Which app do you use to scan/debug GSM/CDMA cellular tower signal strength?

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I use OpenSignal on my Android, in the UK. It currently shows '100 nearby' cell towers on the first page (where your screenshot shows '0 nearby') and they are shown as points on the map within a mile or two of where I am (in a large busy city). But I'm pretty sure that comes from the OpenSignal server not from the phone's own hardware. Likewise the information it claims to have about nearby WiFi hot spots. The phone and Google work out where you are and OpenSignal send you the data they have for that area.

So if OpenSignal have few users in your area they'll have little or nothing to tell you about.

Your phone will be able to tell OpenSignal about the cell tower it is currently connected to, and OpenSignal can add that to their database. If the operator of that cell tower has made its location public, OpenSignal will even be able to place it accurately on the map - otherwise they'll have to estimate its position from the signal information their users provide.

I don't know the other apps you mention.

Works on iPhone also

I use the Pro version: Mostly, I just need a fast responding analog signal strength indicator for aligning antennas and testing nanocellular base stations.

I've only tested a few such apps, but I don't recall seeing any that did that. What the apps do is query the cell phone part of the smartphone for cellular status information. I don't believe that apps cannot control the cell phone and have it scan the neighborhood for other cell sites. However, I'm not a programmer and might have this wrong.

This app looks like it might do what you want: See the "Limitations" section. It seems that if the cell phone section doesn't display neighboring cells, then the app also can't display them. I don't have time right now to try it.

Nope. Just one tower.

Hi Jeff,

You use my number 2 app, which validates that the app is pretty decent.

I know you know your stuff so I think it's a validation that I put those apps in the order that I liked them, after testing them for only a few minutes each (and after removing about as many that failed upon initial inspection).

Bummer. The app that I *think* will give me nearby towers is WiGLE (which, I think I recall giving me more than one cellular tower, but maybe I'm wrong).

As it is, I can only get 1 tower out of each app, and that tower is always the same company as my supplier.

So, what I *want*, I can't find, which is an app that scans for all towers, and simply reports the unique id and signal strength of those towers (which is how WiFi apps work).

Why can't a cellular app work like a wifi app works (e.g., InSSIDer or Fritz! Wlan, or WiFi Analyzer, etc.)?

WiFi apps seem to be able to scan for access points that they don't themselves connect to, but the protocols are different.

So far, I have to agree with what you're saying, which is that I'm limited on Android by the fact that I can only "see" the signal strength and unique ID of a single tower at a time.

That's a bummer because I'm trying to debug why I'm not connecting to the two micro towers I have inside my house for T-Mobile (one is a cellular repeater while the other is connected to my router).

Thanks for that suggestion since I only tested each cellular network monitor for a few minutes yesterday.

Your suggestion was my #4 choice in the original post: 04 Netmonitor, version 1.2.15:

Looking more closely at that app, I see there are four icons at the bottom, where clicking on the "pencil and paper" icon shows a page full of something.

That something is about a score of towers, with color codes of yellow and red (and presumably green) with a time on the right and a description of their location.

Here is one such line:

(green round dot) 40483 45813 2304 (yellow satellite icon) California, USA, San Jose, CA 95121, 1656 Prime Place

I have to run out the door, so I'm not at all sure what this "pen and pencil" page is trying to tell me, but I'll spend some more time on this one app to see if it can show me *all* the towers it can see, and what their signal strength is.

I think you found the app (NetMonitor) that shows "something" about more towers; so I will dig further into what it is trying to tell me.

Thanks for that information, as I have only been using these apps for one day, so, I have only formed an initial impression out of the apps.

My selection process was simple:

1. I googled and read articles for the best iOS/Android cellular scanners.
2. I downloaded all the viable suggestions (about a score of apps)
3. I deleted, on sight, the obnoxious ones (I have an eye for that)
4. I then tested what was left and ordered them in best to worst (so far)

At that point, I noticed that all the apps had only a single tower listed, so, that's when I asked you guys for assistance and expertise.

Jeff Liebermann confirms that most (if not all) only show one tower, which is unfortunately because I'm trying to debug my house where I have 3 towers at the bare minimum, to choose from (two of which are inside the house, one of which is brand new).

However, Jeff found that my number 4 choice, NetMonitor, does list a page of towers, so, I'm gonna explore that further.

I put OpenSignal *last* on my list, because it didn't seem to be all that functional (it was actually completely non functional on the iPad, which has a SIM card and a T-Mobile cellular data plan but not a voice plan, so that might be the reason).

The one nice thing about OpenSignal is that it *points* to the connecting tower, which is interesting in my case because my lookup of the tower shows it to be in a different direction than which is pointed to by OpenSignal.

The rest of the OpenSignal information was, as you noted, all from a database on the net, which isn't what I'm after here since I'm trying to find my own cellular towers which are inside my own house, so they're not likely to be on any OpenSignal database.

In my first post I placed OpenSignal last on the list of Android apps simply because OpenSignal mostly seemed to be a lookup to Internet databases, which isn't what I'm after.

I'm seeking a real-time scanner, and particularly I'm trying to see how my two cellular micro towers are doing inside my house compared to the cellular signals from outside (from towers that are a few miles away).

Since I'm out in the boonies, sort of where Jeff Liebermann lives, the towers are few and far between and we know where they are (for the most part).

The one potentially nice thing that OpenSignal provided on Android was a compass-like pointer toward the tower it's connected to; however, that pointer doesn't seem even remotely aligned with where I know that tower to be, so, I'm not sure if that compass-like pointer is fluff or if there is a major reflection of radio waves going on off of someone's solar panel array or expansive windows overlooking the valley below.

