Antenna's picking up signal from rear?

[joshb86]

Hello,

I recently installed these antenna's: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... l-antenna/

I'm using a w826t router with ATT (same as my cell phone service).

It seems that the tower I'm picking up is the one directly behind the antenna... Is this normal? From the backside of my house this position seems to be the best so far and it's pointing in the opposite direction.

You can see in the screenshot of opensignal that the tower (red circle) is behind where the antenna's are pointing (green arrow).

Should this be possible with directional antenna's?

[JimHelms]

This has been discussed on a previous occasion. See THIS topic for more.

[joshb86]

Thanks Jim. It's looking like I should have went with my gut and gotten onni antenna's. The normal antenna's that came with the router are doing better 2 floors down than these are on the roof. I'm guessing I'm catching multipathing due to non sufficient LOS.

[JimHelms]

Try tilting them up a few degrees.

[swwifty]

If you suspect the signal is coming from behind, why don't you just re-aim the antenna?

Sometimes the tower your modem is connecting to, isn't always the one you think it is coming from.

I had an incident like that this weekend with a customer of mine. They had clear LOS to two towers, thought they were connecting to one, turns out it was the other one. Putting it in a window of another part of the house doubled their internet speeds.

[joshb86]

I have re-aimed the antenna. I've spent around 4 hours making the slightest adjustments to find the best result and nothing seems reliable. I've never had more than 10mbps down and 4mbps up at my house prior, but I've gotten these antenna's positioned a couple times to where I'm getting 35 down and 2-3 up. The issue is nothing sustains. The next day I have no connection at all or 80% packet loss.

I guess I could move it to the front of the house and try, but it seems easier to just got the Omni directional route. I'm surrounded by trees and I can take the stock LTE antenna's and move the router on the roof getting better signal than I'm able to get with the directional set.

Below is one of the better outputs of at!gstatus? I get. Any suggestions I could maybe try before getting a set of Omni? I promised I wouldn't mount anything on the front of the house...

At!gstatus?
!GSTATUS:
Current Time: 30031 Temperature: 87
Reset Counter: 3 Mode: ONLINE
System mode: LTE PS state: Attached
LTE band: B2 LTE bw: 20 MHz
LTE Rx chan: 1100 LTE Tx chan: 19100
LTE CA state: INACTIVE LTE Scell band:B12
LTE Scell bw:10 MHz LTE Scell chan:5110
EMM state: Registered Normal Service
RRC state: RRC Connected
IMS reg state: No Srv

PCC RxM RSSI: -92 RSRP (dBm): -140
PCC RxD RSSI: -75 RSRP (dBm): -111
SCC RxM RSSI: -103 RSRP (dBm): -133
SCC RxD RSSI: -88 RSRP (dBm): -113
Tx Power: 23 TAC: 2280 (8832)
RSRQ (dB): -14.0 Cell ID: 027DBD09 (41794825)
SINR (dB): 8.2


OK

[joshb86]

Thought of something else... My runs are 50ft of LMR400 from the roof to my network closet. Is it possible the w826-T2 is having an issue powering over that distance?

I'm pretty sure I have a couple 18 inch N to SMA pigtails. I'll run an extension cord tomorrow evening and take the router to the roof and try with the shorter pigtails.

[swwifty]

Your signal strengths indicate something is wrong.

It appears like your main connection isn't even connected at all with that -140dbm RSRP values.

Are you positive your cables are probably connected to the main antenna port on the modem? it appears your secondary one is connected just fine.

With that 20mhz on B2 and 10mhz on B12 you should be able to get 40-60mbps fairly easily.

What kind of modem are you using again?

[joshb86]

MC7455. I'll check my connections this evening and report back. Thank you!

[joshb86]

Before I forget, here is the output with the standard antenna's connected. I'll check everything out as soon as so get home.

At!gstatus?
!GSTATUS:
Current Time: 41952 Temperature: 43
Reset Counter: 1 Mode: ONLINE
System mode: LTE PS state: Attached
LTE band: B2 LTE bw: 20 MHz
LTE Rx chan: 1100 LTE Tx chan: 19100
LTE CA state: INACTIVE LTE Scell band:B12
LTE Scell bw:10 MHz LTE Scell chan:5110
EMM state: Registered Normal Service
RRC state: RRC Connected
IMS reg state: No Srv

PCC RxM RSSI: -90 RSRP (dBm): -124
PCC RxD RSSI: -82 RSRP (dBm): -114
SCC RxM RSSI: -89 RSRP (dBm): -114
SCC RxD RSSI: -83 RSRP (dBm): -108
Tx Power: 0 TAC: 2280 (8832)
RSRQ (dB): -11.1 Cell ID: 027DBD09 (41794825)
SINR (dB): 4.8


OK

[joshb86]

@swwifty it looks like you have me going in the right direction...

