Wireless Joint

MitchDudley wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 9:24 pm I'm not a betting man, but I've got my money on a faulty sim reader.

AT+CPIN?
AT+CNUM

bjames wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 2:57 pm One needs to take care when inserting a sim card into this router. It only takes once to insert the sim card in the wrong direction to destroy the clicking spring that locks the sim card into place. I know this from personal experience.

CarbonCopy wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 7:19 pm Hello, I received this WE826-T2 router brand new from thewirelesshaven.com and I have this exact problem where it will not see the SIM! Brand new, never crossed the tabs, went right in place and clicked without any issues. The reader is bad according to all your provided information! How do I get a replacement? I pulled the SIM out of my HotSpot and now have it back in the HotSpot (Working as it always did).

LTE7B wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:19 pm I am having the same issues. Does anyone know what this means? Is my sim reader the issue?

LTE7B wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 7:38 pm Hi Jim,

I have gone through the troubleshooting guide... I believe I am stuck at the stage of "CHECK TO ASSURE THE ROUTER IS DETECTING THE EM7511"

I get this message:

Thu Aug 16 07:52:46 2018 : Attempting to Connect Modem #1 (Sierra_Wireless,_Incorporated Sierra_Wireless_EM7511_Qualcomm®_Snapdragon™_X16_LTE-A)
Thu Aug 16 07:53:53 2018 : Attempting to Connect Modem #1 (Sierra_Wireless,_Incorporated Sierra_Wireless_EM7511_Qualcomm®_Snapdragon™_X16_LTE-A)

Yes, it also says "SIM Failure," but shouldn't the router first be able to have a successful connection/ communication with the Sierra modem?

I have tried both available WiFix firmwares on the Google Drive link. Is one just newer?

I have tweaked with different APNs for AT&T: "broadband" as recommended, and "nxtgenphone" which was on my last at&t provided device. Would this cause the modem communication error?

I tried 55, I tried 54

at+cpin?

AT+CNUM   

I messed with the sim card, adapter, edges/angle, (it is the metal sim adapter and emery board kit from The Wireless Haven.

The pigtails can only click onto the modem one way... heard clear clicks and they are not on the GPS port....

Is this a software issue or a hardware issue? If its software, I can keep tweaking with advice.

Reminder, this is on a WG3526-P with EM7511 and At&t sim.

LTE7B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 8:21 pm I don't know what else to do. Is it the chip reader? Is it the chip adapter? Is it the modem adapter? Is it still software?

Is it true that the modem adapter "bottle necks" (and defeats the purpose) of the Cat 12 potential anyway?

Heard that rumor... curious if it's true.

Please let me know what to do next. Maybe I need to exchange or return hardware.

Thanks Jim.

BillA wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 9:02 pm If your modem adapter has a built-in sim tray, try that instead of the one in the router.
Might be a stab in the dark, but you'll never know till you try it.

LTE7B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:04 pm Bill, I thought the same thing. I saw the port when I took the modem back off. Well I just went ahead and tried. No bones. Was definitely hopeful though. I received the exact same errors and responses to prompt commands. Good idea though. Thanks for the reply.

So this makes me think it may be the modem adapter. But I dont have nearly as much experience as all of you. willing to keep trying stuff, but really hoping to have something running soon.

I have two directional Yagis at 45s in MIMO. lmr 400 and adapters. Upgraded to Cat 12 in order to channel lock and take advantage of band 14 etc on AT&T. Went this route instead of a Mofi4500 or Pepway.

Is this worth continuing to tinker?

LTE7B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:46 pm So first, good idea.

This new Sim is not throwing error codes. I'm getting a lot of "OK" now.

But the modem is still not connecting:

"Wed Feb 26 17:33:25 2020 : Attempting to Connect Modem #1 (Sierra_Wireless,_Incorporated Sierra_Wireless_EM7511_Qualcomm®_Snapdragon™_X16_LTE-A)
Wed Feb 26 17:34:06 2020 : Retry Connection with Modem #1
Wed Feb 26 17:34:18 2020 : Attempting to Connect Modem #1 (Sierra_Wireless,_Incorporated Sierra_Wireless_EM7511_Qualcomm®_Snapdragon™_X16_LTE-A)
Wed Feb 26 17:35:04 2020 : Retry Connection with Modem #1
Wed Feb 26 17:35:15 2020 : Attempting to Connect Modem #1 (Sierra_Wireless,_Incorporated"

Any ideas?

