Looking to improve signal

[gaddman]

I'm using a NEQ6GO with an EM12, stock antennas. The closest verizon tower is 1.7 miles away. Pretty close. But I have a hill and trees directly behind my house in line with the tower. I don't think I can get line of sight even with a pole, but I should be able to get better, right? The screenshot is with the router in a bottom floor window on the back of the house...same side as tower. It seems to always use B66 or aggregated B66 with B66. My Verizon MIFI hotspot (Not Mofi as previously stated) seems to prefer B4. The hotspot is generally faster than the router. If I move the router upstairs, it locks on the B13 and the speeds go way down.

First question is what do you think about an antenna?
From what I've researched, maybe a wide-band MIMO panel mounted on the roof would be better than Yagis/Log Periodical because of the trees? I'm thinking the big daddy MIMO Grid antenna would be overkill since the tower is close?

Second question is should I look at band locking, omitting, etc or continue to let the router decide. I'm afraid it's going to start locking on to B13 if I get better signal...like it does when I move it upstairs. If so, I would need help with the commands to do that.

Here's my current numbers. Not bad for rabbit ears I would say. This is actually a pretty good speed...it's usually around 7-8Mbps down.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Signal.png

speedtest.png

[gscheb]

Hello,

Would use this or something like it to see if you can get a path shot at it.
link.ui.com
If you can't get a direct shot to it is there anther tower to point to/

[gaddman]

Cool link. Thanks. I was trying to do it the hard way with google maps and math! Does it look like I set it up and interpreted it correctly? I really wasn't looking at the device type stuff...just the elevations. I put in the coordinates of my house and the tower. I set my side at 25ft installation height...about my roof. And that may be a little high. I set the tower side to 264ft...which is the height of the antenna. Looks like I could get line of sight...except for the trees. The hill behind my house shows 33.9ft LOS height. The forest of trees on that hill would be taller than that. What do you think?

elevation1.png

[gscheb]

Yes think you did it right. Just use coordinates and heights. So according to this you should be able to use exterior antennas.
Are you sure that you are not being prioritized? Do you have another tower available?

[gaddman]

I don't think I am being prioritized. Just got the plan and sim...postpaid tablet. Used 23Gb data so for...showing as plan data, not hotspot. Other antennas are not looking as good so far. Much more obstructed, but I'm still looking.

[gscheb]

You can still de-prioritized or data managed on plan data. Don't mean a hard throttle but data managed. Verizon is famous for it. They all do it but Verizon does it more in my experience where I live. Try running these speed test is the off hours and see what you get.
Can use this link to run it while you are asleep or what ever to get an idea of what your speeds are.
https://testmy.net/auto

[Adm1jtg]

Cool link. Thanks. I was trying to do it the hard way with google maps and math! Does it look like I set it up and interpreted it correctly? I really wasn't looking at the device type stuff...just the elevations. I put in the coordinates of my house and the tower. I set my side at 25ft installation height...about my roof. And that may be a little high. I set the tower side to 264ft...which is the height of the antenna. Looks like I could get line of sight...except for the trees. The hill behind my house shows 33.9ft LOS height. The forest of trees on that hill would be taller than that. What do you think?


elevation1.png

Very cool link but be aware of a few things:
First this does not shaw all towers. I know exactly the address of my tower and according to that site no tower resides there.
Second according to that sight to get LOS i would need to mount my antenna 105 feet up. Of course thats not reasonable and mine is only mounted about 25 feet up, it also shows going through a mountain at current height, and yet I get reasonable signal. I also have trees 30 feet high and fairly dense.

So how did I get my setup aimed and all if its not on most maps? I had some local guys come out with an lte meter and basically do a "site survey". I had found the tower on another site as well as driving past it all the time. When using the lte meter it helped them to dial in to the strongest signal from that tower.

