lordsutch

Interesting... thanks for the feedback. I think the latest release on Dropbox should fix the issues - I've tightened up the code to only report LTE when the phone thinks it's connected to LTE, not just when there's a valid signal strength.

I also changed the app logo to change colors/designs when on pre-4G for consistency's sake.

Ah, the main icon always stays yellow. The notification bar icon is the one that changes color. (I suppose I ought to fix that to be less confusing...)

The defaults on the last release were LTE scan timer 5 and BSR Max timer 4. The new OTA doesn't change them. Instead they probably fiddled with a non-user-visible setting.

Doesn't seem like you got SMR; you almost certainly would have landed on a 224xx SID if you had. Not sure where in the GS3 service menus the 1X band shows up (if at all)...

Thanks, i just was not sure of the tower id was part of the cell id or how to determine without driving to the site.

There is apparently some vague correlation between LTE serving cell IDs and tower IDs, but there doesn't seem to be any algorithm to find one based on the other. With the iPhone 5, if you convert the cell ID to hexadecimal (or alternatively take the remainder after dividing by 256) the two final digits should be the sector number (almost always 01-03, unless you have fewer or more sectors on the tower). and the rest is a unique site ID.

Another day, another update — and it's a biggie:

• Background tracking is now enabled. This will actively use your phone's GPS for geolocation, so if you're not powered up make sure to use the "Exit" option in the menu to stop it when on battery unless you want to drain your battery.
  
• Distinctive icons! On pre-4G you get a red icon marked "3G" in the notification bar; on 4G you get a yellow icon marked "4G." If you want bars etc, use SignalCheck Pro or another app to add those
  
• Map tiles are now cached.
  
• Orientation changes and warm restarts repopulate the screen much faster.
  

Still on the TODO list:

• Persistent settings.
  
• Fancy stuff (launch when on power, launch on car dock, etc.).
  
• Some way to share logs - I don't want to build a giant backend to upload data, but at least an intent to upload your logfiles to Dropbox/Google Drive etc. is probably reasonable.
  

As always, get the latest version from Dropbox at https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhd729pckawlndm/HomeActivity.apk

Still looking for folks to try it out on the GNex w/4.2.1 in LTE areas!

Does anyone know if sprint has upgraded any of the NASCAR tracks or deployed LTE? This would seem like a great place to deploy it, especially since they are the main sponsor. I haven't seen a single piece of information about it.

LTE is live around the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga.; I just drove around the area on Sunday and the strength is solid all the way around the outside of the speedway. I'd imagine several other tracks are already covered in other Sprint markets.

Here are a couple of maps I put together using the cell IDs for southern Atlanta. First map is last digit of the global cell ID (1-3), second map are the site-specific IDs (hex digits 2-6). Adjacent sites on page 2 may blend together since it's not very smart (yet) about choosing distinct colors for each site.

https://www.dropbox....xzce/Rplots.pdf

R code (requires the "ggmap" and "mapproj" packages for R); you'll also need a CSV file from my base station tracker: https://www.dropbox....aj6/plotcells.R

Just to add some new info to the fire, Sprint has (or at least had, Sunday morning) at least some 1X active on channel 526 in Newborn, Ga, east of Atlanta, although you'll need a custom PRL to use it.

I've made a few updates to the app over the past couple of days. There's now a menu option to show the base station marker location, although I haven't seen a correct Sprint base station location anywhere in the Atlanta-Athens-Macon area (I did see one roaming location get reported correctly near Byron). I also set the app to keep the screen live while in the foreground, ripped out more dead code, and disabled some eye candy in the moving map that was causing WebView to segfault on my Evo. I also changed the color of the display text to be brighter after squinting at it through sunglasses Sunday.

Still on my todo list, now that I'm getting the hang of Java and the ADT:

* Persistent settings between launches for both the moving map and the base station marker.

* Background logging.

