that one of the south facing arrays was down for a data speed upgrade. This explains why I am having trouble receiving both 3G and LTE from this site at home. Some of the GCI's I have received from this site are: 0FE05101, 0FE05102, 0FE05103, 0FE0510A, 0FE0510B all on Band 25. This site is not currently transmitting on Band 26. Are the A and B suffixes second carriers? My most pressing question is: by the pictures I have posted here, can someone please tell me which equipment belongs to Sprint and which equipment belongs to AT&T? I'm trying to educate myself on just what exactly I am looking at when I see this tower. I'm trying to gain knowledge. I would be most appreciative for any and all information, S4GRU members are willing to share. My thanks!

LG replaced my touch sensor while the G2 was in for its GPS repair. I never really noticed anything about the touch sensor that didn't operate correctly though.

I apologize my above post was duplicated yet again. It turns out that the latest version of Dolphin Browser is causing the problem. Sorry!

You're correct. LG does need much better quality control. As Faber said, that's a management thing. I originally hated the G2 and put it away in a drawer after I received it back on November 8th. Mine was plagued with all the problems. I recently resurrected it to check out LTE 800. I am impressed how good the phone has gotten through all the updates. I think it even sounds as good as my Note 3 after the litany of upgrades. Now the Shentel tower near me is upgrading data speeds, so most of the time I only get 3G. I am again using my Samsung GN3. I'll get the G2 back out when my tower is working correctly again. At least the GPS is now fixed.

If I had someone else's property in my hands, I would treat it with the utmost care. They just slop it through!

Sorry again. I'm not understanding why I'm getting duplicate posts today!

I'm really pi__ed about that. They told me not to send any accessories in, but never mentioned not to use the original box. I guess they're just to disorganized to keep the device with its box and keep track of it. Too much in a hurry to crank things through. I'm also miffed about the little dents they made in the bright metal trim near the SIM card slot where they opened the device. I could have done a slop job like that myself!

My GPS actually got to the point under clear skies where it would take forever to lock on, if it ever did. Finally it died altogether. Good luck sending yours back. The service center is in Texas, but call center in India. Makes life wonderful! At least in my case, they got it working spectacularly. LG actually installed an entire new chip. Obviously they have problems with many of these...

My GPS could be anywhere from a block off to 40 miles. It finally wouldn't receive a signal at all - that's when I sent it in to LG for repair. LG marked up the small silver band around the phone when they opened it, but at least they did correctly fix the GPS. It now instantly locks on and shows correct location..

I received the G2 back from LG yesterday. LG installed a new screen (they said the old one was defective) and a new chipset. The device was on ZVC again when i received it back and had an LG splash screen instead of Sprint. The GPS now works. LG nicked up the silver band around the side of the device and didn't return my factory box. The entire LG repair experience was horrible. You get a call center in India when setting up the return. I had an extremely difficult time trying to understand what the relresentative was saying. I'm not happy at all about losing my factory box. When i go to sell the device it will be worth less without the original box. After reinstalling everything the LTE symptoms were the same. Fall back to 3 and stay there I checked the BSR timer and it was set to 3000. I changed that to 3 and had better luck switching between 3G and LTE. It appears that the ZVD update does indeed cause the LTE issues. The BSR timer appears to correct the issue. Now an array is down on the Shentel tower near my house for data speed upgrades, so I can't really check out band 26. This entire experience with multiple calls to LG for the original problem of the GPS repair and having to deal with their inadequate call center is enough to make me think twice about a future purchase of an LG product. Thanks to all on S4GRU and XDA who posted about the BSR timer issue.

Sorry, my Samsung Galaxy Tab S duplicated this post.

If you can wait, don't factory reset. My G2 is out for GPS service. I wiped the phone before I sent it in. When I get it back I am going to do a fresh install of everything. I can let you know if the problem still exists, if you can wait that long.

