Wireless Joint

I think pm's are disabled on purpose and I have not seen anyone post emails for direct contact either so I am guessing thats intentional as well.

Maybe one of the mods can chime in

dbshelton wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 8:46 pm Well I certainly wouldn't want to do something like that!
Is it possible to PM someone on the forum?

what do you need? I can help direct you.

Curious about speed tests. If I run a speed test, the download speed starts at a burst of 10 or maybe more and then immediately settles down to around 5. I may assume this indicates throttling?
Now, after a BIG change, the download speed starts very low and work up to about 6. Does this indicate low signal quality?
Or maybe indicates nothing?

Have you tried locking the different lte bands to see how each performs? When I was doing mine I had a spreadsheet that listed lte band, time of day, weather conditions if i thought they might apply, rscp, ecio, signal strength and such and filled that out of rall available bands in my area. I also unlocked all bands and at various times of day looked at which band i would default to. You ewill start to see patterns. Mine also seemed to like to jump to band 2 which as wlso awful here. So I excluded just band 2 and did the above again. Eventually I got a feel for which bands worked best for what I wanted to do, not just speed tests but streaming youtube and downloadcing actual files and video conferencing.

Speedtests might be an ok starting point but they are really only an indicator, just as values like signal strength and rscp are. My rscp and rssi are pretty bad at (-109 to -116) and (-83 to -89) but I am still able to stream 2-3 shows simultaniouly. Speedtests vary wildly. I have seen it only at 8 and as high as 40.

In your specific case I am not sure your being throttled as throttling would be it tends to stay at around 5meg no matter what you change. Also I am not sure if anyone has mantioned this but with CAA carrier aggregation you have to have your system under some load for it to kick in and a speedtest may not be enough.

Try this as a test if you can
Start streaming a movie on one device
stream a youtube or another movie or live video on a second (different) device
if your really only getting 5 meg or getting throttled this should cause clocking and stuttering
now look at your stats page in the modem. You should hopefully see a second entry for the lte band. It may pop in and out. Thats CAA. It may be a different band then the primary. Just take notes again as far as the patterns of what it uses.

You should also try speedtests when both streams are still running.

So far, I can't understand these band locking commands. It's way above my head. May take some more reading for me to understand.

What is going on when I get 6 Down and 10 Up ?

Higher upload than download usually means tower congestion. Sometimes it can be signal issues, but usually its tower congestion. The tower has more download traffic than it can handle, but the uplink side is almost always relatively clear.

If I remember when you were starting with all this wasnt it you that moved the router from one side of the house to the other and we suspect you ended up changing towers? If so and your having congestion issues on tower #1 I would try the router on tower #2. If your on external antennas now you could just re-aim the external antennas as a test

Also it may or may not be obvious but lte band can come into play again. One band may be very congested while a different band on the same tower might not be.

I will look into moving my antennas and probably higher. I have a couple of 50' Wilson-400 low loss cables that I could use for this. Using 30' Wilson cables now. I really need to get away from trying to get a signal through trees.

at least that is an option for you. in my case I live in the mountains with heavy trees all around and as i have said many times more cows then people. I am doing to to just avoid mountains here.

In your specific last case it seems congestion is your issue which you have no direct control over. All you can do is try changing bands or towers in hopes of finding a less conjested solution.

Yu can have the strongest signal in tge world and if its conjested it wont matter. Also if your using a vpn that also will ALWAYS slow things down, just the nature of a vpn and encryption

I am pretty well surrounded by trees here in east Texas but it is all flat ground. Being in a large metal building also presents it's own problems. I may be wasting my time and money. Will just have to see.

Please refresh my ailing memory what your using for antennas?

I have 2 Wilson directional antennas at 45 degrees and about 20' high. I have an antenna thread on here when I was first starting. 41 Down and 5 Up on B5 at 6 AM.

Out of curiosity, if a fella's modem developed some kind of identity crisis, should any of the other changes like those made in this thread be changed again or leave things alone?

dbshelton wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:04 pm Out of curiosity, if a fella's modem developed some kind of identity crisis, should any of the other changes like those made in this thread be changed again or leave things alone?

Shouldn't effect the other changes.

Not sure why but I migrated all of this stuff going on to my "Wilson Antenna" thread.

How do I disable the firewall on my NEXR5GO to test something?
Also, does anyone know how to turn off Cloudflare in Linux?

Basically just forward all traffic:

NETWORK > FIREWALL > PORT FORWARDS and Remove all PORT FORWARDS (if any), then ADD:


Name: ALL->DMZ
Protocol: choose TCP+UDP
External zone: wan
External Port: 0-9999
Internal zone: lan
Internal IP address: 192.168.x.x (Choose the Static IP assigned the Main Router WAN) or leave as any
Internal port: leave empty

Thanks for the info!