Reports of success/failure on other JB devices welcome, although the cell identity stuff still is limited to CDMA+LTE phones even in the latest AOSP code (it'd be fun to see people with the Nexus 4 doing some "T4GRU" work in KC and Toronto, but Google apparently hates them... the internal AOSP telephony code actually populates the CellInfo objects on GSM phones, but the stupid method still returns null on them).

Would someone with a GNex in an LTE area mind trying out my signal detector app to see if it will report the LTE serving cell IDs you're connected to? Details are in this thread: http://s4gru.com/ind...tation-tracker/

In the app, if you have an LTE connection and the code works, under/next to "LTE Cell ID" you should have two values separated by a space: a hexadecimal number ending in 01, 02, or 03 (which is unique within the Sprint network for a specific sector) and the physical cell ID (a decimal number between 0 and 503).

Thanks!

By Mac ID or SSID? .. Because no one ever names their access point the same right?

I'm sure it's by SSID, alas. Then again I have everything critical on my phone encrypted end-to-end anyway, although I haven't gone as far as using a VPN (yet).

The $30 plan, last I checked, doesn't include tethering, and probably wouldn't work in my aircard or iPad. Hence why I haven't switched to it already.

I believe you can attach the $15 hotspot option to the prepaid $30 plan. I haven't, since I really haven't found the need to do any tethering lately (all hail the spread of free wi-fi).

My concern with the Connection Optimizer is connecting to random, unknown Wi-Fi points. I'm not sure exactly if just connecting to these points can send unencrypted info and someone in the middle can nab that info. I don't even use the free ones at the airport or malls just because I simply don't know. You read all these articles that say don't do it for computers, but not sure if the same rules apply for smartphones?

AFAIK Connection Optimizer will alert you that unencrypted WiFi points are available, but it won't automatically connect to any hotspot that you don't already have set for automatic connections under the WiFi Settings menu.

Its not a hardware issue and a factory reset does not fix it. There is a thread over on android central if you want more details. In summary, everything worked fine with ICS and now it doesn't.

I went and read the thread. If it doesn't affect every phone, and some (but not all) people running custom ROMs like CM 10 have the same problem, and wiping the phone and reinstalling to a baseline, factory-fresh state where it is known to work on other Evo LTEs doesn't fix the problem, it has to be a hardware problem with specific phones by definition. Just because new software exposes the underlying hardware problem doesn't mean it's not actually a hardware problem.

The map shows your location; I will probably add a marker for the reported 1X tower position at some point, but that information is unreliable.

Edit: I just updated the APK. The reported 1x tower position is now shown on the map. On some sites it will be offset from the actual tower location in the direction of the sector, while on others it will be at the actual base station location.

I've put together a new release of my cheesy ESMR/LTE base station tracker for Android 4.x. One of these days I'll get around to setting up a Google Play developer account... in the meantime, here's the link: here

This version logs ESMR and LTE base stations discovered in files on your (emulated) SD card in Android/data/com.lordsutch.android.signaldetector/files.

ESMR base station logging should work on any Android 4.x CDMA phone. The implementation is actually pretty stupid (it just looks for known ESMR SIDs). To find anything, though, you'll need a PRL that scans on ESMR bands (thanks to digiblur, sponsors have access to such a PRL) or you'll need to be in a market where Sprint has enabled ESMR scanning in their PRLs.

LTE base station logging requires a phone that either implements the Android 4.2 CellLocationLte API or a HTC Evo LTE running a stock ROM (where reverse-engineering the proprietary API wasn't terribly painful). Unfortunately getting at the data on 4.0/4.1 Samsung devices requires deep magic that I can't quite wrap my brain around, and I haven't tried yet with LG's devices. At present the only stock devices that are likely to be able to log LTE base stations are:

• HTC Evo 4G LTE (hex cell ID only)
• HTC One (hex cell ID only)
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus (both IDs, with 4.2.1 update)
• Devices running a 4.2 ROM (both IDs: CM 10.1, Evervolv 3.2, etc. - NOTE: only if the radio reports the data using the Android 4.2 interfaces, so apparently Galaxy Nexus only)

The app also includes GSM/WCDMA display but no logging since there didn't seem to be anything worth logging on those devices. It's mostly there (a.) because I could and (b.) if Google ever bothers to implement CellLocationLte on GSM+LTE devices like the Nexus 4 (perhaps in Key Lime Pie or a 4.2.x point release?).