I will put the Sim in the modem slot again...

LTE7B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:04 pm It worked in the modem adapter sim slot as well... (thats interesting) modem still not "connecting." now trying different APNs... next I will try your provided commands. Thanks!

LTE7B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:23 pm I am up and running!

Thank you so much for your help. I will test and tweak/ fine-tune for the next few days and see what happens. I will head into AT&T tomorrow and try to get a new Sim.

REALLY appreciate your help, logic, and quick responses.

PS: I will need a PC (non Mac) to channel/ band lock correct?

Thanks again!

LTE7B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:59 pm getting 30-70 down right now and 6 to 12 up with my MIMO yagi setup. no channel locking yet. tower is 5 miles away.

A little better than I was getting on my ZTE hotspot. Hoping this Cat12 modem is a huge upgrade.

Can anyone confirm the rumor that using an adapter effects the Cat12 modem potential?

LTE7B wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 9:05 pm Got a new SIM on the way home from work today. All is well. Speeds are consistent. I agree, I will likely let things be for awhile before dabbling into band locking. So far it likes to sit in 66 at 10mhz. Getting ish 30 down and 8 up.

BTW, running 100 feet (per antenna) of coax. Curious just how much I'm hurting myself with those lengths. Its LMR400, but loss is loss. My choice is, get it up in a tree using 100 feet and have clear line-of-sight, or, go shorter but shoot through dense trees. Currently getting those mentioned speeds while mounted on the roof and shooting through trees. Curious how much the extra height/ line of sight in the near future will/ would help. If it wont make that big of a difference, I may sell these 100' runs and go shorter. Definitely would be easier/ cheaper than my plan to run POE out to a tree and climb the thing with coax! Iv'e seen -81 dbm tonight. Not too shabby.

From your experience, any At&t tips or tweaks for this particular router set up running WiFix? Things have been running smooth for at least a few hours now... it's about time to get greedy and mess something up while playing around...

BillA wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 9:34 am High frequency signal loss especially above 1Ghz, even in low loss coax is quite significant on longer cable runs of over 30 feet (about 10 meters), in fact it increases almost exponentially with the cable length. As a test I would attach the "stick" antennas which came with the router, and run some speed tests while indoors placed onto a window sill, and moving it around to all four sides of the home. It's possible that you might get better speeds with the included antennas, maybe not, but you'll never know till you try it.

While a strong signal usually translates into better speeds, it's not always the case, other parameters such as RSRP/RSRQ also come into play, along with propagation, polarization, and reflections.

If you really have to move the router/modem close to the external antennas, you could power it via POE or simply run a cheap long extension cord to the box (thin is fine since not much amperage is required at 110V), then plug in the router's power adapter which will supply plenty of amps to the router/modem.

There really aren't too many tweaks in the router to improve ATT's speeds specifically. It's always a good idea to keep both the router and modem firmwares updated once in a while. Sometimes the wrong band lock settings can be worse than leaving it on auto-scan, so maybe try both methods. Besides having a good strong/quality signal via the shortest possible antenna cable, one of the best ways to improve your speeds is by upgrading the modem to the highest available CAT# you can afford. So, start saving up for that shiny new 5G modem, because that's where the real speed increases will happen. But, no matter how good your equipment and signal is, the bottleneck is most often due to carrier network management, which includes throttling based on your plan, and most significantly congestion at peak times of the day.

As a last tip, try not to obsess over trying to squeeze out the very last drop of Mbps (this ain't no Maxwell House coffee! LOL), it's just not worth wasting too much time over some insignificant gains. As long as the data works for your normal daily internet activities without much buffering, that's all that matters.

LTE7B wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 3:22 pm Thanks Bill and Jim. I agree that it takes self control not to obsess. This all started because we live in a beautiful (yet isolated) area of the PNW. My wife just finished school and is about to start her business which requires a lot of video chatting with clients. So the compromise of living rural was the lack of hardline internet, as well as lack of line of site to the tower.

I did notice though, there is a lot of buffering going on. Speed tests show excellent and fast ping, but youtube cant keep up with anything past 720hd.

There is definitely some lag going on. Even in web browsing, yet still fast "speed tests." Right now the modem is generally living (auto) on At&T band 66 on an EM7511.

Any ideas?