That's very true. Historically when I've had ssues with this same tower, they were fixed within a few hours of me reporting the problem. This time it's a little different. This "low signal" phenomenon has been going on for over a week until I reported it. When I called Sprint, they had no other reports of trouble and couldn't find anything wrong with the tower. That's kind of scary. I'm hoping that Shentel didn't realign the radio heads and this is what I'm stuck with. I've checked signal with both Tri Band devices and my single band workhorse Samsung GN3. That's why I posted here in hopes to get other user's thoughts on signal level. I guess there's just not enough people on this thread in my area.

Has anyone in the Harrisburg area had problems with band 25 signal strength from the tower behind the Harrisburg UPS Hub? I have barely been able to hold LTE at my house and my work location. I connect to different arrays on that tower depending if I am at work or home. At home on he second level of the house I have been receiving a signal strength of about -117 dBm. I used to get that kind of number deep in my basement. The norm for the second level in he house was around -90 dBm to -100 dBm. Using Signal Check Pro, I have noticed that I am also hashing between 4 different cell sites on Band 25 LTE. I guess because the signal strenght from the tower behind UPS is down, my phone tries to connect to other towers. I called and reported this to Sprint. They have no other reports of trouble, but put in a service ticket. I am about 0.5 nautical miles from this tower and have always received a great signal.

Excellent article Josh. Thank you very much for taking the time to post this. A plethora of good information!

I deactivated my G2 on December 31, 2013 because I hated it so much (crappy sound quality, poor RF and a GPS that didn't work). I have been using my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which I love. I recently activated the G2 again to check out the band 26 performance in the areas surrounding Harrisburg. I must say that after all the updates, LG did a very good job fixing the sound quality and RF performance. I sent the phone back to LG to get the GPS repaired (we'll see how this goes)... It's a shame that in the latest update the switching back to LTE after being in a 3G area was broken. I guess we'll have to wait for another update to fix this now. I wonder if this issue happened to all the G2's or just a few of us were affected?

Add me to the list as well. I have to airplane toggle to regain LTE, no matter how long I wait or how strong a LTE signal area I've moved into. Just sent the G2 back to LG today for a GPS that never works. Hopefully they can find the issue, fix it and return it in a reasonable time.

I was out with my girlfriend today doing some signal sniffing. We went to her place of employment on Hale avenue in Harrisburg and could barely get an LTE signal. Looking at the engineering screen we were on band 25 with a signal level of -116 dBm to - 123 dBm at which point we fell back to 1x800 - no eHRPD at all. I would have thought that band 26 would have kicked in at the low level reception of band 25 but it did not. This makes me think that band 26 is not active or being broadcast at all yet in this part of Harrisburg. I'm kind of surprised at this. Shentel has a NV tower right up behind the old Bishop McDevitt High School. Less than 0.5 miles form Hale Ave. We then drove over to Derry Street right behind WalMart and Sam's Club. We switched over to Band 26 in this area. I do believe another S4GRU member posted in this thread of receiving band 26 on Grayson Road which runs parallel to Derry St. in this same area. We held band 26 the entire way over to PenHar drive, at which point returned to band 25. I was under the impression that Shentel had blanketed Harrisburg in 800 MHz LTE, but this is not so after our sniffing expedition. Only certain areas are covered. I'll be able to check further once I receive my new Samsung Galaxy Mega (an ebay purchase at a very good price). In our expedition, we encountered a nice phenomenon though. In the area of Rudy Road and 28th street we picked up a band 41 carrier. It was unusable, but nonetheless, my Lg G2 engineering screen showed my device connected to band 41. I didn't think that Shentel had any Band 41 running in the Harrisburg area yet, but they must be testing. Well, for now that's all I have to report on Shentel adding 800 MHz LTE to the Harrisburg area.

Thanks!

How is the sound quality in the earpiece during a call on the One Max? I read one review that said it really didn't get adequately loud enough. Also, how does it sound to the party on the other end? Thanks!

Ok, I just looked at the LTE Engineering screen. I see it shows upload and download frequencies...