Source is on github: https://github.com/l...rength-Detector

Still on the to-do list: background logging and adding a menu to control that.

(Edit: I removed the legacy version link, because there is an error in its base station logging. PM me if you're really interested in a map-less version of the app.)

I've never had any navigation issues, including with this update. If a factory reset doesn't fix the issue, there may be a hardware problem with your phone's GPS.

The way I see it is my phone is going to end up in a case anyway, so neither I nor anyone else is going to see the bling very often, if ever.

Now the CPU/GPU specs and panel, on the other hand, would make a difference in my mind. But I don't see anything from anyone that compelling in the next 12 months that would get me buying a new phone before my upgrade window (and in this neck of the woods, ESMR and 2600 LTE aren't likely to be here much before then, if at all, anyway).

As far as I've heard, the iPhone 5 is the only device that shows both IDs on its debug screen. Both should be exposed by the CellIdentityLte API in Android 4.2, although that relies on the OEM's radio reporting the data.

I've hit a bit of a brick wall; apparently on Samsung devices the cell ID and physical cell ID are only available via an internal API that can only be called from the dialer.

However, I did figure out how to get the RSRP on most LTE devices, so that should now show up in the app at least. Hopefully when 4.2 hits the Samsung devices they'll implement the official APIs.

Edit: The last few releases were refusing to actually stop, and thus eating a lot of battery. If you downloaded in the last 48 hours or so, be sure to update to the latest apk.

According to the FCC's public notice, Congress did override state and local authority in this matter. Whether it's constitutional or not is a separate question, but the law seems pretty unambiguous about Congress' intent:

(1) IN GENERAL. Notwithstanding section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–104) or any other provision of law, a State or local government may not deny, and shall approve, any eligible facilities request for a modification of an existing wireless tower or base station that does not substantially change the physical dimensions of such tower or base station.

(2) ELIGIBLE FACILITIES REQUEST. For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘‘eligible facilities request’’ means any request for modification of an existing wireless tower or base station that involves —

(A.) collocation of new transmission equipment;

(B.) removal of transmission equipment; or

(C.) replacement of transmission equipment.

(3) APPLICABILITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS. Nothing in paragraph (1) shall be construed to relieve the Commission from the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act or the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

Bummer. Guess I'll need to poke around dexdumps of the Samsung field test apk some more.

It only shows the Hex ID on mine. If you read his last post it looks like he is saying HTC only reports the Hex so that's all he can get to show on the LTEvo...... Stupid HTC.

Yeah, I poked around the API... HTC only exposes the Hex ID (the only thing else I've found exposed by the same call is EVDO base station ID). Now, if someone out there has a rooted Evo LTE running a 4.2 ROM (like Evervolv), the official API may report the physical cell ID, and if it does my app should be able to fetch it. I haven't gotten annoyed enough yet at Sense to root mine yet though.

Cool. I got an email report from someone with a Samsung S3 where the v17 API doesn't seem to be reporting anything. That may have been a bug at my end; I'd be curious if it works now. I drove around a bit in some LTE areas and was able to fix a few buglets while I was out on the road (rapid application development in the car, always fun).

I also added a new feature (which should work on any Jelly Bean CDMA phone): a second log, "esmrcells.csv", now logs your location, SID/NID/BSID, and 1x signal strength when connected to a 224xx SID. Might help people with finding live ESMR cells. I probably can tweak the app a little to actually run OK on ICS too, for people that are interested in doing some ESMR tracking.