Mail to DRWHO

I maintain this archive. It is intended as a public service, there is no guarantee of the accuracy of information here. Neither drwho nor L0pht heavy industries take responsibility for the use of this information. It may be illegal for you to use this info. It is up to you to know this and follow laws in the jurisdiction in which you are a subject or citizen.

Often I get mail saying "How do I reprogram XXX phone model YYY?". If I knew, I would put it up on the web page. If the telephone you are trying to reprogram isn't listed in the archives, you can try the following:

• Try the info listed for another phone by the same manufacturer. It may be the same for your phone or give you hints on what to try.
• Cross-reference your phone to another model. Some phones are sold by different companies than they are manufactured by. Wherever possible, I have made links to real manufacturers. Hints to the real manufacturer can be had by looking at cellular accessories catalogs and noticing phones that use the same accessories, etc. Please mail me if you find any equivalencies not listed.
• Contact the manufacturer. Many companies will provide NAM programming info to anyone who asks, others are not as forthcoming. It may be possible to order the service manual which usually will list test-mode access codes, but this usually costs a bit, and they may insist that you be an authorized repair shop. I don't believe this would ever work for ESN changing information.
• Hack it. If you have enough time on your hands, many phones have a limited number of codes which can be tried. I was successful with this method on NovaTel phones, and found special hidden menus that even the service reps didn't know about.
• Ask around. On irc, there is channel #cellular. Be respectful and courteous. There is also the UseNet newsgroup alt.cellular-phone-tech.

This archive depends on contributions of information and programs. If you have something that I don't, and it works, and I won't get into trouble for violating copyright regulations, you can uuencode it or base64 encode it and mail it to me, or you can put it in the incoming directory of the anonymous FTP at l0pht.com. I don't have root at l0pht, so drop me a note if you plan to use FTP so I can have one of the admins fetch it for me. I'll give you credit, or you can remain anonymous, it is up to you. I'll make a link to your email address or web page in the credit, as long as it is not commercial (you can have a link to your commercial page from your non-commercial one, though). The reason for the non-commercial one is that I don't want to give preferential treatment. Please don't send me more cellular tutorials, I have a bunch that I haven't put up because it is better to have one accurate, complete tutorial than many incomplete and innacurate ones. You can send me interesting cellular-related stuff that's not necessarily technical, but I may not put it up.

Some people are having trouble downloading large files. Most of these people seem to be on sites on the far side of the internet from l0pht, and I believe that the server is timing out on these packets because of how long it takes for a packet and response to be transmitted. To fix this, either try an intermediate site to transfer the file (use lynx or something), or use l0pht's anonymous FTP to transfer the file. The path there is /pub/blackcrwl/cell.

Drop me a note if there are broken links or other problems. I try to keep up, but the archive is growing so large that it is easy to miss something. I also try to make the page work on a wide variety of browsers, but I use netscape 2. So let me know if something isn't compatible with your browser.

Yes, I am the Doctor Who that was in Legion of Doom.

I hope this will answer a lot of your questions. If not, Mail Me.

© 1994-1996 Copyright Sinister Networks. All rights reserved. May not be redistributed or modified without permission of Sinister Networks. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. Fnord.

Other names and marks used in here are the property of their respective owners, until and unless decided otherwise in a valid court of law. The absence of a service mark, trademark symbol or fnordmark in connection with the marks identifying products or services of other vendors does not indicate the absence of registration of those marks or devices. All marks identified herein are used or registered in the United States of America and may or may not be used and/or registered in other countries and planets.