US Cellular fringe roaming issue

I have a national calling plan with Us Cell and spend a couple days a week at a contract job in Kittery, Maine.

I've had three phones (Kyocera, Motorola, Blackberry) with the same account and they all behave the same:

The phones cling to a one- or no-bar signal off a home tower. When a call comes in, I can not hear the caller (once in a while I get a couple clipped words). Then the call is dropped and the phone has roamed to a five-bar tower (Verizon?). Then I can successfully call the party back.

Once the call is complete, the signal reverts back to the home tower, and I'm back to square one. To call out, I simply call my voice mail first, which forces a roam, then I hang up and call the number.

I've contacted customer service and get the *228 run-around.

Is there anything to be done in this situation?

Intuitively, I understand that they want to use their own towers, but I wish the tolerance for a home vs. roam connection were higher, so that the phone would not settle for less than two or three bars when a stronger roaming tower was available. Is this a "setting"? How does it work?

 

Good luck with that!

Overall, I am pleased with US Cell's service (and having Verizon as the primary roaming backup works well).