signal sensitivity is declining

[AC Question]

I've had my Galaxy S4 for many years now. It's always been an excellent phone. However, recently I've observed that it's ability to pick up a signal is declining significantly. For example, there's a place by the bay, about 4 miles from my house, where I wander regularly. In the past, I've always been able to easily get a strong signal out there, but in the last few weeks I've found that I cannot get a signal at all out there.

I had assumed that this was a MetroPCS issue, maybe a cell tower had been removed or something. However, last night I was out there with my wife; she has an even older phone (Galaxy Mega), but she got a perfectly good signal, both for data and phone. She was able to quickly load SigAlert, whereas I could not connect at all.

So now, it looks like this is an issue with my phone. Is there anything I can do about this?? Just as truth-in-advertising, I dropped my phone in a stream a year or so back; it stopped working for a week or so, then started working again and I've kept using it, but I'm wondering if that affected the antenna or something??

 

[belodion]

Well, water damage tends to be progressive, though I don't know whether it can take that long.
https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=477140

 

[Gorlash]

Ahhh... that makes sense. I *didn't* remove the battery after it fell in the water, in fact I never removed it at all. Everything else in the phone still works, but I'm wondering if the antenna has gotten corroded or something??? sigh...

 

[belodion]

It could be. The devil of it is, without diagnostic tools and skills, you can't tell what may be wrong. I tried to revive an old iPhone 3GS for someone, with known water exposure and a bad battery, but no way of knowing the extent of other damage, and not worth spending money to find out.

 

[smvim]

Ahhh... that makes sense. I *didn't* remove the battery after it fell in the water, in fact I never removed it at all. Everything else in the phone still works, but I'm wondering if the antenna has gotten corroded or something??? sigh...

If you go to this site:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung+Galaxy+S4+Motherboard+Replacement/16537
and look at Step 13 in the third pic it shows the antenna connector. If you suspect your antenna is an issue it might be worth digging into your S4 and just re-seat that connector. That link gives you step-by-step directions on replacing the mobo but ignore all the disassembly info as you just want to expose the insides of your phone to get to that connector. But, think if this is really the issue. Are you also having issues with WiFi connections being weak? Bluetooth connectivity? As far as I'm aware the S4 has one, shared antenna (some phones have multiple antennas for different functions), that light blue wire that runs along the inside.