Modem recommendations and advice please! :)

[OregonLTE]

Hi fellow LTE folks, I am a newb when it comes to LTE internet and am trying to figure out the best / financially smart decision to make when it comes to LTE internet at my place. I live in central Oregon and where I am located we have no high speed internet providers. We have hughes net which is slower than a snail going uphill and cost more than it does to put astronauts into space. So I have been on the hunt to figure out our internet debacle. I watched a bunch of youtube videos which led me to the mofi 4500 being our answer.....I ordered the mofi 4500 off amazon and it comes in on Monday...almost 2 weeks after I ordered it...which is a pain but also gave me the opportunity to research how it works....which led me to your site.....which has been a Godsend in educating me about lTE internet and setting it up correctly. I currently have two yagi (wilson) antennas 700-2700 set up in the correct position (45 degrees) from each other, and I ran 2x 400 LMR 50' cable to where the router is going to be. Since going through your site and seeing what I can build for cheaper than the mofi with more capabilities has made me want to build my own and return the mofi. I currently have a netgear r7000 router and would like to make a LTE modem to plug into the USB 3.0 port and run golden orb off of the router... I saw on the golden orb downloads that they make a plugin for the R7000. I have been looking for a router tutorial on how to go about that process but haven't found it yet. If this is not a good idea I would like some other ideas.... I was also looking at buying a WE1326 off of amazon and then putting a EM7565 in it if the R7000 is not going to work.... also the kicker is I have a MacBook...(I know I know don't throw me to the wolves).... So...I don't know if I have the ability to do the command prompts I see in a lot of the tutorials, or do I? Anyways I would love to build my own if I can with my MacBook. I don't have concrete signal strengths yet... that should come monday when I set up the mofi before I send it back Thank for all your tutorials on here and giving me the confidence to go from newb to building something. Happy new years!

Steve D.

PS The picture is of my yagi setup on my pole barn. I know its a metal roof so I am angling my yagis 10-20 degrees up to hopefully compensate and get a good signal. Its the highest building I have on my property.

[BillA]

In the meantime you could use your cellphone with your router's sim card, to run some speed tests while sitting on the roof top (just be careful, cuz you know what happened to the cat on the hot tin roof, right?!;). It's always a good idea to have a baseline signal to compare the rest of your setup to.
Out of curiosity, do you have some kind of Lightning Arrester built into your high mounted antenna system?
I see some kind of short metal rod up there (perhaps a wind direction indicator), but you'll probably need something a little higher than your antennas.
God forbid it gets struck by lightning, your speeds will go through the roof, and will break the internet. ;D jk

[OregonLTE]

Hi bill! Thats a good idea, I will jump up there tomorrow and check it out. I didn't do any speed test up there but when I was using my phone up there I almost had full bars and had the best service I've experienced on the property. Good call on the lightening arresters, I don't have any currently installed, do you have any that you would recommend?

[BillA]

Hi bill! Thats a good idea, I will jump up there tomorrow and check it out. I didn't do any speed test up there but when I was using my phone up there I almost had full bars and had the best service I've experienced on the property. Good call on the lightening arresters, I don't have any currently installed, do you have any that you would recommend?

I don't think this topic is taken seriously enough, till a tragedy wipes out one of our forum members... but we probably won't know about it, cuz they're dead! My antenna is in the attic, so I'm good.
Ok, jokes aside, anyone erecting an antenna above any nearby metallic object, should definitely check out these resources:

Wiki - Lightning Arresters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_arrester

How Lightning Arresters work
https://www.berkeys.com/2016/11/18/surg ... ter-works/

Happy lightning arresting!

[LTE7B]

I have almost the exact same scenario... macbook and all. Haven't upgraded from the MF279 yet... waiting for advice...

All I know is once I learned that I have access to AT&T Band 14 and that Cat 12 Modems are a thing... MoFi wasnt such an easy choice any longer.

Anyone have any advice for us MacNoobs?

[Didneywhorl]

To answer both posts about the mac.... that has no effect on the equipment. The openWRT firmware for routers "should" be able to take care of all you need via the web interface. You "may" need to use serial communication to the modem directly for certain tadks, but those needs are atypical I believe.

TLDR: Macbook is fine.

NOW, my opinion. If you want to use the cat12 modems and higher, your better off using an LTE router that has an m.2 key B socket/interface instead of a mPCIe. Otherwise you have to also buy an adapter and those adapters bottleneck your cat12+ modem down to cat4/cat6 max speeds. Especially if your using a mofi equivilent (WE826) because it only uses 100Mbps LAN ports. Its a fine router, but a waste of money to pair it with any modem over cat6.

However, if your router has a usb 3.0 interface, AND can accept usb tethered modems via said interface AND has 1000Mbps LAN ports, then cashing up to a cat12 or higher modem can work. Buy an m.2 usb3 enclosure from thewirelesshaven.com, a 2.5A micro usb power supply, and your modem of choice cat12 and above. Plug said modem into the adapter. Plug the micro usb power supply to it. Plug the usb connection to your routers tether supported port, and you should be pretty close to golden.
The devil is in the compatability details. If the guy who makes rooter/goldenorb for routers (dairyman of ofmodemsandmen) has already supported your router, then at worst you can ask him to recompile firmware with support of your modem.

[gscheb]

Hello,
If you have these antenna setting outside waiting on router to be hooked up make sure to tape those ends so no moisture gets in them.

Have a question about a post on this

NOW, my opinion. If you want to use the cat12 modems and higher, your better off using an LTE router that has an m.2 key B socket/interface instead of a mPCIe. Otherwise you have to also buy an adapter and those adapters bottleneck your cat12+ modem down to cat4/cat6 max speeds. Especially if your using a mofi equivilent (WE826) because it only uses 100Mbps LAN ports. Its a fine router, but a waste of money to pair it with any modem over cat6.

However, if your router has a usb 3.0 interface, AND can accept usb tethered modems via said interface AND has 1000Mbps LAN ports, then cashing up to a cat12 or higher modem can work. Buy an m.2 usb3 enclosure from thewirelesshaven.com, a 2.5A micro usb power supply, and your modem of choice cat12 and above. Plug said modem into the adapter. Plug the micro usb power supply to it. Plug the usb connection to your routers tether supported port, and you should be pretty close to golden.

When you said to plug usb connection to your routers tether support port and run it thru that router.
Can this be done with any kind of router? Do you need GoldenOrb firmware loaded on to something somewhere?

[Didneywhorl]

No, not any router. But many do support usb tethering out of the box, Peplink is good at supporting it. Goldenorb firmware can support usb tethering depending on the build of firmware per the device.

Short answer, its possible, theres just too many variables to universally say yes.