Hi Alan,

I think unless you've moved to the US, the 850+1900 MHz bands should not have any macro network carriers. However, there are of course possibly other users in that spectrum that create a high interference level for your signal.

If you have a spectrum analyzer around, you can check the signal levels and check which UARFCN might me most suitable. Make sure to cover both the uplink and the downlink part of the UARFCN.

Aside from interference, it could also be that there is simply insufficient output power configured. There are a number of related DMI MIB entries, I don't recall the details right now, but the following values appear to be related to RF power

cpichTxPowerLowerLimit (2594) = -100 cpichTxPowerUpperLimit (2595) = 500 eAgchPowerOffset (3494) = -20 eDpcchToDpcchPowerOffset (3492) = 4 eHichErgchPowerOffset (3495) = -64 cpichTxPower_001 (2531) = -99999 hsScchPowerOffset (2875) = -10 maximumPowerCapability (1863) = 130 maximumTotalWidebandTransmitPower (2593) = 0 minimumPowerCapability (2044) = 0 powerHeadroom (2567) = 8 primaryCpichPowerPercent_002 (3606) = 100 maximumAllowedUlTxPowerDch (2216) = 24 dlPowerControlPerRab_001 (3486) = ({SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_3_4_SRB (1), -30, -20}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_13_6_SRB (2), -30, -20}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_CS_AMR_12_2 (3), 50, -20}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_CS_UNKNOWN_DL64 (4), 0, -27}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_DL64 (5), -30, -20}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_DL128 (6), 0, -20}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_DL384 (7), 40, -20}, {SRB_AND_DL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_DL32 (8), -40, -13}) ulPowerCtrlPerRab_001 (3487) = ({SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_3_4_SRB (1), -20, 1, 2, 1, 1, 30, 80, 0, 4, 2}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_13_6_SRB (2), -20, 1, 2, 1, 1, 30, 80, 0, 4, 2}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_CS_AMR_12_2 (3), -27, 1, 3, 0, 1, 40, 80, 30, 6, 1}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_CS_UNKNOWN_UL64 (4), -27, 1, 6, 0, -1, 70, 90, 50, 4, 2}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_UL64 (5), -20, 1, 6, 1, 1, 70, 90, 10, 4, 2}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_UL128 (6), -20, 1, 6, 1, 1, 60, 80, 0, 4, 2}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_UL384 (7), -20, 1, 6, 1, 1, 100, 120, 100, 4, 2}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_ULHS (8), -10, 1, 10, 0, 1, 40, 150, 30, 2, 1}, {SRB_AND_UL_RAB_TYPE_PS_IB_UL32 (9), -20, 1, 6, 1, 1, 50, 50, 0, 4, 2}) powerOffsetPpm (3602) = 2 rfMeanWidebandPower (1784) = 0.000000 aichPowerOffset (1264) = -5 bchPowerOffset (1295) = -20 fachPowerOffset (1342) = 20 pchPowerOffset (1482) = 20 pichPowerOffset (1491) = -5 primarySchPowerOffset (1502) = -50 sccpchTfciBitsPowerOffset (1603) = 12 secondarySchPowerOffset (1606) = -50

However, I guess it really only makes sense to start to play with those values when attached to a transmitter tester that can actually observe how the channel power changes. If anyone has played with this so far, now would be a good time to step forward :)

Another possible source of confusion could be that the phones have some kind of logic that they don't scan on US frequency bands in case they see macro cells on non-US bands. This is pure hypothesis at this point.