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External LTE Antenna Setup
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26-11-2016 2:58pm#1
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I do get very weak Three 4G (LTE) in my area on the 800MHz band.
I don't get LTE at all on my phone or dongle in the house, downstairs or in the loft.
On the Huawei B593s-22, I only get a weak signal with the antenna cables detached in the loft. It also shows how sensitive the Huawei's internal antennas are compared to a dongle which can't pick up the LTE at all inside:
From what I recall, the best signal I was able to obtain was -107dBm in front of an older skylight window. Radio signals do not pass through modern Low-E coated glass, such as most windows and replacement glass installed in the past 10 or so years.
The following is with the antennas attached, both mounted high up on the gable outside:
Just note that directional antennas don't work properly indoors. In fact I was disappointed when I first got my antenna as the signal was barely any better than what the router picked up in the loft. Once I took the antenna outside and mounted it temporarily on a camera tripod on top of a van (for height), I couldn't get over the signal difference.
On 3G, I get a full 5 bar signal with Meteor (-95dBm RSRP) and Vodafone (similar RSRP from what I recall), whereas I don't get 3G with either network on my phone in the house and only a weak 3G signal standing outside with my phone held up in the air.0 -
Thanks for all the information Sean.editorsean wrote: »I do get very weak Three 4G (LTE) in my area on the 800MHz band.
I don't get LTE at all on my phone or dongle in the house, downstairs or in the loft.
On the Huawei B593s-22, I only get a weak signal with the antenna cables detached in the loft. It also shows how sensitive the Huawei's internal antennas are compared to a dongle which can't pick up the LTE at all inside:
From what I recall, the best signal I was able to obtain was -107dBm in front of an older skylight window. Radio signals do not pass through modern Low-E coated glass, such as most windows and replacement glass installed in the past 10 or so years.
The following is with the antennas attached, both mounted high up on the gable outside:
Just note that directional antennas don't work properly indoors. In fact I was disappointed when I first got my antenna as the signal was barely any better than what the router picked up in the loft. Once I took the antenna outside and mounted it temporarily on a camera tripod on top of a van (for height), I couldn't get over the signal difference.
On 3G, I get a full 5 bar signal with Meteor (-95dBm RSRP) and Vodafone (similar RSRP from what I recall), whereas I don't get 3G with either network on my phone in the house and only a weak 3G signal standing outside with my phone held up in the air.
I got the B593 and have tried it with both Vodafone and Three.
Best signal i can get indoors is:
Vodafone: -108 RSRP / -9 RSRQ - Speedtest: 23mb off-peak, 16mb peak.
Three: -119 / -11 - Speedtest: 6mb
Taking the modem outside, best signal I can get with Vodafone is around -95 RSRP.
I'm going to go ahead and order the pair of directional antennas suggested above to see if I can get the Three signal up to a consistent 20mb. If that isn't possible I'll go with the Vodafone option.
Currently have a maximum 1.5mb on fixed line, so anything consistently over 10mb on 4G will be worth switching imo.
How sensitive are the directional antennae you use? Are we talking 1-2 degrees rotation making a significant difference in signal, similar to a satellite dish?0 -
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I am using the 10 metre cables that came with my antennas. So far I have not actually tried shorter cables. I currently have my router located about 5 metres in from the outer cable wall, so am making use of the full cable length.What length of cable do you have from the modem to the antennae?
I'm reading a lot about signal loss over the length of cable. Some antennae only come with 5m of cable, other with 10m.
Although the signal strength weakens over a longer cable, the signal to noise ratio (signal quality) will barely deteriorate over the 10 metre run with good quality cable. The antenna is more likely to pick up interference from external sources such as from other users on the network than what the cable picks up over the short cable run to the router.
With my current set up, the following is an off-peak speed test I did on Speedtest.net (router readings -101dB RSRP, -7dB RSRQ). Speedtest ignores dips accounting for less than 30% the test duration, so gives an idea of my link speed with minimal contention:
The following is another a little earlier today with TestMy. This test is much the same as timing a download a UK server with a stopwatch, except it automates the process.
The following is how they compare at the moment (peak time). I'm in a rural area, so the speed usually remains pretty good, although performing a lot better than usual this evening. Normally the speed drops below 10Mbps after 8pm here.
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That is actually with a prepay AYCE SIM. The two people I knew with Three MBB have since switched network, so I'm no longer able to do a direct comparison in a specific location. When I last tried earlier in the year outside Donegal town with a friend's Three MBB SIM, there was a substantial difference in the speed with the Three MBB performing 3 to 4 times quicker peak time. It was something like 10 to 20Mbps vs 2 to 5Mbps with my SIM tested in the same spot. As that was outside Donegal, there is a much higher contention than the mast serving my area.
This evening the speed is all over the place. For example, when I started a test download from Heanet, it was hovering about 500KB/s (4Mbps):
I was just about to cancel the download and the speed shot up (3.3MB/s = 26.4Mbps):
... and continued erratically going down and up over the next minute before I stopped the transfer. For comparison, the speed can remain pretty consistent almost like a VDSL connection early in the morning.
Hopefully all goes well with your antenna set up.0 -
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