New to the forum, seeking advice on best antenna/array for mountain cove

[EastoutWest]

Hi everyone, seems like a great forum, thanks for having me!

I'm looking for advice on what would be an optimal antenna setup for my unique situation:

My house is in the narrowest part of a cove that opens to the west, toward my nearest usable tower (~15 miles away, owned by US Cellular). There is no direct line of sight to the mountain that the tower is on. I get no usable signal on my Google Fi phone and usually no service at all. 4 years ago I got a Weboost Home4g with an upgraded yagi antenna. Putting this on a pole above my roof resulted in a somewhat usable 4g connection but it was unreliable, never exceeded 5mbps down, and upload was pretty terrible (~300kbps max). I also had to be within 6' of the indoor antenna so that sucked. I spent many hours pointing this antenna and determined the best orientation for signal strength and bandwidth was actually pointing at the mountain at the back of my cove (opposite direction of the tower). I tried putting the pole on both sides of my house. So my assumption is that the signal is bouncing off my mountain back down to my house. I can get awesome signal and bandwidth 2/3 of the way up the mountain (it is on my property).

I've had Hughesnet then Viasat but when Covid hit I had had enough. I bought a D-Link DWR-961 4g modem/router to use with US Cellular's fixed wireless service. Fortunately, It worked well enough by sticking the modem in front of the booster's indoor antenna to dump Viasat. I have since removed the booster from the equation and have achieved my best signal/bandwidth yet (max has been: -114 db, 50-70ms ping, 18 mbps down, 1 mbps up). I'm using the yagi antenna in the modem's primary lte port (pointed toward my mountain) and the wilson flat panel outdoor antenna in the secondary lte port (pointed toward the tower).

I realize there are some mismatches going on here, especially with the resistance of the RG58 cable I'm using for the antennas.

1. So clearly I should upgrade my antenna cables to LMR200 or LMR400 (~20' between antennas and modem)?

2. Do you all think a single MIMO omni-directional antenna would be the best solution for this situation? I will say that when I was using the booster, my phone would connect to various towers, not just the one that has the fewest obstructions (mountain ridges) between me and it. I can't figure out how to determine for sure which tower my modem is connecting to (the DWR-961 doesn't seem to have much "power user" functionality). Being that the signal is apparently bouncing off my mountain, I don't know if directional is the right choice but it is working better than geostationary satellite internet to be sure.

3. I've dreamed of putting a solar/battery-powered modem/router up the mountain and beaming wifi 1/2 mile and 400' elevation down to my house using my old satellite dishes. But the level of intricacy and investment have kept me from pursuing that option. Also, thick forest means no clear line of site from up the mountain to my house. Would it be possible to run 1/2 mile+ of ethernet cable to do power AND data over the same ethernet cable? I am really not interested in burying a cable through the forest but I think that would be required as deer have punctured poly pipe lying on the forest floor...

4. Would any of this really be worth it considering Starlink is perhaps a few months out for my latitude and my power coop will be connecting homes to fiber in my valley over "the next 1-2 years?" They have not yet run the main branch of fiber in my valley though.

If you are still here, thanks for your patience with this long first post!

[Didneywhorl]

Welcome to the Wireless Joint forum!


1: Yes, use LMR200 for 20' max length, LMR400 above that.

2:...You could start off with a set of omnidirectional antennas, though if you do have multiple towers with the same cellular bands on them you may get crosstalk noise.
These are pretty good ones:
2x2 MIMO made for POE setups but can be converted to use antenna cables with a pair of antenna pigtails
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... connector/

Standard Omnidirectional: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... type-male/
This is a terminal version, but an adapter can be added to hook directly to a cable.

But I've found if you can get a directional to work, the flat panels are best if no line of sight is had. Here is a great 2x2 MIMO flat panel directional:https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/wifi-a ... o-antenna/

IF you can get any kind of clear line of sight, the Ubiuiti Nano Beams are cheap and work amazingly well over many miles if needed. Low power if I recall as well. If you can run power up to the place, instead of battery, then you can definitely power a unit there. IF you wanted to you could run a series of repeaters, but LAN cabling wont really do too well over 300' or so. The Cat6A and Cat7 can do better than 300' I think, but not much more than 500' I would guess.

4. Up to you.

[EastoutWest]

@Didneywhorl, Thank you for your suggestions. I have attached a drawing for clarification:



I believe I'm getting that you think the MIMO flat panel would probably work best since my signal does seem to be generally directional (towards my mountain) and IF the modem is connecting to multiple towers an omni setup may get noise, degrading bandwidth?

I suppose the advantage to the first link you suggested is that you are eliminating any signal loss through antenna cables? I'm not sure my modem can do PoE. However, I just found out that US Cellular offers the DWP-902 which is a PoE outdoor 4g modem with integrated directional flat-panel antenna, apparently capable of 9dbi gain (but no indication if it is MIMO... I would think it would be).

Thanks also for the ethernet cable limitation info; it's helpful. I won't be going that route (or solar/battery) as it would seemingly require either clearing a whole bunch of trees or multiple relays.

[R1250GSA]

A few ideas
——————-

STARLINK.com is the new satellite service under beta test.
Or
You may want to explore fiber optics to run Ethernet up the mountain.
Cheaper multi mode fiber will go up to 400m, or go single mode fiber for longer runs.
Solar power and batteries could power a simple LTE router up top.

[EastoutWest]

@R1250GSA thanks for the thoughts. Yeah, I'm following Starlink closely and long ago submitted my address for beta testing. Looks like they may reach my latitude soon. My power coop is also running fiber through my valley in the next 1-2 years (already funded). They cover the home connection cost up to $2500 and 1gbps up/down service is $75/mo! So while the remote 4g receiver is compelling and would be a fun project, the time/$ investment is not something I'm too interested in anymore. I do wish I would have done it 4 years ago though! Last night I achieved a steady 20mbps download, which is quite adequate for what I'm used to.

By your handle, I would have to guess you ride a large BMW adventure bike... nice. I ride an F650GS