Also the little yagis I use are way more forgiving then almost any other antenna. Mine have a half beam width of 100 - 109 degrees on the lower bands and 70-85 on the higher ones. As far as the db ratings on antennas you also need to carefully look at those. Again using mine as an example:
700-800 MHz: 7.3 dB;
824-894 MHz: 8.1 dB;
880-960 MHz: 7.4 dB;
1710-1880 MHz: 9.2 dB;
1850-1990 MHz: 10.6 dB;
2110-2170 MHz: 10.4 dB

The 15dbi antennas here everyone is so fond of have the following
@ 900 Mhz its only 9.7db gain with a half beam if I am reading it right of 62 degrees
@1800 its only 11.4db gain with a half beam again if I am reading it right of 44.6 degrees
The 15db listed on the antenna is only at 2700 which is not an lte frequency

All I am saying is do your research, the wedge antennas no one likes are not as powerful for sure but in my case like using band 2 which is the 1800 range its 10.6 db vs 11.4 db The 15db is much much less forgiving with aiming and wont catch nearly as much signal if its bouncing around like mine does.

Just something to think about

[Adm1jtg]

Had another thought as well when I was answering in another thread. Instead of upping the antenna first thing to try would be to test all available bands. Sometimes the strongest signal is not the best performing one. You are on 66 now which is a good choice to start with but I would also lock bands to 2,5 and 13 and compare both strength of signal and quality as well as running speedtests on each (use multiple speedtest servers)

[gaddman]

Just an update. First, I corrected my opening post. I was comparing speeds with my VZW MIFI hotspot...not Mofi.

As far as antennas go, I do have a Cross-Polarized 600-2700 MHz MIMO Outdoor Panel Antenna on order. It touts up to 11 dBi gain between 1710 and 2700 MHz, and 10 dBi gain between 600 MHz and 900 MHz. Supposedly it will pick up broken signals due to trees and stuff better then the other types. But I have noted the success of the yagi's mentioned above.

I'm still analyzing towers. So far, the one in my previous post is the only one I'm concerned with. It seems to be the only one it wants to connect to no matter where I am located in the house. The other towers that I know of are further away and less line of sight. I assume that's where the external antenna will come into play if I want to point to a certain tower.

In the meantime, I have started logging speedtest sessions (using the website mentioned above). I have 24 hours or so of speedtest data logged, but I haven't analyzed it much. At a glance, it ranges from 2 mbps to 23 mbps download speeds. With the slowest numbers occurring in the the evening. Is that what de-prioritization or tower congestion looks like?

As far as band changes go, I was kind of leery of making any changes since it took a while to get any kind of connection to start with...but what the heck. I found a post with AT commands for band settings here: https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=15 ... ctel#p5763. With trial and error, I learned that I can change a band with an AT command, and I will see it change in the Modem/Network Status screen after a couple of minutes. But a speedtest will not run just yet. I have to do a reboot from the System/Reboot command for it to take effect. And as an side note, for some reason, any time I do a power cycle (unplug it), It will not connect to the network. I have to blank out the APN...power cycle again, then set the APN, and power cycle again.

Anyway, I guess the modem started off in All Bands mode. It preferred band 66 in my basement, or band 13 if I moved it upstairs...same tower. Band 13 was very slow, so I have kept it downstairs and it has stayed on Band 66 (sometimes aggregated with Band 66) for all of the speedtest logging, etc. mentioned above. And my VZW hotspot which seems to always use band 4 always seems to be faster. Well now I have started testing individual bands (2,4,5,13, and 66) with the router. So far, band 4 on the router seems to get the best download speeds...with band 66 running a close second. Bands 2, 5, and 13 were bad. I captured screenshots of the signal information as well for each band as well.

So that's where I am now. I have the router in band 4 mode for now. I will log another 24 hours of speedtest results to see what that looks like compared to the band 66 results and the Mifi hotspot..

Thanks for reading my wordy post.

