Do you have a youtube video of you throwing it up while hiding on a roundabout?
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You can buy a Dacia car for much less than other new brands for the simple reason they are built from older Renault components/technology. Renault, having recovered the costs from Renault models using these components, can sell them on to their subsidiary, Dacia, cheaply and coupled with the fact they are built in parts of the world where labour costs are lower, you end up getting a cheaper car. For many car requirements they’re more than good enough and unlike modern cars are less full of technology that will fail and cost zillions to repair.
It’s the same with many of these cheaper phone/tech products from China. They’re made from older chipsets which are substantially cheaper than the latest super-fancy chips. There maybe plenty of these older, less performant chips available that the top tier vendors don’t want any more. They are made up into budget devices and sell for a small profit to clear the stocks. The only issue is if the quality control in the PCB stuffer is poor you may get a dodgy unit. Paying by Paypal is your friend here 
e.g. I bought an A5-V11 travel router that contains a 360MHz MIPS CPU, 32MB Ram and 4GB Flash. It has 150Mbps 2.4GHz wifi, 100Mbps ethernet and supports USB modem dongles. For £5 inc P&P. It’s all made from 2010 vintage chips but it works just as described and with OpenWRT installed I have a small Wifi repeater than runs off a USB power pack. Plug the 3g USB dongle I already had and I have a 3g/Wifi access point for pennies.
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Yeah, I know LTE is a function of 4G but my iPhone 7plus with Talkmobile shows “3G” in strong reception areas, “LTE” in weak areas, or “No service”. It never shows “4G” (even the phone supposedly supports it) but I assume that’s cos I’m on a £7 p.m. contract. Difficult to know whether the phone / connection speed is the restriction or it’s imposed by the phone company unless I “upgrade”.
I can’t make phone calls when it displays “LTE” but I can send and receive SMS messages and sometimes other data transactions (like updating the detailed map on my OS Maps app). So, I’m guessing it supports a low-speed data rate but not other features of LTE.
Anyway, I’m rarely unable to SMS self-spot from G/LD summits, although it’s sometimes a problem to get reception from some of the smaller WOTAs (Wainwright hills).
It’s carried over the control plane signalling in LTE, no need for a data bearer.
I’m currently developing Cat M1 and NB-IoT flavours of LTE for our modules, as the rollout of these networks expands in the UK it would be interesting to try on SOTA. We can cope with up to 20dB extra pathloss by using lots of message repetitions with soft-combining (up to 2048!) for low bandwidth data. Would be ideal for a spot in difficult coverage as we are also optimising for low power consumption (for example 10 years battery life down a water meter hole).
Jonathan
Re Mobile Phone Notspots Lets hope it has more impact than the last attempt Mobile Infrastructure Project Impact and Benefits Report - GOV.UK - I don’t think we got a single mast in Co Durham…
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LTE is long term evolution and is a way to move from 3g to 4g services and IIRC means that your iPhone is doing mixed 3g/4g stuff. i.e. it is doing proper 4g style data but will drop back to 3g mode and do circuit switched voice calls rather than true 4g voice.
Your phone supports 4g so it sounds like your network isn’t offering VoLTE and hence 4g to you typically because you are on a MVNO (e.g Smarty or Giff-Gaff etc.) not the main provider (EE, O2 etc.)
Trying to get a simple answer is nigh on impossible on this stuff. After much effort I found out about my own phone. This (MotoG 6) was bought SIM free and put on to my long standing Three contract. It happily shows me 4g, H+, H or 3g. But, and it’s a stinky trick, Three will not allow the sale of unlocked phones in the UK that have support for VoLTE (full 4g) on their network. So when I make a voice call it drops back to 3g circuit switched mode.
If you want VoLTE on Three you have to buy the phone from Three and later unlock it. Apparently my phone will do VoLTE on EE and O2 full contracts not rolling monthly contracts. But there’s no VoLTE support from Three on this device which means as and when Three start closing down their 3g network leaving only 4g and 5g I will need a new phone if I want to make voice calls or go somewhere where VoLTE can be enabled on this phone. I’ve only stuck with Three as their roaming in Europe was so good for a long time compared with the other UK networks. But as I don’t roam because of Covid and they ensured my phone wont do VoLTE on their network then it’s highly likely their future with me is limited.
You watch, I’ll switch to EE and as a new customer will have to start paying for roaming again (what bloody good move Brexit was hey?) and at that point we’ll be allowed to travel freely. It means all the old shenanigans of buying a local SIM and putting it in an old phone and tethering that to get a decent cheap data contract will come back. Something I thought was long gone till some people voted to move Britain back to the 50’s 
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Send one my way and I’ll start testing/using it out in the wilds of GM if you want. PM me if you really want to try this.
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I’ll keep an eye on how the networks are rolling out, it’s been a bit patchy but sounds like the uk networks are starting to get more behind these m2m modes.
[sorry for going a bit of topic]
My Moto 6 will run VoLTE on a PAYG EE SIM - just in the last week or so
As far as I’m aware, all Three phones are now supplied unlocked as standard.
