Trip

Mike, I don't know if it's related to the beta or not, but I got a new Moto E5 Play for US Cellular and everything seemed to be good with it. But I went on a several hour drive today, and when I got home, I found that the log had recorded nothing. No updates on existing rows, and no new rows. I checked and the logger is enabled, etc., and I've gone so far as to factory reset the phone and it's still not logging anything. I sent you diagnostics in case you see something I don't. I am able to import and export log databases without issue, but it doesn't seem to want to actually write anything to the internal one. - Trip

One thing that occurred to me after my post is that I'm actually not sure if it was based on timing or based on changing my device. My current device doesn't attempt to use SRLTE, so I'm guessing it uses VoLTE for 911 calls. That might be the difference. - Trip

It has to be a new SIM, not a previously-activated one. For a long time, Verizon would only let it connect to LTE for 90 days and then disable LTE access, so I have a pile of Verizon SIMs so I could toss and replace when my SIM after 90 days. That stopped happening at some point, though I'm not clear when. - Trip

Other than my main phone, every other phone I have is a rooted Moto E5 Play. I use the Amazon model for AT&T, an unlocked Boost for Verizon, and a T-Mobile model for T-Mobile. I have a US Cellular model in my possession to switch my US Cellular account to in the next few days. I can use Network Signal Guru to lock it to specific bands, and I use it with SCP, Mozilla Stumbler, and (at times) Cellmapper. For Verizon and T-Mobile, I just have unactivated SIMs in them and they work fine. For AT&T I'm using a FreedomPop SIM with the free service on it. For US Cellular I have a $10/mo pay-as-you-go account which I'm not sure you can get anymore. - Trip

I guess I will keep waiting for the time being. - Trip

My G8X offered me Android 10 this morning. I'm waiting to hear if it's safe from a SignalCheck Pro perspective before upgrading. - Trip

My G8X is offering me Android 10. I've declined for the moment given things I've read here. Are those resolved now? Is it safe to upgrade? - Trip

Seriously? Seems like a waste of effort and resources to have to come back and upgrade the site again right after building it. - Trip

Shentel managed to be competitive with AT&T in West Virginia with the same spectrum that Sprint had anywhere else. I feel like the spectrum excuse is a cop-out; they didn't invest enough. In many of the rural areas I've been in, T-Mobile has deployed 700-only (5x5), which is the same LTE spectrum Sprint had on 800. - Trip

Connecticut is the only state that has any kind of state-wide cell tower siting thing. Anything else is tied directly to the localities, and thus varies widely. Many of the more rural localities don't have anything much online, while the more urban ones tend to have a lot of information online. - Trip

I assume you're referring to the tower on Webb Chapel Road? As you indicate, it's very close to the US Cellular tower that also hosts Verizon and AT&T already. However, it looks like it might be placed to shoot signal across I-68 right at the state line where the US Cellular tower appears to be shadowed by local terrain. - Trip

Yuck. The whole reason I'm a Sprint customer is because it roams on US Cellular. - Trip

Hello, there. I'm a TV engineer. Power for a TV station license is measured as effective radiated power, based on antenna gain and system losses. So a 1000 kW TV station (max power today) will only have a transmitter capable of a fraction of that out of the transmitter. The rest comes from not wasting power aiming at the sky or straight down at the ground. For example, WDRB in Louisville runs 1000 kW, but the transmitter only actually produces 68.43 kW. Still a big power bill, but not quite so big as perhaps you might have been imagining. - Trip

I am about 99.9% sure it did not. Most of the underground B41 is from Mini Macros, at least according to the GCI pattern. There are a handful of locations where they appeared to be 8T8Rs. None of them on my commute, at least, were in the Massive MIMO part of the GCI pattern. - Trip

Whew, indeed! Good thing everyone has landlines and can fall back on them to call 911 when the cell towers go out at random. - Trip

So I just tried rebooting my phone and now I'm even more confused. When it first came up, I connected to B25 and it showed "C", but then when it jumped to B41, it reverted to "B." Digging in, I can see in the edited log database that I definitely updated every row associated with my home site to have a C at the end. However, it looks like when the import occurred, the B41 GCI I was connected to (and perhaps the neighbor cell it was seeing?) did not update, while the other associated GCIs did update. I'm not sure I've ever seen that happen before. https://imgur.com/a/yTcqxX5 Picture is from a new dump in SQLiteStudio. - Trip

I'm... not sure. Hm. So I updated my log this morning and had a fit with SQLiteStudio for some reason. It was not committing properly, and that was causing me grief. I eventually figured out that I could force it to commit by running the Vacuum function on it, which had the side benefit of shrinking the file from 5.8 MB to 5.2 MB. So I solved that. Then I imported that file successfully on my G8X. I tested that by renaming my home site to have a "B" at the end, and it changed right away after import. But then I realized I didn't remember it updating automatically, and sure enough, I was on 4.59b. So I upgraded to 4.593b, changed the "B" on my home site to a "C", and now it's acting like it's importing, but I don't think it's actually updating the database. No error message is being given, and next to the files that are being imported, I'm getting -shm and -wal files with the same name. But the "B" remains. I have to admit I've not been a good tester and did not keep careful track of what version I was on as things were going on. So I don't know if it working 4.59b represents something you changed between an earlier version (I got my phone on 3/12) and now this is a regression, or if my device is just being flaky. I am pretty sure my issue is not the one you were necessarily trying to fix, so that doesn't help either. - Trip

Went to pick up food yesterday from a take-out place in a shopping center where I'm usually on 1X or, at best, barely-functional EV-DO. (The site that should be providing LTE is a B25 GMO.) https://imgur.com/a/Eyr7QKW Can't speak to speed, as I didn't think to try it, but it was a nice change to actually have usable service. I'd never roamed on T-Mobile there before on 311490, so I think it's new. - Trip

I take solace in the fact that this is an article by one of the analysts who, like the other analysts, are basically guessing. - Trip

Mike, Not sure what happened, but I tested exporting and importing the database file again on my G8X and it worked twice. I'll let you know if I see it fail again and look for patterns. - Trip

I'm not convinced much has actually changed yet. It seems to me like they've opened up roaming a touch more, but otherwise Sprint customers are still on the Sprint network as much as possible. I have yet to connect to T-Mobile anything since the day of the merger. - Trip

The reason I checked this morning was that it was still on the old value yesterday. 6163 yesterday, 20243 today. - Trip

That's a T-Mobile TAC. - Trip

dl_freq is the downlink frequency, not the TAC. Since the Internet seems to have no pictures whatsoever of what that screen looks like, I can't tell you what Apple might have called it. If your part of the DC market is like mine and has moved to the T-Mobile TAC values, it should be something like 20234 or 20236. Mine in Alexandria is 20243. You get the idea of the range of values. - Trip

You're on Band 41. - Trip