Custom ROMs (Energy) affecting radio signal strength?

[fodaley]

Hello,
I just got a TP2 and have been messing around with it. When I first got it, I was excited that the cellular radio strength was many bars, as my previous phone (HTC Touch) would usually have 1 when I am at home. I installed the Energy ROM and the signal strength drops down to 1. I replaced the Energy ROM with the stock Sprint ROM and the signal shows 4 bars.

I've tried to quantify the signal strength using fieldtest.exe but it seems like that program is for GSM, or dont know what "Group" to pick.

Any ideas on what's going on? Or how I can quantify the signal strength?

If it helps...my HTC Touch was using a cooked ROM as well. It was some Windows 6.5 ROM...officially it's only support to have Windows 6.1.

Thanks

[kevintmr]

Ive repeatedly read on these forums that custom roms have no effect on the radio unless you flash a rom containing a radio(obviously then it will change lol).
Ive also read that the signal bars in the taskbar dont accurately represent the actual signal strength.
FieldTrial.exe will show you the radio signal strength...there are threads on this as well. Observe Rx Power and Rx Ec/Io in the 1x menu and Rx Signal Strength and Rx Power in the HDR menu. The lower the number, the better the signal.

[fodaley]

Thanks for your reply. I found FieldTrial and ran it using the Sprint stock rom & Energy. Values are about the same. Maybe Sprint displays more bars to make me think they have better coverage....Who knows.

Maybe in the future I will unlock my radio and hope for better reception.

[kevintmr]

no problem

[horndoctor]

Originally Posted by fodaley

Hello,
I just got a TP2 and have been messing around with it. When I first got it, I was excited that the cellular radio strength was many bars, as my previous phone (HTC Touch) would usually have 1 when I am at home. I installed the Energy ROM and the signal strength drops down to 1. I replaced the Energy ROM with the stock Sprint ROM and the signal shows 4 bars.

I've tried to quantify the signal strength using fieldtest.exe but it seems like that program is for GSM, or dont know what "Group" to pick.

Any ideas on what's going on? Or how I can quantify the signal strength?

If it helps...my HTC Touch was using a cooked ROM as well. It was some Windows 6.5 ROM...officially it's only support to have Windows 6.1.

Thanks

More than likely the difference in signal bars is due to the taskbars installed when you flash a custom rom. The custom rom may have a taskbar with a signal indicator with a total of 5 bars rather than a total of 7 bars with the shipped rom. The only other thing it could be is that your PRL has been changed somehow during your flashing resulting in a different signal strength. Most custom roms do not include a radio so that shouldn't be an issue.

[kevintmr]

Isnt PRL the Preferred Roaming List? I was under the impression that it was a list of towers to roam off when home network is lost...? I didnt think it had anything to do with communication or signal strength to home towers.

[horndoctor]

Wirelessly posted (htc Pocket PC: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11) Sprint MP6950SP)

Originally Posted by kevintmr

Isnt PRL the Preferred Roaming List? I was under the impression that it was a list of towers to roam off when home network is lost...? I didnt think it had anything to do with communication or signal strength to home towers.

Correct. The list tells your device which tower Sprint prefers your device is to communicate with but sometimes the closest usable tower to your location isn't always the tower Sprint prefers your device to use. Many people over the years have said that sometimes with PRL updates their signal strength seemed to increase while others have said the opposite and in some cases they revert to an older PRL to try to regain their perceived signal loss.