Wireless Joint

Below is a detailed review and comparison of a bunch of antennas.

A little back story: During my adventures into 4G/LTE, and learning about the technology, I found it really really fascinating to test different antennas and configurations, and many of them in different locations. These types of experiments provided a lot of learning for me. Jim was kind enough to send me a variety of antennas to do some comparisons on, just because I love it so much

Anyways, onto the interesting details. Feel free to ask me any questions, or if I can clarify something please let me know.

Test Hardware Setup:

Raspberry PI 3 running GoldenOrb
Sierra MC7455 Modem in a external mini-pci USB enclosure
Laptop directly connected via ethernet to the PI 3 (to eliminate any possible slowness/issues connecting to the PI via wireless)

Service: AT&T (Only band 12 and band 2 are available in my area, and with the MC7455 modem)

Location: My home, in the North East GA Mountains For reference, below is a screenshot of the terrain i'm working against to talk to the closest tower, which for reference, is 5 miles away, no line of sight. (Cell tower on left, my house on the right):

Disclaimer:
These results are very specific to my location, day, weather, etc. Please do not expect to get this kind of performance, just because I did with one specific antenna (it's possible you might get better, there's just too many variables!) What's important to pay attention to is the difference in performance between the antennas, and then finally take into consideration your setup, requirements, goals, etc, when picking an antenna.

Please note that I did this comprehensive test across two different days. I attempted to use the 3dbi omni antennas I have as my "control" for the test, to keep it as scientific as possible. Both days however the weather was great, and the tests were in the exact same location. However, RF conditions can change drastically from day to day. I attempted to keep as many variables the same as I could control. I cannot, and could not control how busy my cell tower was at the time of the tests (although I don't think its very busy at all based on my data rates) or how busy the upstream network(s) are. OK, now thats all out of the way, let's get to the data.

Day 1 Test:

3dbi Omnis (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... -sma-male/)
9dbi Radome Yagis (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/1700-2 ... l-antenna/)

I locked them to the band they are specifically made for, and band 2 is the only available one in my area these are designed to work on.
A pic of me testing them (sorry no idea why this is sideways, but if you click on it, you can see it correctly):

9-11dbi Radome Yagi (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/698-27 ... l-antenna/)
Day 2 Testing

Unknown Gain Tiny Omnis (These came with this mini-pci USB enclosure: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/pcie-m-2/usb-to ... enclosure/)

3dbi gain omnis again - for our control between days (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... -sma-male/)
5-7dbi directional flat panels (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... -n-female/)
A pic of me testing them (again sideways, not sure why, click to see it correctly):

9-11dbi radome yagis again for an extra control (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/698-27 ... l-antenna/)
15dbi flat panel (https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... l-antenna/)
Pic of me testing them (still not sure why these are sideways, click the pic to view normally):

Conclusion:

Honestly, this is about what I expected to see. The results are interesting, and I got the fastest download speed I've ever seen on 4G at my house, with the 15dbi flat panels. You can tell the higher gain antenna that is selected, the better the download speed, and also the better the upload speed. This is mainly due to SINR improving, and RSRP improving. It's clear that because the omni-directional antennas are not directional, and low gain, they suffer the most on upload speed, over directional antennas. I personally think that selecting an antenna highly depends upon your requirements (indoor or outdoor, for example) and a lot of other factors.

Please feel free to ask any questions in here, happy to help where I can, and I hope others find this information useful.

Excellent review! This is the kind of information that helps all of us out. I'm hoping that they get more of those 15dbi flat panel antennas in stock now that I've figured out my aiming issue.

tonydobbs wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:43 pm Excellent review! This is the kind of information that helps all of us out. I'm hoping that they get more of those 15dbi flat panel antennas in stock now that I've figured out my aiming issue.

Keep in mind that although those antennas performed best in my test, you might not experience the same results. That being said, I still think the flat panel 15dbi antennas are pretty good performing antennas.