[gaddman]

Here's a comparison. It's 9pm on 10/16. The NEXQ6GO (using unlimited plan data, not hotspot data) and the VZW hotspot are both using band 4. But the hotspot is getting much better download speeds. I do see that the speedtest connected to different servers. Why doesn't the router do as well? Is it a signal strength issue? Is it a de-prioritization issue? Here's the screenshots:

20201016_0903pm.png

[Adm1jtg]

You need to test on the same server. Speedtest.net allows you to change servers. I have seen on speedtest for example running my tests on the verizon server i get under 1 down most times but running the same test same setup on nationalnet will go anywhere from 20-30 down with an occasional 50 down Always test on the same server.

But to answer your original question... why does the hotspot have better speeds then the router?

I dont think you said what model hotspot your using, but a somewhat new verizon mifi has 4 internal antennas at least 3x carrier aggregation and likely a higher CAT rating then your modem. As stated in other threads without external antennas on the router a hotspot/mifi device or even a relatively new phone will almost always win.

With external antennas it is very possible to make 2 external antennas in mimo config better then the 4 small internal antennas of the mifi or phone.. External antennas also allow you to pinpoint a specific server where as the mifi and phones just grab signal from everywhere. Lastly most mifi and phones cannot band lock. Quite often they pick the strongest signal but that doesnt mean the best signal, so you have more control with a dedicated router.

You may want to look through this tread as well, its a good read

https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1940

[gaddman]

The hotspot is a Novatel 7730L. Looks like it's CAT 9, 3x carrier aggregation. The EM12 in my router is CAT 12, 3x carrier aggregation. Should be pretty comparable, right?

Right now I've got the router outside on a deck, about 12 ft higher than the hotspot which is still inside. Router runs slower than the hotspot...but much better than in the evenings. Here's a comparison.

HotspotInsideBand4.png

RouterOutsideBand4.png

I wonder if it has to do with the Plan. The hotspot is supposed to be fast data until the cap, then throttled. The router is an unlimited tablet plan, and it is using plan data, not hotspot data. I wonder if it's getting deprioritized where as the hotspot is not? FYI, I'm using TTL 64. I've been reluctant to mess with that since I know it's using plan data at that setting.

[Adm1jtg]

Possible but if I recall the mifi 7730 has a 4x4 setup, meaning it has 4 antennas, most router setups only have 2 antennas. That could also be the reason, depending on what antennas your using ion the router, I didnt read back to check

[gaddman]

Using the stock antennas on the router for now. The external one should be here tomorrow. I drove around and laid eyes on a couple more towers. So I will have a few options to point the new antenna to.

[gaddman]

Just a follow-up. Panel antenna has helped a lot! Still see some congestion in the evenings, but mostly usable. Great speeds compared to what I'm used to most of the time. -7 RSRQ is the best I can get in the current antenna location. I can go another 10ft or so higher, but I'm going to run it where it is for now. I haven't tried other towers yet.

The only thing I've noticed is that I had a few instances where the modem seems to disconnect. I could still see a signal, but it was not connected to the ttyusb or wwan0 thingy-ma-bob , so no internet even though I could connect to the router via wifi. That never happens unless I have the antenna connected. I don't know if that was a signal interference thing or not. I have tried all bands, bands 4 & 66. It always prefers 66 no matter what. I now have it on B4 only, and that has been stable so far.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has helped. I still have a lot to learn and will continue to tinker until I'm satisfied with reasonable speed and stability. Cancelled Viasat service yesterday!

With_PanelAntenna.png

[Adm1jtg]

Ok now that you know you using the correct band let me ask you this.... are you using the built in wifi on the NEQ6GO? As you may have read the built in wifi can be very substandard. I didnt believe it either when I read about it as I could stream 3 movies at once so how could that be bad. Well once I started to try and download big files I had issues. I would get 800k at best and my test file said it would take about 7-8 hours. It took me weeks of testing and trying things but I finally bought a cheap archer c8 for like $30. I plugged an ethernet cable from the lan port on the original router into the wan port on the c8. I disabled all the wifi on the original router, making into esentially a modem and let the c8 do all the wifi and dhcp. Just like the old days where the cable company would provide a modem and you would provide your own wireless router.

