cingular 8525 poor gsm signal / reception

[jardan]

i live in Greece and i recently bought a cingular 8525 through ebay. the device is in great condition but i have very poor gsm signal. i live in an area with great reception of my provider, my nokia used to have 3 to 4 bars with 4 bars as maximum, but the cingular had at most 2 bars... i tried several roms and several radios from 147 to 154.30.something but with no result. i tried auto band, manual band, everything but it still has no reception or very poor, as i said the most 2 bars. my provider is also 3g gsm 900/1800, the sim card is brand new.
if you need more info please tell me.
if you have any idea or plain advise i will be greatfull.

thank you.

[fuzzvirus]

Less number of reception bar on the today screen doesn't mean that you have poor reception. Are you getting call drop or slow data connection? That should be your concern. Becuase with 6.1 roms sometimes I see a cross on data connection even though actual data flow is normal. You can also try "FieldTest". And see what is reception strength. It can be downloaded from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=274269

[jardan]

I don't use rom 6.1. I use pandoranaked 3.60 and radio 1.48.10. I have no reception. I can't receive text messages nor calls. Is it possible the phone is bricked? How can I easily see for myself? Because I am rather confused from what I have read on the sites.

[jardan]

noone else another oppinion about my problem? any other advise? something to look for?