One factor to consider with antenna selection is wind loading and weight. Depending on how you mount your antennas (pole mount, etc, how well is it mounted to the roof?), you might want to consider weight of the antennas. The 15dbis are really heavy compared to, for example the 9-11dbi radome yagis (actually, I lied, these aren't really yagis, but log-periodic antennas, although they look like yagis). If you put that weight all the way at the top of a high pole, its going to act like a lever on your mount, so take placement and other factors into consideration. If you live in a windy area, I'd consider a guy wire system too. I ended up with a wire system, even though wind usually isn't a problem around here (although 2 days ago we saw 45+ mph winds and I was happy I set this up). I mainly did the guy wire system, so I can use this mast for additional antennas for ham, SDR, etc. The yagis and the nanostation are super light.

Here's a picture of my guy wire system (theres actually 3 wires on it, you just can't see the back left one due to the lighting/angle):

Did you figure out an optimal distance to separate the 15dbi flat panels for MIMO on AT&T (B2+12)? I see in your pictures that they aren't as close as possible, but are separated a bit. How far do you separate them?

Also, in my testing, I get a better signal and throughput with the back of the antennas facing the tower instead of the front, which surprised me. It's not a significant difference, but is consistent (~3-5 dBm improvement, and ~5 Mbps improvement on download). Have you tested this? Or have any theories as to why?

ingenium wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 7:33 pm Also, in my testing, I get a better signal and throughput with the back of the antennas facing the tower instead of the front, which surprised me. It's not a significant difference, but is consistent (~3-5 dBm improvement, and ~5 Mbps improvement on download). Have you tested this? Or have any theories as to why?

I just got my 15 dBi flat panel antennas today and did some initial testing with them. I observed a similar behavior. There were 2 main towers that I was connecting to and I know for a fact that one is E/SE of here and one is NW of here. So almost opposite directions. I know which tower is which, because I have tested my router when sitting right next to them and know the IDs. If I pointed the front of the antennas NW, I would either get a weaker connection to the tower NW of here or it would switch to the tower ESE of here. If I turned them 180 degrees, so they were facing SE, I would get a much stronger connection to the NW tower or a weaker connection to the ESE tower. Speed tests supported this as well.

This was on my deck, with the house to the west of me and another hunk of the house sticking out to the NW of me, where I was often aiming at the vaulted roof on that part of the house. There is a hill ESE of here that should be in my line of sight to the ESE tower. So either the antennas are set up such that they are reaching out through the back of the cases or it was a scenario of signals bouncing around in a perfect way that caused the behavior I saw. I remembered your post, so I wasn't too confused, considering you were seeing similar behavior, but it still seems odd.

Additionally, even though the ESE tower is about 2 miles away and the one NW is 4 miles away, I was getting a much stronger signal from the one 4 miles away. I'm pretty sure that hill is the reason. I'll have the antennas another 20 to 30 feet in the air, in theory, when they are finally installed and that will get me over local obstacles.

I have mine positioned/mounted exactly like swwifty does in his separate review of the 15 dBi panel antennas, where they are mounted on white PVC. There was too much variability in testing to know for sure, but I started with them 3 inches apart (measured between the parallel sides closest to each other, on the front (the cases slope inward from front to back, so distance is different if measured from the front or back)) and then did some tests with them 6 inches apart. It did seem like my SNR improved. However, the primary antenna on top was now sitting higher, so it is possible that was part of it, not just the spacing.

I'll need to test the spacing once I reduce other variables. I might take them to a tower to see what is optimal up close, with less interference from other signals, but I'm not sure if that translates into the best distance when they are used miles away from the towers.

ingenium wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 7:33 pm Did you figure out an optimal distance to separate the 15dbi flat panels for MIMO on AT&T (B2+12)? I see in your pictures that they aren't as close as possible, but are separated a bit. How far do you separate them?

Also, in my testing, I get a better signal and throughput with the back of the antennas facing the tower instead of the front, which surprised me. It's not a significant difference, but is consistent (~3-5 dBm improvement, and ~5 Mbps improvement on download). Have you tested this? Or have any theories as to why?

