Page 1 of 1

Antenna upgrade for booster?

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:11 pm
by tom_va
Hello all. Awesome group you have here. I've been reading over the forum and the Facebook group the past couple days and learned a bunch. I was hoping someone could confirm my assumptions before I spend any money.

Situation
I live about 2 miles from my closest T-Mobile tower. There's no terrain in the way, but there are plenty of tall trees. When we moved in a couple years ago, we couldn't get a reliable signal inside the brick house. I purchased a HiBoost 10k setup (booster, cables, internal dome, external yagi) so we could use our phones inside the house. It worked well. We have sufficient signal throughout the house. The speed has never been that good.

According to cell mapper, the tower I'm using has bands 12 and 66.

Here are the details for my external antenna: TS220971- Top Signal 700MHz 2700MHz Wide Band Log Periodic Yagi

With a rsrp1 of between -110 and -115, I'm lucky if I get 3Mbps down.

Question
Some of the posts have read on here make me think that my current antenna may not be the best solution. I'm in Virginia, and there are lots of leaves on the 60 foot trees around my house. The antenna is currently mounted on the roof of my three story home. Will a different style antenna help?

Also, after reading some of the success stories you all are getting being 10 miles away from a tower, why am I getting such terrible results from a tower 2 miles away. There is another tower that is 3.5 miles away with reported bands 2,12, and 66. There might be a terrain issue, but I need to verify the height of the tower. Do those bands offer me something that might make it worth switching to that tower? I'd have to move the external antenna to the other side of the house.

Thanks all!

Re: Antenna upgrade for booster?

Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 7:20 pm
by Dr-BroadBand
What modem are you using??

Re: Antenna upgrade for booster?

Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 7:32 pm
by gscheb
Boosters are great for cell phones. If you want good 4G modem speeds need mimo antenna right to the modem. No boosters they just not good for that.

Re: Antenna upgrade for booster?

Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 8:10 pm
by Dr-BroadBand
I would agree 100%

The problem with boosters are they can increase your signal but they also increase the noise, so your signal/noise ratio is poor. So the quality of the data being sent is poor…. Slower

Would start with good antennas, YES more than one. Need MIMO

MIMO, a technology for optimizing the speed, range, and reliability of wireless data transmission by using two or more antennas at the source and destination.