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- 02-03-2005, 09:09 PM #1Oscar_LivesGuest
I spent a couple of days this week in a small town located about 12 miles
off the interstate. At the motel, I had full power (every bar) on my Sprint
phone, (no roaming), but yet I could not make any calls, nor could I receive
any calls.
When I tried to place a call, I got a "redialing" message and then it would
hang up.
I tried making calls several times for three days and had the same results.
When I got back to the interstate, my phone resumed normal operation.
Why could I not make or receive calls, even though I had a full strength
signal?
› See More: a wierd bars issue
- 02-03-2005, 11:17 PM #2Frank HarrisGuest
Re: a weird bars issue
One possibility is that you were close to a brand-new Sprint PCS cell
site (tower) that was being tested and hadn't gone into service yet.
Just a guess, and 3 days is a long time for such a condition. If you
can tell us where the small town is then maybe someone else on the
newsgroup will have some info on it.
Oscar_Lives wrote:
> I spent a couple of days this week in a small town located about 12 miles
> off the interstate. At the motel, I had full power (every bar) on my Sprint
> phone, (no roaming), but yet I could not make any calls, nor could I receive
> any calls.
>
> When I tried to place a call, I got a "redialing" message and then it would
> hang up.
>
> I tried making calls several times for three days and had the same results.
> When I got back to the interstate, my phone resumed normal operation.
>
> Why could I not make or receive calls, even though I had a full strength
> signal?
>
>
--
Frank Harris in San Francisco with an A680
- 02-04-2005, 12:59 AM #3Guest
Re: a wierd bars issue
Most likely the result of signal pilot pollution. Your phone could
receive a strong signal from the tower but could not transmit from it
because it was simply too far away. This is very common in areas with
hills.
- 02-04-2005, 09:49 AM #4CentralGuest
Re: a wierd bars issue
On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 03:09:00 +0000, Oscar_Lives wrote:
> I spent a couple of days this week in a small town located about 12 miles
> off the interstate. At the motel, I had full power (every bar) on my Sprint
> phone, (no roaming), but yet I could not make any calls, nor could I receive
> any calls.
>
> When I tried to place a call, I got a "redialing" message and then it would
> hang up.
>
> I tried making calls several times for three days and had the same results.
> When I got back to the interstate, my phone resumed normal operation.
>
> Why could I not make or receive calls, even though I had a full strength
> signal?
It was most likely a network/tower issue. SprintPCS phones lock into the
tower but that makes no guarantees that the tower->network is functioning.
So even tho the phone says it is on the network because it connected to a
sprintpcs tower the tower may not be. If your phone is set to sprintpcs
network only then after the dial/redial attempt fails the phone should
start to re-search for a sprintpcs signal finding the same tower and
repeating the process. I have ran into this problem only a handful of
times, one of which was new year's at midnight when the network was
overloaded but the towers were not. If you have F&CA roaming option you
could always switch over to another network if you find yourself in such a
problematic area. Getting a PRL update might help if sprintpcs has
deployed other towers in the area your phone may not be seeing.
- 02-04-2005, 11:30 AM #5Guest
Re: a wierd bars issue
A PRL update would not do anything to help. Sprint phones do not need
the most recent PRL to see every tower. That's an old myth.
- 02-04-2005, 07:33 PM #6Oscar_LivesGuest
Re: a weird bars issue
This was in Marshall, Missouri. Just north of I-70 in west-central
Missouri.
"Frank Harris" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> One possibility is that you were close to a brand-new Sprint PCS cell site
> (tower) that was being tested and hadn't gone into service yet. Just a
> guess, and 3 days is a long time for such a condition. If you can tell us
> where the small town is then maybe someone else on the newsgroup will have
> some info on it.
>
> Oscar_Lives wrote:
>> I spent a couple of days this week in a small town located about 12 miles
>> off the interstate. At the motel, I had full power (every bar) on my
>> Sprint phone, (no roaming), but yet I could not make any calls, nor could
>> I receive any calls.
>>
>> When I tried to place a call, I got a "redialing" message and then it
>> would hang up.
>>
>> I tried making calls several times for three days and had the same
>> results. When I got back to the interstate, my phone resumed normal
>> operation.
>>
>> Why could I not make or receive calls, even though I had a full strength
>> signal?
>
> --
> Frank Harris in San Francisco with an A680
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