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I checked mine and the gold connectors were touching the sim card holder I placed some electrical tape where it was touching and I still had the attenuation problem.

did u put the tape both sides.. mean where it is touching and next too it there are really two sides touching..

well on mine there are :S.. smells like att made a problem cutting the sim cards
 
I wonder can we get a forum on here where every can say their exact symptoms... i feel its different for some people. The moment I cover up the 'antennae' my signal doesn't just drop but instantly the other person can't hear what I am saying move my hand and its back. Verified this a number of times at different locations.
 
Has anybody tried taping the entire back side of the Sim to prevent it from shifting around in the tray. I'm waiting for my Iphone 4 also but that seem to help with my 3gs once a upon a time ago
 
Here's another solution:

15298_droidx.jpg


Right now iPhone 4 is selling for $850-900 on Craigslist, maybe more on Ebay. With a $325 ETF, that nets me plenty of cash to pay for a new phone, and my activation fees on Verizon... And say bye to AT&T forever...

I am so over AT&T, between their sucky service and now all these problems with the new iPhone.... Someone sent me an MMS last night and it took 40 minutes to get delivered to my phone...
 
When the sim-card is connected the measurement is only done with the cell-masters that the sim-provider has. When the sim is removed it falls to emergency mode and uses all cells. Is likely to be some other than the provider you have. So this test dont prove anything.
 
It doesn't work, besides if you look inside the tray there is a coating to prevent the SIM not to touch the steel
 
This topic piqued my curiosity and so I powered down my phone, ejected my SIM tray, and observed the contacts of the SIM touching the tray. So, I got out my multimeter and was able to determine that the area of the tray that is touching the SIM contacts is coated with a non-conductive material. I don't see how adding electrical tape could make it any LESS conductive than it already is. Perhaps there is a problem with some trays where the coating is not adequate. This is not the case with mine, and I definitely don't plan on introducing a foreign element into my still under warranty iPhone 4.

In my experience with the reception issue, the antenna bridging explanation makes the most sense. Why bridging the two antennas at the top of the phone does not also impact reception is unclear to me.
 
100%?

I couldn't replicate the problem in Troy, Auburn Hills or Fenton MI.

Maybe I just didn't put my sim card in wrong??

Your statement has nothing to do with the statement to which you reply. He said that the phones, under similar conditions, behave the same. This means if one iphone 4 has an issue in location X when held a certain way, then they all do. He never said that a given phone will exhibit problems in every, or even most, locations.
 
This topic piqued my curiosity and so I powered down my phone, ejected my SIM tray, and observed the contacts of the SIM touching the tray. So, I got out my multimeter and was able to determine that the area of the tray that is touching the SIM contacts is coated with a non-conductive material.
The portion of the SIM tray that touches the contacts on the SIM card is coated with non-conductive material (I tested myself with a multimeter). Isolating with scotch tape or whatever won't make any difference.
Pffft, multimeter...... Science, shmience.

If people want it to work, it'll work.
:cool:
 
What's a little antenna between friends?

I've had mixed antenna issues with my iPhone 4 all day today. Sometimes I've got a death grip on it where I'm practically strangling the damn thing and I get amazing throughput. Other times I hold it so daintily that I'm barley connecting with the damn thing and I get little to no throughput. Other times I've got it in a death-grip and it starts with low throughput an goes up as I release my grip of death. So there seems to be no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell so I'm left with the conclusion that the problem must be software related as only software would ever be this fickle.
 
someone out there who started this "DIY" is probably laughing uncontrollably at all people ejecting and reinserting their SIM cards.

another thing that helped me regaining signal strength was rubbing the backside of the phone 3x counterclockwise, 2x clockwise, turning it over, pressing the home button 5x and finally rebooting the phone. my signal bars went instantly back to 5.
 

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Worked for me...

All of you haters out there are making fun of this. This is a forum for ideas, not a hen peck on apple forum. I had a few issues with reception. I checked the sim card it was touching. I used a little tape and voila, no more issues. I have used the fix for 24 hours now and no issues.
 
My reception is better as long as I am not holding the phone the normal way. I have to hold it like I'm having afternoon tea, with the pinky extended and a very light grip.

buster_poindexter_drinking_martini.jpg


The proper way to hold an iPhone.
 
I've had mixed antenna issues with my iPhone 4 all day today. Sometimes I've got a death grip on it where I'm practically strangling the damn thing and I get amazing throughput. Other times I hold it so daintily that I'm barley connecting with the damn thing and I get little to no throughput. Other times I've got it in a death-grip and it starts with low throughput an goes up as I release my grip of death. So there seems to be no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell so I'm left with the conclusion that the problem must be software related as only software would ever be this fickle.

I agree with this. Yesterday I got a signal fail in a familiar place, holding it in a way that never produced the deathgrip problem before (landscape mode, two fingers by the top). A few minutes later in the same position it was happy again.

I predict that a week or two from now we will have moved on.
 
I have tried this and it seems to help greatly:
If you bought the ZAGG Shield for your iPhone 4 take one of the leftover material the you have when you remove the shield from the pre-punched sheet.
Cut a small piece to cover the antenna, it will be wide enough to position it parallel to the black antenna line, trim and test it out. It seems to work for me so far.
 
I was only getting 1 or less bars consistently with and without a case in my office. This is no matter how it was held or not held. I ejected the SIM card and reinstalled it and now I get more bars up to 4 over the past few minutes.

As for the signal drop off with the "death grip" the signal still drops with the case on the phone. I did notice when I am outside in line of site with an at&t tower the signal appears to drop slower with no case (I did not try this outside yet with the case on).
 
OHM meter test

Being bored I tried to use a OHM meter with the sim card inserted that was touching the tray. Had a +1 reading. Used the black eletrical tape and reinserted the tray with sim and retested.

Second reading had a 0 OHM reading.

Third held the phone in hand with the black electrical tape and still had a 0 OHM reading.

Here is the kicker for apple. When held in hand with the sim WITHOUT electrical tape the OHM reading was +4 with no signal.

I am not in any way claiming anything. But I was bored and laughed when I did this test.

Last, since putting the electrical tape on and living in Seattle. My iPhone4 does not drop calls in the I-90 tunnels. HAHAHAHA!!!! Yahoo!!!!!
 
Tried trimming sim card and putting tape on it to make sure it doesn't touch the sim tray. Didn't resolve the issue.
 
biggest iphone 5 feature list:

- you will actually be able to make calls! yes! yes! and yes!

- you will be able to hold it any way you like. wow! it will revolutionize the way you hold your phone.
 
iPhone 4 Antenna - not design flaw

Well I satisfied my curiosity about whether this is a design flaw or
not. It is NOT a design flaw. Let me explain. I walked into an Apple
store to see iPhone 4 and test the "grip of death" that has been on the
web news and blogs. I held every one of the 20 iPhone 4 display units
in the grip of death. Out of the 20 only 4 suffered dropped bars the
other 16 stayed at 5 bars no matter how long I held them in the grip.

Now this is a small sampling but much larger than most have done. The
results show that 20% suffer from the dreaded grip of death. There is
something else of a technical nature causing the problem, but it isn't
the design. If it was hen all 20 in the same room would have dropped
bars instead of just 4. Maybe it's manufacturing related, a component failure or how the
software chooses the signal, but it should be fixable once Apple
diagnoses what is causing this.
 
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