Can reception be improved?

[bfranker]

Hello,

I've had Alltel for many years now and have been through many phones. This Touch Pro is the most advanced phone I've had but is, by far, the worst at performing just as a "phone"

I ended up going through 4 Touch Pros during my 30 day period and ALL of them had poor reception so I know it isn't that my particular phone is not right. It isn't just the way "bars" are displayed either because I've worked at the same job and lived in the same house for many years and I drop calls now and my battery drains FAST due to the phone often times searching for a signal.

I probably should have just turned the phone back in and went back to my Treo 700wx but I got hooked on the high res screen. Stupid because the main reason I have a phone is for a PHONE and while the other stuff is "cool", I'm finding this poor signal reception starting to really aggravate me (only had the phone for about 1.5 months). The last straw was when two other friends I was with both had FULL bars (one with Samsung and one with a Motorola phone) and I had NO bars or just one!

Anyway, I don't know a ton about this stuff but is there anything that can be done to improve reception with the Touch Pro? If nothing "easy" can be done, I do see talk of the different ROMs and talk of different "radios".

Can a different "radio" be flashed to my Touch Pro that has shown to be able to pick up a signal better. I'd think this would have more to do with the design of the phone than a program but maybe/hoping not.

With the Alltel being fairly new it might be too early for anybody to have a definitive yes/no answer but if there is something promising that I should keep an eye on, please do let me know. I can live with some of the other down sides to the phone but this poor reception (as compared to all other phones I've seen... lots of friends on Alltel with many different models and mine is the worst) is killing me.

Thanks!!!