Trying to locate my tower

[james1193]

Hello and Happy Easter.. I am preparing to purchase and install some directional antennas and trying to determine which direction my serving cell is in. Below is the info from the router - but when I look up the 96353 eNB on CellMapper, it centers me at a random location a bit south of me, but there is no actual tower that I can see. There are 8 or so towers closer to me in just about every direction, and none of them appear to be 96353. Any suggestions on how to figure out the location?

Code: Select all

MCC MNC :  311 480
RNC/eNB ID :  17861 (96353)
LAC/TAC :  6005 (24581)
Cell ID :  03 (3)
LTE Band :  B13 (Bandwidth 10 MHz)
Channel :  5230

[gscheb]

Hello
So in my opinion wouldn't worry about what tower you are connected to now. Once you get directional antennas you can point to the tower you want. This is one of the advantages of them.
Just did this last week for someone. When their at&t went out switched to TMobile. That same tower has both on it. But for what ever reason worked terrible. Turned antennas to another tower about same distance away with same bands. For what ever reason their speeds are now five times faster.

[LoveMeSomeCALTE]

I personally would have a hard time ordering an 4G LTE Antenna for hundreds of dollars hoping it would work without trying to lock down the position of the tower and figuring out if it would be worth it.

What if it ended up that it would not because the tower is just in a poor position? No antenna could beat physics and interference right?

[Didneywhorl]

I personally would have a hard time ordering an 4G LTE Antenna for hundreds of dollars hoping it would work without trying to lock down the position of the tower and figuring out if it would be worth it.

What if it ended up that it would not because the tower is just in a poor position? No antenna could beat physics and interference right?

You've been busy
Trying to catch up on posts. But youve repeated a similar sentiment a few times. Ill respond here.

Trying to find your tower isnt real hard, but it takes time. There is a popular tool called CellMapper.net.
They have both a web site and a phone app. If you load it up on your phone and browser, register an account and start letting it collect data, it can start triangulating cell towers in your area and refine data that may already be there.

It can help you find towers and what bands are available on them. Its not super accurate all the time, but it is possible to get close enough, then go drive out and physically find the towers. Then if you want you can move the data points for those towers to the correct locations.

There are more tools out there, but this is a good resource and place to start.

[LoveMeSomeCALTE]

You've been busy :)

Yes, there's a HUGE amount of high quality information here.

I apologize for my 100 followups, I am really doing my best to take everything in and promise my followups will taper down over time as I understand things better.

Trying to find your tower isnt real hard, but it takes time. There is a popular tool called CellMapper.net.
They have both a web site and a phone app. If you load it up on your phone and browser, register an account and start letting it collect data, it can start triangulating cell towers in your area and refine data that may already be there.

It can help you find towers and what bands are available on them. Its not super accurate all the time, but it is possible to get close enough, then go drive out and physically find the towers. Then if you want you can move the data points for those towers to the correct locations.

There are more tools out there, but this is a good resource and place to start.

CellMapper is disappointing me. I think the time is now for me to post my findings so far so you can see what I have been up to.

[Didneywhorl]

Your good Ask away. This place gets better and better as more people search the forum for answers and ask questions when they cant find them. Great stuff.