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From: pur-ee!ghg@en.ecn.purdue.edu (George Goble)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Signal Propagation Characteristics?
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Date: 14 Jan 91 12:57:54 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 37, Message 2 of 8


>[Moderator's Note: When I was visiting in Independence, KS this past
>summer I had my Radio Shack CT-301 with me. In most areas of town
			. . .
>Tulsa, OK -- sixty plus miles to the south!  Returning home on I-55,
>Ameritech only guarentees service when you get 'close to' Morris, IL,
>the southwestern-most point for Chicago area service. When HOME kicked
>in on my unit, a nearby highway sign said we were 70 miles from
>Morris. All that on a .6 watt handheld ... 

Ameritech/Chicago is notorious for cranking up the xmitter power on
their "paging" (control) channels. (Mouth is bigger than their ears).
Running my Motorola in "maint" mode, to display received signal
strength, I approached Chicago from Lafayette, IN, coming up I-65 from
the south.  I received "usable" (i.e. phone goes "in service") signal
strengths 50 or 60 miles out from known cell sites.  However, one
could not initiate any calls until approx 25-30 miles away. These
cells are not "balanced".  The intense competition, where xmitter
power is "jacked up", to make your phone jump over to the B carrier
(even though not usable for service), just to keep your phone from
locking onto the A-carrier (for those whom leave "A or B" selected).

The second reason, is that Ameritech (Chicago) uses AT&T built RF
equipment which sucks (in receive) compared to Motorola RF equipment.
Motorola receivers do at least 10db better than AT&T I have noticed.
This is more of a difference than the .8W or 3W between portables or
transportables.

When returning to Lafayette, IN, one starts to receive GTE Mobilnet
about thirty miles out, and within one mile, the system is usable to
initiate calls also. Roger Reeves (Mobilnet Engineering) says Mobilnet
is very careful about balancing the cellsites and pointed out many
other carriers conduct "power wars" with their control channels to
"steal away" phones, and this results in large areas of "no service",
even though the phone is indicating "in service".


ghg


[Moderator's Note: I did not try actually making a call when I was
that far south of Morris, but in the case with Tulsa, I did speak with
the operator, provided I stayed on the second floor by the window.  PAT]