I do know that the seemingly errant OpenSignal pointer is consistent, so, it pointed in (what seems like) the wrong direction yesterday, and it's pointing in the same direction today.

On the iPad, OpenSignal fared miserably, but that might be solely due to the fact that the iPad has T-Mobile for cellular data only. The iPad does not have a voice service on the SIM card. So maybe these apps only work with phones and not with tablets?

that's not why

no.

I can mention one app that apparently finds all towers in the vicinity, but the only info it says about them is an identifier code.

It is "MyProfiles". The goal of the app is to adjust phone settings according to rules. A rule can trigger on a variety of things, and one of them is location. The location can be done by GPS, but the app can instead do it based on which towers it can detect. You can tell it to trigger "home" if it sees the five towers near home.

This is not the tool you need, but proves that other towers can be found. The app lists all towers found, and timestamps them. Apparently only one is active, but somehow it displays how many are within range, and in another window lists them.

I have OpenSignal on my iPhone and it located two Verizon towers in the vicinity of my home out at Lake Nacimiento. It also provides usage and signal data. I manages to do all I need of it.

BTW, Jeff ... the main reason your number one cellular-scanning app selection wasn't my number one choice was that Network Signal Info has an obnoxious "Parthian Shot" full-screen ad, which has to be x'd out in order to truly quit out of the app.

Since you have the Pro version of that Network Signal Info app, you probably don't see that Parthian Shot (some call it a "parting shot").

Without that Parthian Shot ad, it would have been my number one selection, so, others reading this thread will know that it's a very functional app, even with the obnoxious parting shot ad.

I liked the way they did the map feature of the Network Signal Info app because tapping on a tower on the Google Map gave the cell id easier than did most of the other apps which had similar Internet-based location-lookup maps.

The only problem is that I'm not sure how accurate those maps are since I found multiple towers in different locations with the same supposedly unique cell id.

Thanks for the suggestion of MyProfiles. There seems to be one from "Llab01 Inc."

It certainly asks for a *lot* of permissions upon installing (luckily, each one can be turned off individually)

- Device & app history

- Cellular data settings

- Identity

- Calendar

- Contacts

- Location

- SMS

- Phone

- Photos/Media/Files

- Wifi Connection information

- Bluetooth connection information

- Device ID & call information

But after using it for an hour, I can see that it's a powerful tool that can "do stuff" (I'm not sure what yet) depending on what towers it is near.

I'll play with it a bit more, because it seems overall like a powerful autoamtic doer of things. However, it's not a scanner, at least not only a scanner.

No, it certainly is not a scanner, but it uses scanning to do its own stuff. I think the phone tries to connect to each tower, till it finds the most appropriate one, and this tool records the activity to find the approximate location with the minimal battery usage.

I just meant it as a proof that scanning all towers is possible.

I use it to turn off automatically the WiFi when I get out of home, or when it detects the car bluetooth. Previously I also used it to temporarily disable Internet while sleeping, for 8 hours, say. Unfortunately this is no longer possible on Android 6, no permission to turn off the data network.

I think, as Jeff Liebermann noted, that the apps only query the phone to figure out what signal strengths and tower iD information the phone has.

So that seems to be why all the apps can only see one tower at a time, and, that one tower is only the tower of the current cellular provider.

If I popped in an AT&T SIM card, then I'd see the one AT&T tower I'm connected to. I don't know if a phone can connect to two towers at once though.

Can it?

it can and does.

I think you're right that the suggested app is a very nice app as it has been running for a few hours now, where the list of 8-digit and 14-digit "cell tower IDs" is growing, even though I have been in the same location all this time.

I thank you for bringing up that app, as it does seem to locate more towers than most of the other apps do.

The app that Jeff Liebermann suggested, Netmonitor, also seems to list a ton of cell towers by number.

So, those two apps seem to do "something" different than the rest of the apps seem to do, as the

I think the app is a decent app which seems to be focused toward "doing something" when it encounters a specific tower.

It's all new to me, so, it takes a while to correlate the 14-digit and

The 14-digit numbers it reports seem to be composed of two components: a) The 5-digit LAC (local area code) b) The 9-digit CID (long cell id)

I'm not yet sure what the 8-digit numbers are since the short cell id is only 5 digits (at least the one I'm currently connected to is).

Thanks.

Figuring out what these apps report is a bit confusing for the apps that report more than one tower.

The bulk of the apps only report the one tower they're connected to at the moment. They report that tower with a variety of (supposedly unique) numbers.

For example, using Network Signal Info, at this moment, I have:

1. T-Mobile (both the net operator and the sim operator)
2. HSPA * 14.4 Mbps (sometimes it reports "EDGE * 220kbps")
3. -103dBm * 4ASU
4. 5-digit Cell ID, short
5. 9-digit Cell ID, long
6. 3-letter mobile network code
7. 3-letter mobile country code
8. WLAN IP address
9. WiFi IP address

Slowly I'm correlating that blizzard of numbers with the ones reported by the two apps that report multiple cell towers.

I think the only difference between the apps that report one number and the ones that list multiple numbers is logging.

Is there an easy way, with freeware, to self-video the screen?

use a gopro

I just installed it, but as soon as the opening black-text-on-white screen (I guess I need to give some sort of permission) appears it blinks out and the 'OpenSignal has stopped..." error message pops up.

I emailed the OpenSignal people, who want to know specifics...

I really want to know WHERE the cell towers are. T-Mobile has piss-poor coverage in out-of-the-way places and rather than driving around in circles I'd like to at least head toward a tower. Will this do what I want?