Child Item

Site Totals

61363 Questions Answered 267 Categories

Bully Tower

After many hours with the half brain dead "techs" of which say nothings wrong in this area, I'm looking to the forum for answers. I live in northern Arizona, way north. We have two towers here in town, the closest tower other than those is in the grand canyon, 100 miles or more away. The Tusayan, az (grand canyon) tower is overpowering all the towers here in this area. I can stand on a hill overlooking the tower here in town and can only get 1x data and dropped calls. Drive on 89 north and its hit and miss 1x to 3g. Up till about two months ago all was good. Data was 3g, no dropped calls. Signal was sparce but dependable. I dont know if they upped the power for the Tusayan tower or what but somethings wrong. They sent me a antenna for my mifi, same thing, just 1x but good signal -54db. I moved it all over the house and same thing. Its now under the bed with -95db and have evdo with .54 meg speed. Guess its hiding from the bully tower. Any answers or ways to keep this tower off my devices. Yes i have updated my prl's. Note the time in the screen shots. and the distance from page.

Comments

John_Getzke

Hello,

Thanks for all those pictures. Its easy to see what you are talking about and we can tell you have experience conducting site surveys.

Mixed signals from competing towers is a plausible explanation for your issues. VZW or the local tower company might have made a tweak which helped someone else and ended up hurting you as a result. That theory plays well into your description as you say that VZW is not noticing anything unusual on thier side. Maybe what we should be asking is if anything has changed instead of if anything is broken or malfunctioning, although they might not be able to tell you that either.

One solution that comes to mind is a cantenna or directional antenna that would focus your MiFi's reception in the correct direction of the VZW tower. Giving your MiFi a more narrow perspective should increase the chances that it will communicate with the correct tower.

Another possible solution would be to look into an amplifier system. There are many that you can find for home and mobile use from online stores such as 3gstore.com and wilsonelectronics.com. With an amplifier you should be able to boost your native 3G signal so that it doesnt matter which tower you connect to. 3G amplifiers have been around forever, there should be many to choose from depending on how much you want to invest.

Most antennas and amplifiers come with a trial period. If they do not immediately resolve the problem then return them for a refund. In case you have not already seen it, here is a great site that can walk you through the process of evaluating possible antenna and amplifier equiptment:

http://3gstore.com/page/13_will_an_antenna_help_me.html

blht

well check this out, i've been using a wilson amp and yagi for years, never had an issue. Told that to several of the reps and techs but they all said it must be the device, ie upgrade the prl. I guess all my devices and all the people i've talked to have the same issue. I called the number listed as the owner of the tower in tusayan, az but I just got a verizon reg rep that told me to contact customer service. I dont know what 10 year old designed the support for verizon but they need to give them a time out. A phone number for someone in this area that knows if they did work on the tower would be nice. When you get full bars and 1x on the phone in the living room, and one bar and 3g on the mifi under the bed, somethings wrong.

John_Getzke

This whole under the bed issue is wierd. It makes me think that there is interferance inside your house, perhaps from a competing wireless signal. Any new applicances or re-arrangement of your furniture?

If your Yagi or amplifier were defective I would think your phones would lose thier 3G service along with your MiFi. Since you report that your phones are fine we can assume your amp and antenna are working. Otherwise you would have to play around with your Yagi to get it into a sweetspot and connect to the correct tower. A nudge in the right direction might be all that is needed to improve the signal enough to get your MiFi back online.

Yagi antenna (for those who are not aware):

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antennas/travelling/yagi.php

Not sure what else we can do in this situation. If VZW is unwilling to investigate the issue then you may have to start discussing early termination with them and see if you can get a discount for your technical difficulties.

Child Item