My good 25-35 Dn numbers lasted a while. Now back to 5 Dn.

dbshelton wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:31 am My good 25-35 Dn numbers lasted a while. Now back to 5 Dn.

Dang! The cat and mouse game continues.

I am about ready to try a different provider. Who should I try next?

not sure there is a good one. I am on verizon and while my streaming is good all the time wqhen I try and download files over 10 meg or so it typically drops the conection. Takes me multiple retries with a download manager to get the file downloaded. That or i use a vpn and the fie downloads just fine but of course then I lose a lot of bandwidth to the vpn.

I suspect it might be verizon doing some traffic shipping/monitoring type of thing Since streaming things like netflix is NEVER affected.

Also heard at&t plays games with carrier aggregation making it also a less effective choice.

Not to sure about tmobile but i see postings all the time about i think its calix having issues and thats sprint/tmobile I believe

I want to try AT&T 100GB for $55 just for a comparison. What all settings will I have to change?

I think something is wrong. I took my router to work and it was really good with Download speed in the 40s. Used it all day on my work computer without a hiccup. Now I can't even get anything. Took Sim out popped it into the phone. Works great. Went all over the connections, etc.

I would try a clean factory flash. The type where you go back to the chinese screens and flash a rom. Just for good measure I would use the latest wifix version or you could even try a rooter version though truth be told I have tried both in the past and couldnt see any difference at all

But a clean flash is definitely in order as a first step in testing

Everything back together and working great. I think maybe the sim could have been jarred out of place taking it to work and back. Why are most all sim holders cheesy as hell? I am sure there are better ways than what these chinese are using.

OK, I went ahead and relocated my router to a plastic cabinet on my covered patio to shorten the cable runs. Now I have 2 Cat 5 cables running through the wall to my bedroom computer and a WiFi access point down the hall that covers pretty much the rest of the house. I have an unmanaged Gigabyte Switch that I am not using. My question is should I use the 1 Cat 5 cable from my Router/modem through the wall to that switch and then use short cables to my computer, WiFi access point, and smart TV or should I run all Cat 5 cables from the router/modem on the patio through the wall to everything?

1 cable in should be fine in my opinion.

Still looking into installing my VPN Unlimited on this router. They always want to know the brand of the router and I have no idea. There are Wireguard and Open protocols but I don't have any idea how or what to do there.

Say you have a zbt wg3526, its called lot of other names as well but zbt is the main manufacturer in china that makes them

Thanks. Tried that but they told me I am on my own with manual configurations. Back to square 1.

wireguard usually has an autoconfigure feature is thats whats asking you for the router type?
so for wireguard I would try saying I had a mofi 4 or mofi 7 or just tell them you have a generic router running openwrt, if your on the 5-18-2020 version I believe its based on openwrt 18.6 and if your on the latest its I believe based on openwrt 22.x likely 22.2

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about so I probably need to give up for now and give it a rest.
Thanks for trying to help.

ok...
https://www.vpnunlimited.com/help/manua ... e-vpn-conf

In step one pick the manually create new device

Step 2
just pick a server you want to use. I would just pick one in the USA

Step 3
In this document I dont see a choice for wireguard let me know if when you are doing this there is a wireguard choice, but since I dont see one pick OpenVPN

Step 4
I dont have your service but in step 4 of this document there is a dropdown for device....
if there arent like a billion choices could you list them for me? If to many please list any choices that are like custom firmware, 3rd party firmware, other, generic router, unknown device, things like that

https://www.vpnunlimited.com/help/manua ... enwrt#id23

Basically I am following this main document and all the above steps are for setting up part 2 of it. We will address the other 3 parts after but this part is the part that is specific to your service.

Do I call the device WiFix or make up a name? Yes it does have a wireguard option.
Then it generates one of those boxes with all the funny lines and shapes.

If it lets you type in something that usually means you can pick anything

Thanks, I will try this when I have some time.
If I leave my computer on all the time, will the VPN do it's job all the time?

what we are going to do is have the router itself run the vpn so once this is all done the router will be running the vpn and thus all devices using the router for imnternet will be using the vpn.

You computer will no longer need to run the vpn software at least when its on the wifi of your router.

I guess I will try this again this evening.
After I generate a configuration file with Wireguard, what do I do next?
Also, if I have the VPN on this router, the access point I have will also be covered?

