Mimo antenna test (practical example)
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:00 pm
Since I've been doing a million of different tests, thought I'd do a simple test with and without the diversity (or secondary) antenna that is used for mimo. I've been reading and learning a lot about it, and doing this test showed me a few things.
This was done actually inside my house, with the antennas (these antennas were used in this test: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... l-antenna/) facing out a window pointing directly at the known tower my service connects to. (I only did this because it was raining/wet outside)
Signal strength with both antennas attached: Speed test with both antennas still attached: Signal strength with diversity antenna detached (in this case the secondary, RxD in this screenshot): Speed test with secondary antenna detached:
A couple of observations:
1. I did the speed test as quickly as possible back to back to try to reduce variables at all, and you can see in this particular test, I lost about 40% of my download speed. I've seen this vary a good bit, with other tests I did, so don't take this as a hard or fast rule of how much bandwith you will lose if you don't use a diversity antenna (spoiler alert: I always recommend using one.)
2. Upload speed is unaffected because there is no mimo in uplink, and hence the secondary antenna is not used.
This was done actually inside my house, with the antennas (these antennas were used in this test: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... l-antenna/) facing out a window pointing directly at the known tower my service connects to. (I only did this because it was raining/wet outside)
Signal strength with both antennas attached: Speed test with both antennas still attached: Signal strength with diversity antenna detached (in this case the secondary, RxD in this screenshot): Speed test with secondary antenna detached:
A couple of observations:
1. I did the speed test as quickly as possible back to back to try to reduce variables at all, and you can see in this particular test, I lost about 40% of my download speed. I've seen this vary a good bit, with other tests I did, so don't take this as a hard or fast rule of how much bandwith you will lose if you don't use a diversity antenna (spoiler alert: I always recommend using one.)
2. Upload speed is unaffected because there is no mimo in uplink, and hence the secondary antenna is not used.