Sorry I'm just getting around to responding to this.

I separated the antennas based on the wavelength they are operating at. Since B12 is the longest wave length in LTE around 700mhz I tried to separate them at least one wave length which is about 17 inches.

That is really odd that you saw better performance with the antennas facing backwards. Are you sure the antenna was actually not backwards before you turned it around? I mean rather, are you sure you know where the tower is? Antennas have a concept called front to back ratio (look it up on Google) which should mean that you should have much worse signal if the antenna was actually backwards.

xdavidx wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 4:56 pm I just got my 15 dBi flat panel antennas today and did some initial testing with them. I observed a similar behavior. There were 2 main towers that I was connecting to and I know for a fact that one is E/SE of here and one is NW of here. So almost opposite directions. I know which tower is which, because I have tested my router when sitting right next to them and know the IDs. If I pointed the front of the antennas NW, I would either get a weaker connection to the tower NW of here or it would switch to the tower ESE of here. If I turned them 180 degrees, so they were facing SE, I would get a much stronger connection to the NW tower or a weaker connection to the ESE tower. Speed tests supported this as well.

This was on my deck, with the house to the west of me and another hunk of the house sticking out to the NW of me, where I was often aiming at the vaulted roof on that part of the house. There is a hill ESE of here that should be in my line of sight to the ESE tower. So either the antennas are set up such that they are reaching out through the back of the cases or it was a scenario of signals bouncing around in a perfect way that caused the behavior I saw. I remembered your post, so I wasn't too confused, considering you were seeing similar behavior, but it still seems odd.

Additionally, even though the ESE tower is about 2 miles away and the one NW is 4 miles away, I was getting a much stronger signal from the one 4 miles away. I'm pretty sure that hill is the reason. I'll have the antennas another 20 to 30 feet in the air, in theory, when they are finally installed and that will get me over local obstacles.

I have mine positioned/mounted exactly like swwifty does in his separate review of the 15 dBi panel antennas, where they are mounted on white PVC. There was too much variability in testing to know for sure, but I started with them 3 inches apart (measured between the parallel sides closest to each other, on the front (the cases slope inward from front to back, so distance is different if measured from the front or back)) and then did some tests with them 6 inches apart. It did seem like my SNR improved. However, the primary antenna on top was now sitting higher, so it is possible that was part of it, not just the spacing.

I'll need to test the spacing once I reduce other variables. I might take them to a tower to see what is optimal up close, with less interference from other signals, but I'm not sure if that translates into the best distance when they are used miles away from the towers.

That is really interesting. It is important to keep in mind though that the tower you connect to is not necessarily the one with the strongest signal. Handoff between towers is not simply controlled by the client. The tower itself can hand off a UE to a different base station if needed, due to a variety of factors. This could explain why when you were aiming one way you saw weaker signals and such.

That being said. If you don't have clear LOS, then more than likely you have a lot of multipath going on, which can cause all kinds of strange behavior in signal strengths and reliability.

I regularly see signal strengths in RSSI bounce from -65 to -80 on B12 and on band 2 from -80 to -90. The leaves coming out after this past winter made a huge difference in signal strength, and performance. I was getting over 100mbps down in winter, and now can only muster about 75.

swwifty wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 6:55 pm I separated the antennas based on the wavelength they are operating at. Since B12 is the longest wave length in LTE around 700mhz I tried to separate them at least one wave length which is about 17 inches.

Where did you measure the 17 inches from/to? I was thinking of doing the same thing, but with the shape of these antennas, I didn't know where that would be. The center of each case? The edge? If so, which edge?

swwifty wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 7:01 pm That is really interesting. It is important to keep in mind though that the tower you connect to is not necessarily the one with the strongest signal. Handoff between towers is not simply controlled by the client. The tower itself can hand off a UE to a different base station if needed, due to a variety of factors. This could explain why when you were aiming one way you saw weaker signals and such.