Well my download on that same test file (about 1.7gb) went from 7-8 hours to 10-12 minutes.

You dont need a c8 any generic home router will do but I think it might help your performance and signal greatly, it did mine.

[gaddman]

Thanks, that's a great idea that I want to try. I have a couple of routers...a Linksys WRT and an Engenius access point/bridge. I was able to pick up a different tower about 6 miles away (closer one is 1.7 miles). Bands 2, 13, or 66 are not very good even though the signals are better. I still get congestion in the evenings, but so far it's been very usable. I'm using bands 4 and 5 (AT+QCFG="band",0,18,1)

I am using 50' of LMR400 for the antenna runs...which is more than I need. Once I find the optimal antenna location (using an old Dish pole on the eave now), I may try to shorten that by a lot...especially if I use the router just for the modem. I can put it much closer to the antenna and run ethernet to the wifi router. Oh, and I have a plastic garbage bag covering my antenna for now to keep moisture out of the connections. Looks great

Anyway...enjoying better internet, and dig the Live Network Status screen. Appreciate the help and all the knowledge on this site!

B4Tower2_1.png

LiveStatus_1.png

[gaddman]

Just a post to give an update as to where I am on this journey. I've learned that if I combine bands (like 4 and 5), and get carrier aggregation, the thing disconnects more often. I don't know if it's a heat thing or voltage thing with my setup or what. I've also learned that tower congestion has so much to do with your internet quality. I've been enjoying 30 Mbps download speeds and low ping times locked on to Band 5 exclusively. So much better than what I had on Viasat. But sometimes it goes way down, even when my signal stats are really good. I know that I can improve my signal with antennae placement...reducing my cable runs and such. But in the end, tower congestion will affect your experience.

I just wanted to post some stats that show that good signal numbers doesn't mean you will get good speeds. It's still so much better than what I had, and it's been fun learning about it. I look forward to leaning more! Thanks to the folks on this site!

Screen shot 1: Good signal, poor speeds

Band5_12-14-2020.png

Screenshot 2: Good signal, good speeds

Band5_12-11-2020.png

[viasatalternative]

Gaddman,

I have a similar situation to you and I just stumbled upon your thread because I googled "Cross-Polarized 600-2700 MHz MIMO Outdoor Panel Antenna". I live in a rural Iowa town where Viasat/Hughes is only option. So, I've spent hours researching alternatives and looked at weBoost products as well as talking to reps from Wilson Pro. Tried the new Tmobile home internet gateway and that failed due to only 1 bar of signal.

I am currently on Verizon and my area uses band 13....and as you wrote about....evenings the congestion is HORRIBLE. I have a Verizon Jetpack 8800L with 15GB limit and it works pretty good until it reaches the 15 and then it slows to an unusable speed. I called Verizon and was sold on a new tablet plan. Rep said tablets get higher "priority" than the MiFi and I wouldn't experience as much of a slow down after 15GB. That was a total fail. I could not get any streaming show to play without buffering right out of the box. Called tech support and we changed a few things and it worked slightly better but still no where near what I was promised. The thing that makes me upset is that I am willing to pay more money for the high speed data....they just do not offer anything more than 30GB. When you live in a rural area and everything you watch is streamed, 30GB gets eaten up within a few days. Viasat only allows 100GB and we use that up within about 10 days and then the rest of the month is blurry, pixelated, and constant buffering TV watching.

