My HTC Desire is 18 months old, and lately it doesnt appear to be getting good signal strength if at all. Mrs FD has a Desire too, and quite often she will have 3/4 bars and I will have no reception at all.

We have both switched the phones off and back on etc to see if this makes a difference, and Mrs FDs would still get a good signal and mine none.

Is there any reason for this?

Ta

same network?

Sorry yes both Orange

No logical reason I can think of.

Have a Motorola L7 from 2005. Works fine.

Can’t think of any reason for a degeneration in signal access, but if Mrs FDs phone is newer than yours, it could be that the “radio” ROM is an older version. An older ROM might cause your phone to not be as good at getting signal. You can check the version numbers in the Settings.

You can update this, but you may need to Root your phone, and faff about, although it might be worth trying to update via the HTC software first. (When you update you’ll probably loose everything, so best to make a backup, or copy stuff off first.

No reason for the radio to lose reception.

One thought out of the blue – try swapping the sims between the two of them and see if that does anything.

Are they both the same model?

One’s not a Desire S? Check the SW versions as above (settings->about phone, Baseband version is pertinent, as is the android version).

There could be something physically wrong with yours too, loose connection somewhere or something.

We have the opposite problem.

Mrs BP iPhone 3GS about 20 months old and mine about 7 months old. Both on O2. Hers has significantly better signal than mine, where I have one or no bars she will frequently have max signal. Had a word with O2 last weekend and they swapped my SIM card for a new one. Might be snake oil and mirrors but mine appears to have improved now but we’ve not had a chance to check them together yet.

How old is your SIM card? always worth trying a new one, will be free from your carrier.

I’ve had this and so has a friend recently, wipe and re install the software. problem solved

visit the HTC website for more info BTW

I’m sure I read somewhere that the bars of signal shown on the phone screen are defined by no industry standard – i.e. 3 bars of signal could mean very different things between makes and I suppose slight firmware upgrades on the same phone.

If one phone is getting signal and the other none at all thats very different though.

I live and work in a very weak signal area and one thing we were told by some expert* that came to advise is that turning off 3g on phones in areas of weak 2G service significantly improves performance – and it seems to work.

*no idea what made him an expert apart from being a technical adviser for one of the phone companies.

Maybe she has T-Mobile Roaming enabled and you don’t.

https://kareena.orange.co.uk/signal/

I’m due an upgrade soon anyhow so I might as well ask for a new SIM card too, although this one is only 18 months old.

i was told by a vodafone rep at the weekend that if your sim chip is old it will affect reception. they were happy to send a new one free of charge so i doubt that it was a scam to get me to spend.

haven’t got round to ordering one to put the theory to the test yet though.

I’ve been in touch with Orange, and there are 2 issues. My settings are out of date as I can not use the T Mobile/Orange network, only the Orange one. SO they have sent new settings to my phone and I now have the Orange/T Mobile network selected.

The advisor also said that my SIM card was an old type not recommended for the HTC Desire, bit odd as the SIM came with the phone! So a new SIM is on the way too.

It’ll definitely be worth checkig you’ve got the latest radio ROM loaded, as mentioned above.

And yes, it’s also true that switching a phone to 2G only (if possible), in an area with weak 3G signal, will improve data performance & battery life – as the handset doesn’t constantly try to use the 3G network.

If above suggestions don’t cure…

Internal antenna either broken / antenna connection to the main board issue ?

Never owned an HTC, but an old Nokia many moons ago got dropped – Still worked ok, but signal well down – internal antenna at the time was a solid lump of whatever & had broken in half.

…just a thought

Chris

Well what do you know.. new SIM arrived yesterday and straight away went from 1 bar to 4 bars (full)