M1 Nighthawk experiment

[ylrkdr]

Before I found this site, I bought an M1. Bought the TS9 external panel antenna from Amazon, but didn't do much good. I gave up, bought a MOFI, and a couple of Iskra antennas with SMA connectors.

As you all know, the Sierra 7455 in the MOFI is cat 6, with no band 66 access, vs. the cat 16 w/band 66 support in the M1. I ordered the TS9 to SMA female adapters from The Wireless Haven, and I'm going to run the M1 through an old Netgear router I have to see if speeds go up a tic. For $7.95, it's a cheap experiment.

[ylrkdr]

I guess the purpose behind the experiment is that if I get get the M1 to work well, I'll sell the MOFI. The M1 had started to lose connection and reboot, but it may have been the AT&T transparent proxy issue, not sure.

Actually, a better deal would be to sell them both, and get a whole new rig.....

[Dr-BroadBand]

I did the exact same thing
The M1 looks awesome on paper but it lacked B71, my only hope for a signal at the house.

I was going to sell it, but I use it when I travel. Some hotels still have an ethernet cable in the room.
My last trip with my family I was able to put the M1 into bridge mode and tap into the hotel WiFi.

I got an Apple TV, 3 laptops, and 4 phones connected to the cloud in record time!!

The MoFi was mounted in the minivan, and my son did zoom school at 80mph.

For your setup it’s good to list your goals, options, and budget. The group here can get you connected to the cloud.

Knowledge comes from making mistakes and learning from them.
And sharing your knowledge with others to gain even more knowledge from others,

[ylrkdr]

I've never seen that setup before! Do you have a 12V adapter for the MOFI, are you using an inverter?

[Dr-BroadBand]

Have an 12V adaptor for the MoFi.
Also have a power inverter that is used to power all the other toys

See
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZY ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/ ... er/2846-20

[ylrkdr]

The parts from The Wireless Haven are now farther away than when I first ordered them! It sat at the PO in Lebanon, TN(150 miles away) for 3 days before making it to Nashville. A day later, it was in Evansville, IN. I figured my parts would get here today, but nope, they are now in Paducah(160 miles away!).

I may get them before Christmas...(Or Not!!)

[Didneywhorl]

The parts from The Wireless Haven are now farther away than when I first ordered them! It sat at the PO in Lebanon, TN(150 miles away) for 3 days before making it to Nashville. A day later, it was in Evansville, IN. I figured my parts would get here today, but nope, they are now in Paducah(160 miles away!).

I may get them before Christmas...(Or Not!!)

The post office is getting HAMMERED. I think everyone in that poor place is tired of life right about now. I've not yet seen anything I've sent get lost, but it is taking FOREVER!

[ylrkdr]

Oddly enough, I ordered some furnace filters from Amazon, and it went through that very same post office. I'm getting them tomorrow, only after three days. I guess if it has a smile on the box, it gets better service?

[Didneywhorl]

Amazon delivers their own stuff when the post office doesnt. They literally can go to the post office and get the packages and deliver them I believe. Its such an odd mix

[Dr-BroadBand]

It's always the LAST mile that's the killer

[ylrkdr]

USPS van stopped by here, and dropped off my filters today. Never saw the guy before. Also saw an Amazon van near here, too.

Meanwhile, the connectors are "In Transit, Arriving Late". I'm assuming the Paducah P.O. has them chucked off into a corner until they can get to them. Right now, I'm more amused by all this than anything; I'm glad I didn't actually need them to get internet!

[ylrkdr]

Parts arrived today; the connectors are high quality, they fit snug on the T9 ports of the M1. Don't know if it does CA yet, my main PC is on another floor from the M1. I'll try to install Putty on a backup laptop and hook up to it.

It did snag a different tower than usual(90 degrees off from where my antennas are pointing), and it wouldn't let go. Speed cratered, and I had to reboot to get it back to normal. Don't know if this is normal to the M1, or just a fluke.

[Dr-BroadBand]

Per the data sheet
Technology/Bands
• Max 1 Gbps download speeds, and 150 Mbps upload speeds
• LTE CAT 16, 4-band CA and 4x4 MIMO
• Up to 4X Carrier Aggregation
• LTE/4G Bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 29, 30, 66
• 3G Bands: 2, 4, 5
• IPV6 Support
Chipset
• QualcommMDM9x50 WiFi
• Full Dual-Band/Dual-Concurrent WiFi
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz, 12dBm output power
WiFi 802.11 a/n/ac 5GHz, 12dBm output power
(Maximum EIRP 17dBm)
• DataUsageMeter
• Manage your data and how much you use
Media
• Micro SD with Media Server/ NAS capabilities
Max Theoretical Downlink Speed
• 1 Gbps

See
https://www.netgear.com/media/MR1100_10 ... -72313.pdf

[ylrkdr]

It's been an interesting morning; currently, the M1 is getting data from a tower that's 170 degrees from where I'm pointing the antennas. There's a couple of small forested hills (50 feet high, about a quarter mile away)on the other side of where the tower is, but I wouldn't think they would bounce signal off of that!

The antennas are pointing at the tower where it was picking up signal last night. Ubiquiti's Link site claims I have LOS to this tower(4.7 miles away), and their B2 and B66 cells each has 10mhz bandwidth.

Also, cellmapper doesn't even showing this cell B14 existing(not really surprising). DL is 10 down(about half what I get from the 15mhz B2 tower 14 miles away), upload is an amazing(to me) 5.5(it's usually under 1).

I installed Putty on a laptop, and connected it via ethernet to the M1, but it won't connect through telnet. Probably operator error, I'll figure it out(although if someone wants to shoot me a tip, I'm all ears).

