The way you use your mobile phone can makes quite a difference when you are in a weak signal area or indoors.
Some time ago we discovered you could improve the received signal level on a Nexus 4 phone simply by rotating it. Looking at the front of the phone, all you had to do was rotate it 90 degrees clockwise, so the top is to the right. Astonishingly the received signal level went up around 8 dB – that is a factor of six times stronger. It also helped to hold the phone along the bottom edge to minimise the effect of your hand on reception. This same tip still works on some phones today.
Which brings us to a new tip – mobile phones have multiple antennas and it is difficult for manufacturers to ensure they won’t sometimes be partly blocked by the users’ hand. Depending on the size of your hand, and the way you hold your phone, you may be making signals weaker. So this tip is to try holding your phone in the other hand or move your hand to either hold near the bottom or on the sides, mid-way up.
Follow these tips and you may find that coverage is better and web surfing in marginal locations suddenly becomes easier.
This is a revised version of an article first published in 2013.