hedgert
Casual Member
I am in a rural area and am trying 4G as a solution to poor internet. I can get full signal strength 4G (4 bars) on my iPhone in most of the house, most consistently at the front - so I thought a 4G modem would be worth a shot. I bought an Archer MR400 from Tp-Link.
When installed (at the front of the house on the side of a window) I get 50% signal strength on the router. As my house is a 150 year old stone built house with walls several feet thick I decided to try an antenna mounted outside.
There are 2 Vodafone antennas one forward left diagonal and one forward right diagonal from
The front of the house - so an antenna at the front of the house should have good sight lines.
Installing and attaching the antenna made no difference at all to the signal strength reported by the router - which seems odd.
So my questions:
I found a Google post saying there are different versions of my router (Tp-Link Archer MR400) some with external Wi-Fi antennae and some with external 4G antenna. The box my router came in explicitly says “2 detachable external 4G LTE antennas” - so I’m pretty sure I have a router I can attach external antenna to.
But I see antenna I could have bought with one SMA connection and some (like the one I bought) with two. So I’m wondering if I bought the wrong antenna. This is what I bought:
It has two cables/connectors so I removed both of the blade antennas from the router and connected the two cables from my antenna to the two router connectors. As the antenna is mounted outside on the front wall of the property (no walls between the antenna and masts) I expected better signal strength than inside - where the router box is at least partially impeded by stone walls.
Given I see some antenna only have one cable/connector, have I bought the wrong kind and/or done the wrong thing connecting the two cables from my antenna to the two connectors on my router?
When installed (at the front of the house on the side of a window) I get 50% signal strength on the router. As my house is a 150 year old stone built house with walls several feet thick I decided to try an antenna mounted outside.
There are 2 Vodafone antennas one forward left diagonal and one forward right diagonal from
The front of the house - so an antenna at the front of the house should have good sight lines.
Installing and attaching the antenna made no difference at all to the signal strength reported by the router - which seems odd.
So my questions:
I found a Google post saying there are different versions of my router (Tp-Link Archer MR400) some with external Wi-Fi antennae and some with external 4G antenna. The box my router came in explicitly says “2 detachable external 4G LTE antennas” - so I’m pretty sure I have a router I can attach external antenna to.
But I see antenna I could have bought with one SMA connection and some (like the one I bought) with two. So I’m wondering if I bought the wrong antenna. This is what I bought:
4G LTE Antenna Network Outdoor: Dual SMA Male 3G/4G LTE Omni-Directional SMA Antenna for Router Mobile Hotspot Wireless Home: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
Shop 4G LTE Antenna Network Outdoor: Dual SMA Male 3G/4G LTE Omni-Directional SMA Antenna for Router Mobile Hotspot Wireless Home. Free delivery and returns on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk
It has two cables/connectors so I removed both of the blade antennas from the router and connected the two cables from my antenna to the two router connectors. As the antenna is mounted outside on the front wall of the property (no walls between the antenna and masts) I expected better signal strength than inside - where the router box is at least partially impeded by stone walls.
Given I see some antenna only have one cable/connector, have I bought the wrong kind and/or done the wrong thing connecting the two cables from my antenna to the two connectors on my router?























