Bored Of Your Old Signal Meter
April 17th, 2008 by Greg Myers
I found this little tip on CrackBerry Australia. I’ve tried it and it works well…Thanks CybaCowboy…
On the Home screen, hold “Alt” and press “N”, “M”, “L”, “L”…
For those wanting a signal meter that is a little more specific, this will show the decibels (”dBm”) of the current signal!
Repeat the above process to switch back to the “traditional” signal meter…
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April 17th, 2008 00:40
tried on pearl 8130 and couldn’t get it to work
April 17th, 2008 05:10
Same here.
April 17th, 2008 05:16
Sorry guys. It worked (and still does) on my 8310 Curve. I don’t have a 8130 to test it on (GSM only here).
April 17th, 2008 05:28
On the Pearl 8130, when you are supposed to hit “N”, hit the [8/B/N] key twice while holding down alt and it’ll work .
April 17th, 2008 05:35
Could someone with a background in signals explain what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ values for this number are? I am getting a -86 right now. Also, why is this number negative? Are lower or higher values better?
April 17th, 2008 07:22
For the ’signal strength’, if you are in the 100 area (that means -100 dBm), you will be transmitting at maximum power (2 Watts), and since coverage is hit and miss at this weak a signal, you may end up transmitting many times before the packets make it through. This might help explain any poorer than normal battery life. I consider anything at -90 to -50 excellent.
April 17th, 2008 10:07
I wish I could use this, but didn’t anyone notice that the numbers only show up in black? Maybe it is my theme? I use a dark background image, so I can’t see the numbers. Doesn’t make any send that if EDGE bars are in White, and UMA bars are in Pink, why these numbers have to be Black.
I have a friend in SW R&D at RIM, and he said they are black and hard to see because they are not meant to be seen/used by the end user. I still say they should be visible like EDGE or UMA.
Aren’t the values exponents? Do you know what an Exponent is? The less negative the higher the number. pH is the same way.
April 17th, 2008 10:24
Thanks for all the feedback guys and girls.
You can also check your signal strength (in Db) under the options>status menu…
April 17th, 2008 13:32
does anybody know if there are any other cool little tricks like this? for example to be able to change the carrier banner so say something else
April 17th, 2008 21:42
Bryan,
In the near future I will be posting a “secrets” thread on BlackBerry Forums (Australia), Pinstack.com and CrackBerry.com’s forums for keyboard-featured BlackBerry devices (sorry, I don’t own a BlackBerry Pearl)…
I’m still trying to track-down codes, secrets and other un-documented features at the moment though…
Keep an eye out for it.
Cyba Cowboy.
~ Posted wirelessly from my BlackBerry 8800 ~
April 18th, 2008 09:44
Aren’t there already an abundance of sites where one can find BB keyboard shortcuts? I know I’ve read several in the past and even have pdf’s I’ve downloaded with page after page of them.
Not trying to burst any bubbles, but google turns up dozens of hits for “blackberry keyboard shortcut” (including this well published NMLL).
April 21st, 2008 04:21
@Brian
Thank’s so much for posting the solution for the 8130 Pearl, as I had the same issues the others had. The Pearl keys are just slightly different.