The main was connected, but I went ahead and swapped the main and aux to see if the RSRP followed. Sure enough, it followed. Here are the stats connected back to my roof antenna feeds.

At!gstatus?
!GSTATUS:
Current Time: 3429 Temperature: 61
Reset Counter: 1 Mode: ONLINE
System mode: LTE PS state: Attached
LTE band: B12 LTE bw: 10 MHz
LTE Rx chan: 5110 LTE Tx chan: 23110
LTE CA state: INACTIVE LTE Scell band:B4
LTE Scell bw:10 MHz LTE Scell chan:2000
EMM state: Registered Normal Service
RRC state: RRC Connected
IMS reg state: No Srv

PCC RxM RSSI: -79 RSRP (dBm): -104
PCC RxD RSSI: -98 RSRP (dBm): -130
SCC RxM RSSI: -88 RSRP (dBm): -107
SCC RxD RSSI: -102 RSRP (dBm): -130
Tx Power: 22 TAC: 2280 (8832)
RSRQ (dB): -12.2 Cell ID: 027DBD10 (41794832)
SINR (dB): 5.2


OK

I instantly notice that I can now pretty much get some sort of signal no matter where I point the antenna.

So at this point it's looking like one of my feeds or the u.fl that was originally on the main correct? I'm about to verify the roof feeds by taking my router/modem and hooking them into the antenna's with my 18 inch N to sma.

I'll report back to you.

[swwifty]

Good catch.

If the problem followed it's most likely the cable.

Is it possible you have water damage in that one?

[joshb86]

Great news! So, I bypassed the longs runs from the roof to my network closet by plugging short leads directly into the antenna's as previously mentioned. The results were instantly better:

At!gstatus?
!GSTATUS:
Current Time: 1301 Temperature: 37
Reset Counter: 1 Mode: ONLINE
System mode: LTE PS state: Attached
LTE band: B4 LTE bw: 10 MHz
LTE Rx chan: 2000 LTE Tx chan: 20000
LTE CA state: INACTIVE LTE Scell band:B12
LTE Scell bw:10 MHz LTE Scell chan:5110
EMM state: Registered Normal Service
RRC state: RRC Connected
IMS reg state: No Srv

PCC RxM RSSI: -75 RSRP (dBm): -110
PCC RxD RSSI: -77 RSRP (dBm): -108
SCC RxM RSSI: -70 RSRP (dBm): -93
SCC RxD RSSI: -80 RSRP (dBm): -105
Tx Power: 0 TAC: 2280 (8832)
RSRQ (dB): -13.9 Cell ID: 027DBD17 (41794839)
SINR (dB): 0.6


OK


This was a clear indicator that one of my lmr400 feeds had an issue... It was pre-terminated cables that I had ordered a few weeks ago that looked good, but I went ahead an re-terminated the feed that was plugged into the original main. Once I did that, we are looking much better!

At!gstatus?
!GSTATUS:
Current Time: 3840 Temperature: 46
Reset Counter: 1 Mode: ONLINE
System mode: LTE PS state: Attached
LTE band: B12 LTE bw: 10 MHz
LTE Rx chan: 5110 LTE Tx chan: 23110
LTE CA state: INACTIVE LTE Scell band:B4
LTE Scell bw:10 MHz LTE Scell chan:2000
EMM state: Registered Normal Service
RRC state: RRC Connected
IMS reg state: No Srv

PCC RxM RSSI: -67 RSRP (dBm): -94
PCC RxD RSSI: -77 RSRP (dBm): -104
SCC RxM RSSI: -85 RSRP (dBm): -107
SCC RxD RSSI: -83 RSRP (dBm): -109
Tx Power: 13 TAC: 2280 (8832)
RSRQ (dB): -10.3 Cell ID: 027DBD10 (41794832)
SINR (dB): 5.6


OK


Thank you for taking the time to help me out. I really appreciate it... Looking at my current stats, is there anything you see that needs attention?

[swwifty]

Great to hear that! I don't see anything obviously wrong now.

What kind of speeds are you getting now?

[joshb86]

Great to hear that! I don't see anything obviously wrong now.

What kind of speeds are you getting now?

On average 15 up and down. I've seen a few spikes with the download in the 30's. Compared to where I was, it's night and day mainly because I was lucky to ever see 1mb upload (most the time 1-300k) and my latency / packet loss issues are gone. Prior I had steady packet loss and latency was always 100-1200ms. Now I'm staying below 60ms for the most part.

[swwifty]

On average 15 up and down. I've seen a few spikes with the download in the 30's. Compared to where I was, it's night and day mainly because I was lucky to ever see 1mb upload (most the time 1-300k) and my latency / packet loss issues are gone. Prior I had steady packet loss and latency was always 100-1200ms. Now I'm staying below 60ms for the most part.

awesome! might be worth trying to aim them a bit now and see if you can eek out any more performance.