Also taken from the Three site:-
“we stopped selling any locked phones as of 1 January 2014. Even if you have an older Three phone, you can pop into your local Three store and get it unlocked for free.”
That doesn’t change the fact that (based on what you said…I’ve not looked into that so I’ll take your word for it) you may still have to buy the phone from Three if you want full 4g on their network.
I have tried an O2 sim, a vodafone sim & a Things Mobile sim in my phone (which was supplied by Three) & they all worked without needing to unlock the phone.
That’s an improvement. But they would unlock things once the contract lock in was over anyway for free. But you still need to get the phone from Three for it to have VoLTE capabilities in the software. So my phone has VoLTE for other networks but not Three. Grr!
Looks good!
Re my earlier comments about some phones not covering the needed bands for UK/EU - this device does according to the specs:
BandsFDD:B1,B3,B5,B7,B8,B20;TDD:B38,B39,B40,B41;WCDMA:B1,B5,B8;WCDMA:B1,B5 ,B8;EVDO BC0;GSM:900/1800MhZ.
73 Ed.
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Aren’t all UK mobile phones unlocked as standard now? An EU law that came in to force before we left, or were committed to action despite leaving.
I have Tesco Mobile (0²/Telefonica) and I bought the phone SIM free and unlocked.
There will be almost no modern handsets where lack of access to LTE bands is an issue. In UK and EU B20, B8, B3 & B1 are likely to be the only bands you see in rural areas and they are pretty much standard in every handset. Also I find it hard to believe that there would be instances where MVNO customers are dropped, but perhaps traffic shaping applied to limit bandwidth. You would not notice that opening a web page to send a SOTA spot.
Its not really a handset lock issue. Rather a mix of handset software + SIM feature + Network support for that handset = the network VOLTE provisions your handset. The network operators are getting more and more handsets provisioned all the time, as they want to shut down 2G & 3G service. Barry found this when EE VOLTE provisioned his PAYG Moto G6. Sadly Andy G8CPZ probably wont get provisioned correctly for VOLTE, even though his Iphone 7 supports it. I think TalkTalk are out of mobile so probably nothing will change unless o2 take over management of the customer base.
If you are on 4G its highly likely your SMS is handled by IMS, in other words over your data connection. But given the tiny amount of data to send an SMS, it may still work where you don’t have a reliable enough connection to open a web page and submit a spot. Perhaps still a place for SMS spotting.
Finally all generations of mobile technology suffer when you see too many base stations from a hilltop. Its your handset that gets confused and goes hunting for a better quality connection, possibly taking you round 2G & 3G. I like the corner reflector idea!
On my Samsung phone I have an app called Samsung Band Selection, I use that on a hilltop to lock to Band 20 (4G 800Mhz). It then persists and generally works reliably without jumping around. That’s on EE, but should work on all UK networks. Most Android handsets will have an app or service menu to allow band locking, Moto do for sure.
73 Gavin
GM0GAV
PS today’s day job was analysing outages and looking for resilience improvements on a rather big UK network or two 
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If you are leaning towards O2, have you considered Tesco? I’ve had great service whilst on summits, and they guarantee not to increase the cost of your contract. And they use the O2 network.
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Actually, phones sold under contract from networks using B20 - probably yes, but if one buys direct a Lenovo, Motorola or similar “known name” mid-range phone, many do not have band 20. If one buys the under €100 phones direct out of China, it is highly likely they will NOT have B20.
Ditto tablets with LTE support.
What I have seen is MVNO phones not able to connect when a cell network is heavily loaded. Where a phone from the network supplier has no issues.
The Phone companies in Germany have said that the 2G network will never be decommissioned (only the 3G one - and presumably in the future the 4G network as we move onto 6G or whatever). The principal being that as long as 2G exists, any phone will still be able to make a phone call in an emergency situation.
I have only heard of band locking being on Samsung phones. A good idea but a Samsung not a general Android feature.
My comments are based on Germany - things can be different in the UK, but in many cases, with the exception of BT, it’s the same players involved.
73 Ed.
Slightly off topic… but it’s worth noting that 3G is being phased out by all the UK operators. So there will be 2G(GSM/GPRS), 4G(LTE) and 5G(5G NR/LTE).
You may start to see some very cheap 3G gear available for sale… watch out.
Hence my annoyance my provider for 13years is playing games with enabling VoLTE on phones not bought from them. My current deal runs out next month and now if I (most likely) move to EE then I have to pay roaming charges when abroad (something that will happen eventually).
Having activated in several EU countries I have found that the coverage in the Czech Republic on summits is superior to anywhere else I have operated from. I will be going back as soon as the need for £120 X 2 testing is abolished. Again, if the UK had remained part of the EU we would likely not need to be charged for testing to be allowed to travel over to mainland EU.
Slightly off topic also… When UK operators like me return to SOTA activating we will have to pay mobile roaming charges in the EU. This is what happens when you leave the single market - companies make their own rules without the legislation consumers need to protect them, provided in the EU 27 but not in the UK now we are on our own. The UK voting public were lied to by the leave campaign, not just on this, but also on many other issues.
73 Phil
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And I’ll have a stupid blue passport as well by then.