That being said. If you don't have clear LOS, then more than likely you have a lot of multipath going on, which can cause all kinds of strange behavior in signal strengths and reliability.

I regularly see signal strengths in RSSI bounce from -65 to -80 on B12 and on band 2 from -80 to -90. The leaves coming out after this past winter made a huge difference in signal strength, and performance. I was getting over 100mbps down in winter, and now can only muster about 75.

If a tower hands off to another one, will the client show the true tower in the stats?

I may not have been clear about weaker signals. What I meant is that if I pointed the antennas at a known tower, my RSRP, SINR, etc. were worse than if I pointed 180 degrees away from the tower. And it did this with 2 towers that are close to 180 degrees from each other at my house. It was weird that it would do the exact same thing for each of them, but maybe it was a perfect storm where one bounces off something in the direction of the other one and back to me and the other bounces off something else in the opposite direction and also back to me. They are playing monkey-in-the-middle with me! I'll have a much better LOS when the antennas are 30 feet higher.

Here is how things looked for my testing today vs how they will look with the antennas on the roof (30 feet higher, or maybe even 40 feet higher, although I'm showing 32 feet higher in these images):

ESE tower with my top antenna about 8 feet high:

ESE tower with my top antenna about 40 feet high:

NW tower with my top antenna about 8 feet high:

NW tower with my top antenna about 40 feet high:


I didn't realize I had that obstruction for the NW tower in my testing today. I knew my house might have been partly in the way and some trees, but I didn't realize the hill across the street was being clipped. That makes me feel good, because it means I can gain quite a bit once I clear it.

The towers have been entered as 100 feet tall. I don't know their exact heights.

The leaves make a big difference for my T-Mobile cell phone reception too. I have to use a booster system provided by T-Mobile in order to get a reasonable signal on my circa 2012 phone (HSPA+, no LTE). The LTE phones in the household aren't as strong without the booster, but at least they can function. I have that booster unit inside a window on the 2nd floor and the other unit that it creates a cellular bubble with on the main level toward the other end of the house. First off, I originally had the window unit a few inches from the window and it wasn't working very well. I found that if I leaned the top of it against the glass, it made a big difference. Secondly, as you said, when the leaves come out, the signal strength goes down. And if the leaves/grass/whatever is wet, that really affects it too. It doesn't have to be raining. It is worse until things dry out.

I'm professional in antennas. I wanna to comment situation in receive a better signal from the rear (back) of the antennas.
This possible if you not receive direct signal, if you not have line of sight to base station.

xdavidx wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 9:02 pm Where did you measure the 17 inches from/to? I was thinking of doing the same thing, but with the shape of these antennas, I didn't know where that would be. The center of each case? The edge? If so, which edge?

don't over think it too much, just from the edge. Over 17 inches is okay too, I just wouldn't have them closer at any one point then 17 inches.

xdavidx wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 9:41 pm If a tower hands off to another one, will the client show the true tower in the stats?

I may not have been clear about weaker signals. What I meant is that if I pointed the antennas at a known tower, my RSRP, SINR, etc. were worse than if I pointed 180 degrees away from the tower. And it did this with 2 towers that are close to 180 degrees from each other at my house. It was weird that it would do the exact same thing for each of them, but maybe it was a perfect storm where one bounces off something in the direction of the other one and back to me and the other bounces off something else in the opposite direction and also back to me. They are playing monkey-in-the-middle with me! I'll have a much better LOS when the antennas are 30 feet higher.

Here is how things looked for my testing today vs how they will look with the antennas on the roof (30 feet higher, or maybe even 40 feet higher, although I'm showing 32 feet higher in these images):


I didn't realize I had that obstruction for the ENE tower in my testing today. I knew my house might have been partly in the way and some trees, but I didn't realize the hill across the street was being clipped. That makes me feel good, because it means I can gain quite a bit once I clear it.

The towers have been entered as 100 feet tall. I don't know their exact heights.