Well remember I am on a different firmware version then you as also dont use your vpn but it looks like once youget your config file created on the router you go to services and i would think there should be a wireguard option there. In the wireguard option there should be an inport ovpn option or some kind of import option to import your config file. There may be some kind of checkbox or something to say to enable the vpn but that should be it.

As far as your access point question... VPN is only needed for your internet requests. Since all your internet requests are going through the router (wg3526) VPN is not needed on any other device.

I did all that but it doesn't seem to be working. Verizon shows up in a speed test
Under Wireguard Instances:
What is UDP over TCP ? In says NO changed to YES
Start on boot YES
Started YES

Nothing under "WIREGUARD STATUS"

well as a test i would re-run the same confg file making process, but use openvpn, then apply the config file in the same way under services openvpn.

Wireguard is new to the router builds openvpn has been there for years. Its even on my build from 5-18-2020

Worth a try anyway, let me know if that seems to work

Would I have to remove the Wireguard files?

Fed up with all of this unreliable crap! Rebooted to remove VPN that wasn't working yesterday and it hasn't reconnected yet! Tried everything I know to do. Rebooted multiple times still no network. Get signal from that tower on phone. Obviously this bunch of crap is smarter than I am. I disconnected the Modem and now it doesn't even show up. Hughesnet doesn't look so bad now.

Any time I have issues after changing any configs of any kind, I reflash the firmware 3x with no settings or configs saved and start fresh. Rarely has that failed me. It also helps retrain me on configuring the base needs of the firmware to just get connected again.

I would do a factory reset the put back just the apn and ttl settings, nothng else. That should get you back to working, At that point we can try and tackle the vpn again if you choose.

Problem is I can't even connect to the router

Do a hard reset then, where you hold down the reset button and it brings you back to the chinese screens. I dont have a link to the exact process but its basically hold the reset button in with the unit off, still holding the reset button power on the unit and wait about 30 seconds still holing in the button. now when you console into the router you should see a chinese screen. If this isnt clear or you want even more details you will need to google factry reset wg3626 maybe with chones screens in the search. Not hard to find if you really need it. Also make sure you are accessing the router via an ethernet cable.

OK. I can finally reach the router. Where is the factory reset? I can't find it. This router is not easy to get to outside.

I did nothing. now I get this when I try to connect to the router

/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:618: bad argument #1 to 'pairs' (table expected, got nil)
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'pairs'
/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:618: in function 'createtree'
/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:266: in function 'dispatch'
/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:127: in function </usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:126>

Finally got in to the router. It doesn't find the modem.

How can i check and see if the modem is bad?

is there anything in the modem imei field?

What if anything is showing on the modem/status page?

Does it show in a connecting state?

Ok next step is like myself and @Didneywhorl suggested a FULL factory reset, Meaning it wil remove ALL settings and after you will need to add them back in manually. For testing after really the only values you will have to enter are the apn and the ttl settings. If your router is hard to get to like you said you might want to invest in a 100 foot ethernet cable and just run that cable into the house.

Unfortunately for the factory reset you will need to be with the box to press and hold the reset button like outlined in the below directions, but once that step is done the rest is done over an ethernet connection.

Follow this step by step

https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?p=6007#p6007

I will have to go back and look what a TTL setting is.
Curious, are all of these setups as unreliable as this one has been? Lots of money and time invested with zero return.

Finally got it to connect after going back and doing everything I could find.

Should I have a spare router and modem?

I guess I need to try out the VPN install again! Maybe tomorrow?

Can you be a little more specific on what you have had to do each time you "finally got it working again"
as I see the problems you have had for sure but without knowing what you did to resolve them makes it very difficult to know what your problems might be related to.

Again using my own setup as an example, been using a basic setup like this for about 3 years, specifically using the ep06-a and wg3526 since aug 2020. Only issues I ever had were "self inflicted". Once I decided to try and change the mode from mbim (that didnt go well at all) and then recently upgraded the firmware to latest wifix version and had some issues so had to roll it back. Only real differences between my setup and yours is:
1) I use verizon not visible
2) my router is indoor and a non POE model
3) I dont remember what cabling your using but mine is lmr400 30' run in a mimo config (honestly probably overkill)
4) I use an much older firmware then you likely do, mine is dated 5-18-2020 (wifix branded)

That said my setup is used as the primary source of internet for my entire house. We use in the neighborhood of 300-500gb a month and have no issues other then the above "self inflicted" ones.

Once you answer the above perhaps one of the experts in here can chime in on if your issues are typical and I am just lucky or if perhaps your issues are based on carrier or firmware version.

For me this hardware and actually the entire setup has been rock solid.