I was wondering what your current set up is (equipment wise) and how well you like the Cross-Polarized 600-2700 MHz MIMO Outdoor Panel Antenna still at this point? I wanted to use that antenna to pull in more carriers signal and then get a hotspot data plan with the carrier who has the most to offer. Do you find that your tablet plan with Verizon is faster with this MIMO antenna? Are you using a cellular router with it? Does it work well with your Jetpack (btw, I have no idea how to check stats on the Jetpack...I don't know which bands it's using because nothing in the menu shows this). I look forward to hearing your input

[gaddman]

I've only tried Verizon. I use the antenna with a NEXQ6GO router, Quectel EM12-G modem, the modem adapter and pigtails, and upgraded power supply...all from The Wireless Haven except the antenna, tablet plan sim card. The antenna did improve my signal/speed and gives me the ability to point to a specific tower. I have 3 or 4 to choose from and the closest one is not the best due to line of sight blockage. Although it still picks up this tower sometimes even pointed in a different direction. I think there is a way in the router to lock a tower but I have not explored that too much yet. I've not used the sim in the iPad very much. But I would say it would connect to B13 like the phones and have the same congestion issues you describe. But in the router you can omit bands and lock in to the one(s) you want. My router does not use hotspot data with the right settings.

I also have a hotspot (7730L) and upgraded to the plus plan which gives me 30GB before throttling. I can see band information by logging into the web interface, and looking in advanced settings. Can't change it though. I do not run the tablet plan sim in the hotspot. It would use hotspot data anyway and would cap at 15GB.

Hope I answered your questions.

[gscheb]

Hello,
You can't block a certain tower from your device. But you "kind of sorta can" if you are lucky about band selection. Using Visible there is a tower that is terribly slow. Has bands 13 & 66 on it. So what I did was set my band lock to 2 + 4 + 5. Since that tower doesn't have any of those bands essentially blocked out that tower and have adequate speeds now.
Basically went from have 2-3 down to having 20-50 down. Made that much of a difference to get off of that lousy tower.
Maybe there is a chance you can do it that way. Takes time, planning and trial and error. But sometimes it really pays off.

[BDF1234]

Gaddman,

I have a similar situation to you and I just stumbled upon your thread because I googled "Cross-Polarized 600-2700 MHz MIMO Outdoor Panel Antenna". I live in a rural Iowa town where Viasat/Hughes is only option. So, I've spent hours researching alternatives and looked at weBoost products as well as talking to reps from Wilson Pro. Tried the new Tmobile home internet gateway and that failed due to only 1 bar of signal.

I am currently on Verizon and my area uses band 13....and as you wrote about....evenings the congestion is HORRIBLE. I have a Verizon Jetpack 8800L with 15GB limit and it works pretty good until it reaches the 15 and then it slows to an unusable speed. I called Verizon and was sold on a new tablet plan. Rep said tablets get higher "priority" than the MiFi and I wouldn't experience as much of a slow down after 15GB. That was a total fail. I could not get any streaming show to play without buffering right out of the box. Called tech support and we changed a few things and it worked slightly better but still no where near what I was promised. The thing that makes me upset is that I am willing to pay more money for the high speed data....they just do not offer anything more than 30GB. When you live in a rural area and everything you watch is streamed, 30GB gets eaten up within a few days. Viasat only allows 100GB and we use that up within about 10 days and then the rest of the month is blurry, pixelated, and constant buffering TV watching.

I was wondering what your current set up is (equipment wise) and how well you like the Cross-Polarized 600-2700 MHz MIMO Outdoor Panel Antenna still at this point? I wanted to use that antenna to pull in more carriers signal and then get a hotspot data plan with the carrier who has the most to offer. Do you find that your tablet plan with Verizon is faster with this MIMO antenna? Are you using a cellular router with it? Does it work well with your Jetpack (btw, I have no idea how to check stats on the Jetpack...I don't know which bands it's using because nothing in the menu shows this). I look forward to hearing your input

Do you have AT&T towers in your area? I'm using a data plan from Infinite LTE that operates on AT&T's network. 400 GB per month for $90/mo, which is more than enough for me. They offer a higher plan not capped at 400GB, but I didn't need it, so I'm just paying for the $90 plan. To me, this is well worth it. I would get a little better speeds on Verizon, but like you, Verizon won't even sell me the data at any price.