The leaves make a big difference for my T-Mobile cell phone reception too. I have to use a booster system provided by T-Mobile in order to get a reasonable signal on my circa 2012 phone (HSPA+, no LTE). The LTE phones in the household aren't as strong without the booster, but at least they can function. I have that booster unit inside a window on the 2nd floor and the other unit that it creates a cellular bubble with on the main level toward the other end of the house. First off, I originally had the window unit a few inches from the window and it wasn't working very well. I found that if I leaned the top of it against the glass, it made a big difference. Secondly, as you said, when the leaves come out, the signal strength goes down. And if the leaves/grass/whatever is wet, that really affects it too. It doesn't have to be raining. It is worse until things dry out.

If your mobile device (in this case your LTE Modem) hands off to another tower you will see that switch. I'd recommend using the 'at!lteinfo' command to see all the cells that are in range. Keep in mind that even though we use the term "towers" each physical tower has many different "cells" on it that are typically sectorized. Keep a close on the PCI numbers in the at!lteinfo command. Typically cells that are on the same tower have PCI numbers that are very close to each other. If the numbers are far apart in range, typically you are seeing a signal from a cell that is mounted on a different physical tower, or perhaps a different sector that is pointing away from you. Self-interference is the one of biggest challenges in LTE.

I suspect that you might have the tower numbers reversed. If you see the signal increase when you move the antenna 180 degrees that is a sign that the signal is in fact coming from a different direction. The signals don't scatter as much as you'd suspect. Read about multipath, and you'll see what I mean. When they scatter they tend to degrade or cancel each other out in phase and make the signal really weak. Remember the dBM scale is logarithmic. If you see a +3dBm increase in signal thats a signal twice as strong! 10dbm is 10x stronger!

I've heard of boosters causing issues with other LTE devices. I have a feeling that your booster might be taking the signal your modem is connecting too and amplifying it, then sending it back out. I'd highly recommend trying these tests at your house with the booster off to rule that out as causing any issues. Those boosters can cause some serious havoc on RF signals.

If you are having issues with signal through glass it more than likely has some coating, or its possible the bug screen on the outside is a metal mesh and killing the RF signal. I've experienced and learned this the hard way before.

max wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 1:11 am I'm professional in antennas. I wanna to comment situation in receive a better signal from the rear (back) of the antennas.
This possible if you not receive direct signal, if you not have line of sight to base station.

Thanks max. That does appear to be what is happening here.

swwifty wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 9:23 am If your mobile device (in this case your LTE Modem) hands off to another tower you will see that switch. I'd recommend using the 'at!lteinfo' command to see all the cells that are in range.

Yep, I'm using it to keep an eye on them already. There are generally 3-5 other towers chatting away at lower signal strengths at any moment in time here, at ground level and even at the 2nd story level.

swwifty wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 9:23 am Keep in mind that even though we use the term "towers" each physical tower has many different "cells" on it that are typically sectorized. Keep a close on the PCI numbers in the at!lteinfo command. Typically cells that are on the same tower have PCI numbers that are very close to each other. If the numbers are far apart in range, typically you are seeing a signal from a cell that is mounted on a different physical tower, or perhaps a different sector that is pointing away from you. Self-interference is the one of biggest challenges in LTE.

Correct, correct, correct and correct.

I just wish they'd show the base 10 Cell ID (also close in value for a given tower, typically) instead of the Physical Cell ID for each of those other cells, because the last 3 of Cell ID is what I have committed to memory and it is what shows in the status results. Would have been nice if it was consistent or showed both on each screen.

swwifty wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 9:23 am I suspect that you might have the tower numbers reversed. If you see the signal increase when you move the antenna 180 degrees that is a sign that the signal is in fact coming from a different direction. The signals don't scatter as much as you'd suspect. Read about multipath, and you'll see what I mean. When they scatter they tend to degrade or cancel each other out in phase and make the signal really weak.

