Wireless Joint

I have a teknikal 9700T CAT6 modem on the T-Mobile network. I live in the east coast mountains and have line of site (2-3 miles) to one T-Mobile tower (Tower A) and an other that is further and through trees (Tower B). Tower A runs Band 2 and with my cell phone in the front yard I get -90, signal and speeds of 20+mps. Tower B is down the mountain range 5 miles (the close one is West). In the front yard, I do pick up Tower B with about -110 or -120.

I read a little and don't really know what I am doing but I know I can get good signal with an Omni or a Yagi and I want carrier aggregation: so I ordered (1) Yagi directional and (1) Omni directional antenna. Since my cell phone gets a really good signal on the ground, 30+ feet in the air should be wonderful with either. My router has two antenna connections so I was figuring attaching both antenna and putting the router in the middle of my house under the first floor where wifi coverage is best for the whole house.

I already have an old road runner dish on my roof about 30' off the ground and the pole is 6' off the roof. So I am going to take the dish off and put up these two antennas. My questions are:

For carrier aggregation do I need to hit two towers or is one sufficient? My close tower only does Band 2. The further ones are also band 2 but do have 71 as well.

How should I set up these two antenna?

Omni on top of pole and Yagi pointing is what I am thinking.

Where should I point Yagi? At the close one or down range at a second tower (again omni will pick up both towers but will pick the better one).


Oh, and I ordered cheap cables...I am sure I will need to return them after reading about DB loss. Plan to order the good ones here...because I am 30+feet high I need 50' cables.

A few concepts:

Cellular Wireless does not use two separate towers at once, unless for a brief moment handing off from one to the other such as when mobile.

4G LTE and 5G want at least TWO antennas, so you really should point both to one tower.

OMNI is good for tower redundancy and mobility but has more interference and less gain.

Best practice is for all antenna to be of the same design and same cable lengths to the modem.

"Yagi" is wrong on two levels, its really the Yagi-Uda antenna and what I have read, really Uda.
BUT, LPDA is the antenna you want, Yagi is very focused on a small frequency band.
You want the antenna to handle a wide set of frequency bands, many are older/limited in coverage.
The other antenna design to consider is a flat panel, which is directional but easier to setup.

Since antennas have very little power, their location, cable quality and short cable lengths matter.
Consider moving the modem electronics close to the antennas and let a network cable go the distance.

Thank you! This is helpful. I did order a Wideband directional Atenna (High Gain). I called it a Yagi thinking they were the same thing but after reading your comment I realize they are not the same. So that one is OK. It sounds like you recommend me not opening the Omni and just getting a second Wide band?

I'll see if I can find a better location.

Think you should post what this Yagi antenna is.
Allot of times people say they have Yagi antenna when what it really is a Log Periodic Directional antenna. Like these here: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/cellul ... l-antenna/

gscheb, yes that is the one I bought.

gscheb wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 11:44 am Think you should post what this Yagi antenna is.
Allot of times people say they have Yagi antenna when what it really is a Log Periodic Directional antenna. Like these here: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/cellul ... l-antenna/

QuickRch wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 11:47 am gscheb, yes that is the one I bought.

Looking at that antenna has max gain of 11 DBI. That is usually on the highest frequencies. T-Mobile band 2 is at 1900 Mhz.
So you can use this calculator online to see you loss of your cable run here : https://www.timesmicrowave.com/Calculator

For example if you used 50 feet of LMR 200 you would loose 8.1 dB of your signal strength.
But if you used 50 feet of LMR 400 you would loose 3.3 dB of your signal strength.

Not saying you should use 50 feet or not use 50 feet of wire. Not saying what wire you should use either.
All I am saying is look at the differences of each option.

Sounds like you already have pretty good signal with your phone already.

Currently have extra LMR 400 wire that is new if you are interested in buying some. (Since The Wireless Haven doesn't currently sell this) End up with extra stuff when buying things to help out friends and family.

Thank you for the calculator link. I may take you up on the cable depending on how things go and what you would charge to send me a length to Virginia.

With everything coming today and tomorrow, my plan is to climb up there and mount the directional (return the Omni) and see what my router does plugged into the antenna from the roof without unrolling the rg-58. I'll disconnect the other paddle antenna and see what it does sitting on the roof powered by an UPS. Then I'll return the omni and (likely) the cable if it isn't good enough or too long because we found a better place for the router.

Update:
I installed two of these high gain log periodic antennas and ran 50' of inexpensive cable from the antenna to my router/wifi thing. I am pretty happy with the results:
B=Before, A=After
Network : FDD LTE FDD LTE
CSQ : (B)16 (A)31
Signal Strength : (B)51% (A)100%
RSSI : (B)-81 dBm (A)-51 dBm
ECIO : (B)-10 (RSRQ) dB (A)-10 (RSRQ) dB
RSCP : (B)-102 (RSRP) dBm (A)-78 (RSRP) dBm

Now getting 20's down and about 10 up. that is about 3 times faster than before and it is difficult to get a clean speed test without changing the router and kicking everything off the network. I am not sure what a better wire would get me at this point.

So I am going to call this a success and thank Wireless Joint for guidance.

Well done. And you have room for improvement!
Better quality cable will help.
Shorter cable will help if can move router closer.
What is the orientation of the two antenna?
Are they spaced apart at all?
Are they canted from each other to make a 90deg angle, hence cross polarized?

The two antenna are pointed at the same tower that is a line of site 3 miles away. The are 3 feet apart both facing the tower (orientation) and looking at way. I really don't have the stomach to rewire. I got these through the house and installed the router where it makes sense. here is a link to a 8x zoomed in photo: