Hawk's Babble-Log

Last weekend I spoke with my Dad for over an hour and a half… from my house! I was quite astonished. The call was clear the entire time and I didn’t even get dropped! So, I guess they’re improving things a bit.

*However*, just yesterday I attempted to make a call from outside my building (where I normally have no trouble at all) and got the familiar message, “Call Failed:”. There was (and never is) any explanation as to why the call failed. I had *full signal strength* at the time. After much experience with this message, I’ve finally learned how to handle it: “hardshock” the phone.

The “hardshock” method is what Cingular Customer Service uses whenever I call with a problem. It seems to be their only method of solving problems. I’m used to it. I “hardshock” my phone every morning before I leave for work.

Yesterday, after receiving the “Call Failed:” message, I knew exactly what to do: “hardshock”. I opened the battery case, yanked the battery (without powering down the phone), waited 10 seconds, put the battery back in, put the battery cover back on, and powered the phone back up again (which requires I hold down the power button for 5 seconds). Then I wait for the phone to boot back up again and enter my code. After that, the phone searches for a network. All in all, I’d say it’s about two minutes or so before I can use my phone again.

After the “hardshock”, I tried to make the exact same call again and *BOOM*, connected within a second.

Wierd, but that’s Cingular.