[snip]

What version of software does your StarTAC have?
(Main Menu, Phone Options, Phone Info, Software)

My StarTAC turned itself off several times during a visit to
southwestern MA this past March.  I was on Verizon SID 119 inside a
metal building where signal conditions were very poor.

More often in about the last year or so I have noticed my StarTAC
rebooting occasionally, and it's almost always in a Verizon area.  I
also know of one place where Sprint changes from a partner's system to
their own system that my phone will also reboot everytime (in that one
location).  I wonder if it was an unintended effect from the CDMA 2000
(1X) upgrade on certain base stations.

The reboots happen rarely in Pittsburgh (maybe once a day) and
Columbus, OH (very seldom).  This summer I traveled in western New
York and spent several days at Niagara Falls.  I don't remember any
reboots during that trip.  I was in the Dallas area last week. The
phone rebooted inside the plane right after I turned it on after the
plane landed and we were taxiing to the gate.  The phone never
rebooted again while I was in Dallas (about a day).  It's never
rebooted while I was at the Atlanta airport.

I've been to Baytown, TX twice this fall.  In the vicinity of the
Garth Road exit along I-10, my phone reboots every few minutes.  I can
still make a call, but the constant rebooting makes receiving an
incoming call difficult.

During my first Baytown trip, as an experiment I switched my phone to
NAM 2, set the SID for the home system to 12 (Verizon, Houston) and
set the phone to "home only".  It worked flawlessly thereafter on NAM
2.  I was back again last week and the same thing happened (reboot).
Switching to NAM 2 made the phone stable.

I have suspected that software version 7659 is to blame for this
behavior.  Alltel was the only carrier to use 7659 software, to my
knowledge.  I have not heard Verizon StarTAC owners complaining of
power-off's or reboots.  I know Verizon's last software for the
StarTAC was 7654.  Alltel released version 7659 in the summer of 2002
to make the StarTAC hang on to a digital signal longer before
switching to analog.  I think they tweaked some setting too far for
optimum stability, but the tweaking was only done to NAM 1 settings.
It looks like NAM 2 through 4 were left at earlier defaults.

I've toyed with the idea of trying to load a PRL into NAM 2 (there is
no PRL on NAM 2, 3 and 4)and see how the phone operates.  But if I
successfully do that, I would loose the manual control I now have with
NAM 2.  Of course there's always NAM 3 and 4 if I botch up NAM 2.  If
anyone else has had experiences with these issues, I'd like to hear
about it.

royc

The same one...1522

-SC