Upgrade to EM7690?

[thejohnfist]

Considering doing an overhaul on my entire LTE setup. I started off, learned a lot, made some mistakes (lost an 7565 unit to power flash, cable misaps, and other issues).

I'd like to do a EM7690 with a WG1608 unit, but my concern is Band 71 if I decide to use T-mobile. I don't believe my current yagi antennas are set up for 600mhz band.

If I build a new set up, I want the whole thing to be virtually all encompassing.

I'm not super worried about '5G' and any 5G tech I get in my area will be running on older bands, none of the MMwave stuff way out here.

Any suggestions from folks with this level of stuff? Are there decent priced yagis that also get 600mhz?

[Didneywhorl]

thewirelesshaven.com has some 600Mhz-3800Mhz yagi antennas that should/will be on the site for sale next week.

Its an upgrade to the current version listed but out of stock. https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... l-antenna/

The new ones will be 600-3800.

[Didneywhorl]

The em7690 is sooooo new and hard to find at a reasonable price. Not many have it.

I hope its as awesome as most Sierra cards have been.


The Quectel options are getting good tests and reviews so far. The EM160 and the RM500. Even at "5G" the sub Ghz 5G cards are top end 4G cards.

[thejohnfist]

The em7690 is sooooo new and hard to find at a reasonable price. Not many have it.

I hope its as awesome as most Sierra cards have been.


The Quectel options are getting good tests and reviews so far. The EM160 and the RM500. Even at "5G" the sub Ghz 5G cards are top end 4G cards.

I'm hesitant towards Quectel only because I've seen thread of carriers locking out certain models.

As for the 7690 - while $260 for a card is high, if you get 4xCA from a site offering high bandwidth, could be stellar.

[Didneywhorl]

Where is the EM7690 being offered for $260? Techship? They misrepresent prices, and they aren't in stock.

I've never seen a Quectel card being blacklisted, with the exception of people trying to use hostless modems to run on cellular phone SIMs. That is an area of major greyness already .
I have seen that Tmobile has blacklisted the Telit LM960A18 from most data plans except for very specific plans.

[thejohnfist]

Where is the EM7690 being offered for $260? Techship? They misrepresent prices, and they aren't in stock.

I've never seen a Quectel card being blacklisted, with the exception of people trying to use hostless modems to run on cellular phone SIMs. That is an area of major greyness already .
I have seen that Tmobile has blacklisted the Telit LM960A18 from most data plans except for very specific plans.

I've never used techship but yes, and how do they misrepresent prices exactly?

I'm not opposed to using other modems, only trying to get the best bang for my buck. Looking into other options as well. Trying to see if there's any way to bond connections without paying some outside service fee.

[Didneywhorl]

They misrepresent prices by not telling your there's a ~$20 shipping charge on a 2oz item.... because they are in the UK.
Add to that, if you buy more than $800 dollars worth of items, they make you pay the import tariff, 25% of value; which is not represented in the price.
They also don't include the 3-3.5% merchant account fee in the price, but add it to your bill at the end. (the fee the bank charges to run your credit card and pay them). I don't know who else does this. Everyone builds it into the price of the item. Like you have a choice to pay cash? There is a Wire option, but comon.

For example. The SIMCOM 8200AE on their site is listed for $359.70. If you buy 3 the total at that unit price is: $1079.10. Lets add on shipping (~$21) and were good right? Should be about $1100, right? Nope! At checkout there is a Tariff fee of $80.90 and a merchant fee of $41.35 as well as the shipping charge of $21.32 (to ship a grand total of about 5oz of item and box material.) This comes to a total of $1222.67.

This is $407.56 per modem. Not $359.70. That's almost $50 more than the listed price you see when you go, well Techship has them for $359! It's marketing, and it's pretty smart really. But it's a misrepresentation of their prices and it is part of why everyone thinks that Techship has low prices, when in reality, they're decent but not that low.

This and they have tons of listings, but a bunch show "out of stock". But hey, COVID, right?

/rantOff


I do think the Sierra card will be a great card. It's just kind of pioneer territory right now. AND you may be getting engineering samples instead of mass production cards. Sometimes they aren't upgrade-able. If you feel like being a first, then it'll prob. be fun to play with and figure out.

[thejohnfist]

Shipping I understand. Merchant Fees/CC fees are annoying, but the Tariff feels like tax, and I guess it is. Buy one item at a time