[Dr-BroadBand]

I have seen the same thing with cellmapper, was getting a signal that was 90deg off the tower.
Cellmapper is like the other things I find on the internet... trust but verify!!

I would bring the M1 to the tower for testing. To get your max signal/speed, then add the cabling and antenna mess to the setup.

[mtl26637]

It's been an interesting morning; currently, the M1 is getting data from a tower that's 170 degrees from where I'm pointing the antennas. There's a couple of small forested hills (50 feet high, about a quarter mile away)on the other side of where the tower is, but I wouldn't think they would bounce signal off of that!

The antennas are pointing at the tower where it was picking up signal last night. Ubiquiti's Link site claims I have LOS to this tower(4.7 miles away), and their B2 and B66 cells each has 10mhz bandwidth.

Also, cellmapper doesn't even showing this cell B14 existing(not really surprising). DL is 10 down(about half what I get from the 15mhz B2 tower 14 miles away), upload is an amazing(to me) 5.5(it's usually under 1).

Antenna direction doesn't play that big of a role when close to the source (tower). Not that 4.7 miles is 'close' but compared to the other tower at 14 miles, I'm not surprised its latching on to the closer one rather than which it is pointed at. The frequencies would play a pretty big part in that scenario too I suppose. Honestly, picturing how far 14 miles is, I'm pretty surprised it even connects to that one at all.

I've seen several comments about the inaccuracy of cellmapper but it can be quite accurate and useful depending on how many people have helped contribute to it's database of signals. It all depends on how populated the area is and how many people have used the app and have let it upload information. It locates towers by triangulation of received signals from users unless the tower has been located manually from a user utilizing information such as aerial mapping. If only a handful of users have contributed to its database and all of the users have only been on one specific side of the tower then its location will be pretty inaccurate. If you look at a tower in a well populated area that has had a large amount of people uploading their data from all directions and from different providers then it will be almost spot on with its location and also the towers range of frequencies and bands that it supplies to its users. If all else fails you can download the app to your phone and do some wardriving around each tower from varying distances and it should interpolate all of the bands/frequencies and its location over a couple days time. At least thats my take on it from what ive seen.

[ylrkdr]

In this case, I know where all the towers are; I've seen them on Google maps, and have even visited them(without any equipment), so I trust the cellmapper data here.

Pointed the antennas toward the 4.7 mile tower(about 70°, ENE), and was awarded with a very crappy B12 from that tower(<1 DL). Moved the antennas back to its' regular position (355°, NNW), and I've had a mix of good(B2 from the 14 mile tower, 20-25 DL), okay(B66 from the 4.7 mile tower, around 10), and awful(keep getting the aforementioned B12 at <1).

Seems to me that the 7455 in the MOFI is less finicky about switching bands than the M1. I'm going to keep playing with it for a couple more days.

[ylrkdr]

The M1 has settled down in the past week, running B2 95% of the time from the 14 mile tower in the low 20s. It does have the occasional hiccup, but the MOFI did the same, so I blame these on the network.

I have one more experiment with the M1; attaching it to a drone, as explained here. I'll attach the M1 MIMO antenna to the bottom of the M1, then attach them both to the drone, if/when I get the drone. I have one ordered, but UPS lost it.

[Orlimar1]

Right now I'm using my Mofi. I purchased a cheap TechToo antenna and cables/adapters. Using it I'm able to latch on to Band 2 with 15 mhz. Plus a little bit of band 12. Going this route I can get my max speed up to 60-64 down. I tried using the M1 with the same antenna and it can't match the speeds of the Mofi. But to be honest I didn't add in the Band 2/12 locking scenario the last time I tinkered with the m1. But I'm pretty satisfied with the speeds via the Mofi for now. Plus it is just super reliable now that the ATT rebooting issues seem to have stopped.

[websiteperson]

The M1 had started to lose connection and reboot, but it may have been the AT&T transparent proxy issue, not sure.

So I'm trying to get my M1 running smoothly before I move it to a more permanent location (and connected to a router). Today, I noticed the wifi on it was dropping. I looked at the M1, and it was rebooting.

I just got a PoE injector yesterday to use with a PoE splitter. This is where my issue started. After some looking around in the settings, I changed a couple things, but I don't think it helped.

Not sure if it's the M1/ethernet port, or one of my PoE devices.

PoE splitter

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087F4QCTR/re ... UTF8&psc=1

PoE Injector

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXX79ZI/re ... UTF8&psc=1

It seems to work fine with the battery, and/or with a normal power adapter, so I was thinking it may be not be getting sufficient power.

Are you still running the M1? If so, are you still getting disconnects/reboots, and what does your setup look like?

[gscheb]

I believe the nighthawk will not perform wifi properly with out the battery in. No wifi with no battery no issue though. Used to use one with no battery hooked to different router with the nighthawk wifi off.

[Dr-BroadBand]

Will test when I get home.

Can fix many modem problems with better power

See
Anker 30W PIQ 3.0 & GaN Wall Charger, PowerPort Atom III

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PT7XMP9/re ... CWBWCHEQ3W

[websiteperson]

I believe the nighthawk will not perform wifi properly with out the battery in. No wifi with no battery no issue though. Used to use one with no battery hooked to different router with the nighthawk wifi off.

Thanks! I'll have to try that. I recently changed wifi range to long, too, because kids were complaining about it, so that probably didn't help

I'm regretting buying it now, after seeing you can lock a specific tower with a quectel modem, which is what I'm trying to force it to do with antennas. I'm also losing band 13 with it.

Driving my wife crazy with all this stuff.. haha

[gscheb]

If you get antenna that is like the 1700 MHz and higher helps to block out those lower bands. Actually looking at getting rid of some. Had them for Verizon and at&t for higher bands worked great. But now have TMobile home internet and need those lower bands.