Does anyone else haveless than goodreception from their onstar hands free phone? The thing is 10 times the size of my cell phone and has half the reception since new. It's choppy, when calling. Is this a warranty item or normal?

 

I have the same issue with my phone as well...the reception seems to be ok most of the time but I feel like I have to yell to get the person I am talking to hear me. I keep minutes on my phone for emergencies only

 

same here. I was hoping to not have to add some type of blueteeth piece and keep everything factory. This thing just pain sucks. I can call the truck it will answer 80% of the time but no audio in or out. If you try calling out it will connect to the number and usually hang right up. It could be the area but I doubt it. If it does connect its ok, but most of the time its real choppy. The wierd thing is I get bored at times and thats when I'll call onstar and after about 5minutes of doing something on their end, the system will work better, but not great, for a couple of days. I hate it. I so want to be able to change carriers for the servicebut Im not sure if thats the real problem. I need to add a BT piece but Im kinda waiting for the guys to come up with a interface to get the iphone to work thru the dock connector and not via BT for the phone portion.
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doo600.....yes your Onstar and everyhting about it is covered under your factory warranty.
do you live in a city near a Canadian\us border?.....Recently i have seen alot ofunits connecting to US towers when they should be connecting to Canadian. You have to go in and manually lock in the towers that you want it to use. otherwise it willtry to connect to whatever it wants.

 

No, I live in the Chicago suburbs so we have no shortage of cell towers. I have never lost a call or not received one but I get choppy static quite frequently.

 

What I have noticed with mine is,

If I sit in my truck and call the trucks phone number it will ring on my cell phone a good 4 or 5times and only ring once on the trucks phone.

Usually people hang-up after the 3rd or 4th ring.

I think this may be the case as I have only received maybe two calls in my suburban in almost a year.

 

My reception is weak as well, has been since day one. About 50% of the time it won't complete a dial - the tel# just sits there on the DIC and then goes blank. It is not a tower issue because my Verizon cell always works and in fact back when I first noticed the problem in the Tahoe I checked the signal strength on my Verizon cell and it showed full strength. Interestingly enough, my Tahoe will often go for weeks sitting in the garage without being driven. Within an hour of pulling it out of the garage I get the email with my OnStar report, so it obviously can't get a cell signal until it goes outside. My handheld cell works fine in the garage......

 

You should be able to use the Onstar hands free calling feature while in your garage.
The Onstar diagnostic report is only ran when the vehicle is in motion, once triggered to run the report the system will wait until the vehicle is driven before executing this instruction.

The Onstar system is powerful and puts out 3 watts of power vs. a handheld cell phone that puts out about 0.6 watts, and with the antenna mounted on the roof the system has a long range, which comes in handy if you are in a remote area.

The reception issues that many people are having I believe can be attributed to the fact that the Onstar system is sensitive and in areas that have many cell towers (in close proximity) there can be some noise and interference from signal overload.

The average cell tower can have a radius range of about 25 miles (some over 40), the Onstar system can vastly extend this; utilizing towers that are well beyond those distances, in an area of multiple cell towers (like a large metropolitan city) the Onstar system is always searching and switching to the tower with the strongest signal, due to the power of the Onstar system this can pose problems as well from it constantly switching towers.


FYI, The Onstar system will completely go to sleep after 72 hours if your vehicle is not started, so if you need a remote unlock to retrieve keys don't wait, this is so the system does not deplete the battery if it is not being operated.

 

Onstar may not use the same carrier as your cell phone does. I know here in Ontario, we have about 3 or 4 different carriers in our area, but Onstar only uses one of them