Cabling is a pair of 30' Wilson 400 cables from Wifix MIMO directional panel antenna.
Router is outside my bedroom on the covered patio. I built an aluminum shelf and Lexan box for protection wall mounted.
20' long Cat6 cable from router to computer. No POE yet to router.
Another 20' Cat6 cable from router to unmanaged switch that feeds an Archer router as an access point in another part of the house, TV, etc.
Sometimes I have trouble making a connection after restarting the router or after a power failure (Common out here) . It may connect in 3-4 minutes or sometimes it may take 20 restarts over a day or 2. Sometimes my router doesn't respond and have to try 2 or 3 times to go from one part to another or takes a few minutes to respond. A restart hardly ever works from the router command so I just wait a while then get back to the welcome screen and start from there.
For some reason, I could not get it to do a full factory reset (Its like the button on the router would not respond)
To get it working, I did a reset under the Router's Backup/Flash Firmware and re-entered APN, TTL to 64, and all the AT commands from this thread that y'all gave me to start it up when it was new.
After 20 minutes or so, it connected and has been running fine ever since.
Honestly I think part of the problem is the tower and signal but this is the best I can do. There are only 3 possible towers and I have never been able to connect to 2 at all.

Installed VPN Unlimited on my router with OpenVPN. Speed tests are eye opening!!!
These are averages on 10 tests taken over a few minutes early Sunday morning using the same server:
With VPN stopped: 106Ping 58Dn 4.5Up
With VPN: 133Ping 7.5Dn 2.0Up

Well this is why I dont use a vpn myself. At best i get about 25 down and at times as low as 8 down, if I used a vpn I could very easily make my internet unusable,

As far as your connection issues I really cant say. I dont have such issues and I only have one viable server to connect to thats well over 6 miles away. My system reboot works every time and it always takes me about 3-4 minutes after a reboot to come back online. If you want to mess with this a little more you can try and load up the firmware I use which is the wifix version dated 5-16-2020 but you would probably have to do the factory reset with the reset button that you said was not working for you.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... u0ACG0WDxA

Oh and as far as those AT commands those do NOT need to be re-entered after a reset as those are stored on the modem and the resets we were doing are on the router, They are seperate.

Strange that it never connected until I re-entered the AT commands.

I did put Wireguard on but It doesn't work even as well as Open.
What does "UDP over TCP" mean? It is marked NO (Googled it, tried it both ways with no difference)
Installed VPN with OpenVPN. Works better than Wireguard version.
Maybe I will try using the VPN. It is easy to turn off if it is too slow.

Does the VPN really hide stuff from Verizon?

VPN's are complicated, in theory it hides everything from your carrier, but the carrier still has the ability to tell how much data is being used and I believe they can also tell the TYPE of data. They cannot see the details of the data as its encrypted, however, your vpn provider CAN see everything. Most providers have specific policies on what they keep and such but again depending on the physical location of the vpn provider they are subject to different laws and your data may not be as secure as you would like to believe.

As far as the udp over tcp that has to do with the type of encryption used, I think, and stuff like that. Way beyond my ability to explain as I dont use vpn's at all.

Thanks, you folks have been very helpful.

Not sure what has happened but everything seems to be working smoother. VPN still slows things down but for my web surfing, speed is fine. I can always turn it off if I want to stream something. So much better response than Hughesnet (The lag of 700-900ms sucks)

Well satellite will ALWAYS have very bad latency its just part of how satellite works.

As far as your setup I think we are at the point of the old adage

"If it aint broke dont fix it"



Congrats you are now to the point you shoudnt have to worry about these things anymore and just use it.

Oh, I am just getting started asking questions.
Here's one I have been wondering about: My computer only has 1 ethernet port, can I add a USB to Ethernet adapter so that I can have my LTE router wired to one and Hughesnet to the other? Not to use at the same time, but change from one network to the other.

dbshelton wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 5:31 pm Oh, I am just getting started asking questions.
Here's one I have been wondering about: My computer only has 1 ethernet port, can I add a USB to Ethernet adapter so that I can have my LTE router wired to one and Hughesnet to the other? Not to use at the same time, but change from one network to the other.

Yep, or better yet, add a second ethernet adapter. I run two ethernet adapters in my PC for just this reason. Make sure they (The WAN source routers) each have a separate IP address range/subnet.

I guess I could just plug it in and see what happens?

Well I cheat... I have my media pc wired difrectly into my router via ethernet and plug it into the main tv via cdmi. That way if I need to access the router via ethernet i just grab a keyboard and mouse. Its also on tightvnc so I can remotely takeove the pc if needed as well.

But honestly I rarely have changes I cant just make over a wifi connection