You may not have read above that I've been to each of these towers, so I know which one is which. There isn't any confusion there. I suspect that my environment is closer to what you reported you saw at the state park vs what you see at your base location. I just have a lot of towers bouncing things around.

swwifty wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 9:23 am Remember the dBM scale is logarithmic. If you see a +3dBm increase in signal thats a signal twice as strong! 10dbm is 10x stronger!

Correct. More on that further down.

swwifty wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 9:23 am I've heard of boosters causing issues with other LTE devices. I have a feeling that your booster might be taking the signal your modem is connecting too and amplifying it, then sending it back out. I'd highly recommend trying these tests at your house with the booster off to rule that out as causing any issues. Those boosters can cause some serious havoc on RF signals.

Definitely a good thing to consider, but not the case in this situation. This booster isn't like all the analog systems on the market. This one is digital and only boosts what it needs to for the phones connected to it from a single provider (in this case, T-Mobile), and only boosts to the degree needed based on the relative location of the two units (they talk to each other over a 5 GHz system, but not 802.11, for some reason).

Where it might come into play is if the AT&T frequency matches one of the few T-Mobile frequencies that the booster supports and if my antennas are close enough to the booster unit that creates the cellular bubble. This would cause similar interference to another tower sharing frequencies, except this "tower" is very close. The bands in common between AT&T, T-Mobile and the booster are bands 2 and 4.

I've done some testing with the booster off and on and haven't noticed a difference in stats, but it is always in the back of my mind that it is theoretically possible, so I'll continue to do A/B testing with the booster on/off. What I haven't done yet is to test it with one of the T-Mobile LTE phones downloading something. That will be a good test. No T-Mobile LTE phones were at home during my initial deck testing and my HSPA+ phone wasn't actively doing much.

I'm getting an LTE phone in another month or so. If I have to chose between reasonable T-Mobile signals in the house without the booster or great signals with the booster, I'll choose the former in exchange for better internet with the LTE modem and external antennas. Right now, with my HSPA+ phone, I can barely use it in the house without the booster on.

The other variable is that the bubble created generally ends at the unit by the window. If I mount the antennas on the opposite side of the window unit from the booster coverage unit, it should be outside the bubble and not be impacted much, *if* it can be impacted at all.

swwifty wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 9:23 am If you are having issues with signal through glass it more than likely has some coating, or its possible the bug screen on the outside is a metal mesh and killing the RF signal. I've experienced and learned this the hard way before.

No bug screen. What is interesting is if I slide the other half of the window open that does have a bug screen and lean the unit against the bug screen, it gets a better signal (as does my cell phone, directly). The glass attenuates the signal more than the bug screen. I just found it interesting that having the unit touch the glass makes a big difference in signal strength and end results.


Now, I have done some other testing today. I took the flat panel antennas and my rig to one of the towers and tested a couple blocks away from the tower with a clear line of sight. The antennas do have a better signal with them facing toward the tower than away. They were good either way, but still better with the antennas facing forward. RSRP values were about 10 times stronger forward than reverse for the higher frequency bands (1900 and 2300) and about 4 times stronger for lower frequencies (700). That all makes sense and does confirm that the antennas aren't pointing the wrong way inside the cases.

That also means that I'm getting better signals on my deck by pointing away due to the signals bouncing back from the opposite directions. Although highly variable, it seems pretty wild to get a high test score of 75 Mbps download from a directional antenna picking up the signal from the opposite direction of the tower!

Very interesting information. Please be sure to keep us up to date with your further tests! They are a great asset to this forum.

You must be getting some constructive multipath in the opposite direction of the tower, and some destructive multipath in the direction the tower is facing. Quite interesting, I've seen antennas very sensitive to any direction changes like that, but never a significant difference when facing backwards!

swwifty wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:53 pm Very interesting information. Please be sure to keep us up to date with your further tests! They are a great asset to this forum.

Thanks. If not for your in depth review of all those antennas, I probably would have ended up with some of the 9/11 dBi yagis. And although those probably would have worked, I'm glad I have the higher gain panels. So thanks a lot for all your diligent work.

