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Field service mode LG TU500 |
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Friday, 11 January 2008 |
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I used to know this and then I forgot it, and a guy asked me for it today, so I had to look it up again, so now I'm writing a story here so that I can easily find it the next time I'm asked for it. Gosh, that was a crappy sentence! I have an LG TU500 3G phone on Telstra's NextG network. This and it's equivalent, the TU550 and the Canadian CU500 are all really good phones with great reception and there is a hidden service code that unlocks a feature that allows you to view the receive signal strength. Type the following code from the idle screen just as if you were going to dial it as a number; *748#96 . Don't dial the . that's just there to end the sentence (not that there is a dot on the phone anyway). A yellow box will pop up with a bunch of useless information, but next to "RSSI:" you will see the receive level. I can't tell you what is good or bad, but whilst I'm sitting in my office in the centre of Hobart I see about -60. Every time the number raises or drops by 3 that is a doubling or halving in the signal strength.
[UPDATE] OK, this has prompted some discussion so here is a bit more info. The best thing to look at is apparently on the third page. After you have entered the code press the down button on the phone three times and you should see a page that says RF State. Ignore that and look below it where it says RSCP. That is the number that you want to watch. The lower the number the stronger the signal, so you want to see low numbers here. It stands for Receive Signal Code Power (boring isn't it!). Below this is something called ECIO. That apparently means Energy per Chip over noise. I'm assuming this is a noise margin, so the larger the number the better. If the number gets to zero then thesignal is the same level as the background noise and you will have no service. Using this information you can tell that the antenna is at the top of the mainbody of the phone somewhere near the camera. If you put your hand over the camera you will see the RSCP go higher indicating that you are blocking some of the signal, so don't hold your phone there if you are out in the sticks! Oh yeah, to get out of it just hit the red hang up button.
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