I'll be posting more as I go. I'll create a separate thread.

swwifty wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:53 pm You must be getting some constructive multipath in the opposite direction of the tower, and some destructive multipath in the direction the tower is facing. Quite interesting, I've seen antennas very sensitive to any direction changes like that, but never a significant difference when facing backwards!

Although I'll provide more details in another thread, I saw the same behavior today on my roof. I did a bunch of testing at the peak with one tower and then decided to try with the antennas about 12 feet lower by moving down to my chimney. I was hoping to provide a less optimal path for the one I was picking up at the peak so that I could get the weird 180 degree boomarang tower again, although with a more direct line of sight.

That seemed to work, as I did pick up the boomerang tower again. However, I picked it up in the opposite direction again. In fact, I got my fastest test result of the day (70 mbps), while pointing in the opposite direction, on that tower!

Thanks again for your insights.

I had some typos in a post above regarding the directions of the towers. In case anyone is following along and is confused, I fixed them in the original post, but I can't fix them in the part quoted by swwifty. In his reply, it quotes, "I didn't realize I had that obstruction for the ENE tower in my testing today." That should read, "I didn't realize I had that obstruction for the NW tower in my testing today."

That seems consistent with lots of multipathing. I'd recommend reading about it, if you are interested. The topic itself is a very complex and intriguing issue in wireless channels.

I have lots of multipath on band 2, but band 12 is not as bad. My multipathing was so bad, antennas 12 inches apart had 10x less signal more often than not.

Excellent information! Been playing with few home brew antennas trying to find best AT&T band for my area (lots of trees and tower about 4 miles away). Your info helps a lot, thank you.

terryjett wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:31 pm Excellent information! Been playing with few home brew antennas trying to find best AT&T band for my area (lots of trees and tower about 4 miles away). Your info helps a lot, thank you.

you're welcome, glad it was useful to you!

Quick question:

"Location: My home, in the North East GA Mountains For reference, below is a screenshot"

Could you share what software / website you used to create the the screenshot that mapped the terrain? Looks very useful...

Thanks!

terryjett wrote: ↑Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:02 pm Quick question:

"Location: My home, in the North East GA Mountains For reference, below is a screenshot"

Could you share what software / website you used to create the the screenshot that mapped the terrain? Looks very useful...

Thanks!

I used the Radio Mobile Website to do it: https://www.ve2dbe.com/english1.html

Be warned its not the most trivial website to use. If you want just a quick mapping of the terrain profile, you can use https://link.ui.com/

The high mount antenna also makes a great lightning rod. xD
Jokes aside, I wouldn't dare put them up higher than any other nearby metallic object even with the best built-in lightning arrester, while the other end of the antenna cable is connected to the router sitting right on my work desk. Yikes!

BillA wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 10:57 pm The high mount antennas makes a great lightning rod. xD
Jokes aside, I wouldn't dare put them up higher than any other nearby metallic object even with the best built-in lightning arrester, while the other end of the antenna cable is connected to the router sitting right on my work desk. Yikes!

Yeah, if I lived some place with no trees I'd be worried too.

I have a lot of trees higher than my mast, so no worries there.

swwifty wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 6:55 pm Sorry I'm just getting around to responding to this.

I separated the antennas based on the wavelength they are operating at. Since B12 is the longest wave length in LTE around 700mhz I tried to separate them at least one wave length which is about 17 inches.

That is really odd that you saw better performance with the antennas facing backwards. Are you sure the antenna was actually not backwards before you turned it around? I mean rather, are you sure you know where the tower is? Antennas have a concept called front to back ratio (look it up on Google) which should mean that you should have much worse signal if the antenna was actually backwards.

swwifty, regarding the 17 inches - are you measuring between N connectors - or something else?

Edit - I see previous post where you wrote 'no closer than 17 inches at any point'. I'm clear.

Are they installed parallel or at 45?