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Aerial advice

neelpeel

Casual Member
Hi all,
New here and looking for some advice.
I'm in rural Aberdeenshire (what3words: dumpy.floppy.octopus) and could be another couple of years before any form of FTTP gets to me.
I gave up on my fixed line internet (3Mbps down/0.5Mbps upload on a good day) earlier in the year and, after a bit of browsing, went with a 4G setup with a Poynting XPOL-A0001 4G antenna with a TP-Link MR6400.
Seemed reasonable at first - usually between 5-12Mbps and 1Mbps upload.
Main problem is consistency. I'm often getting dropouts during Teams calls and dropping to 1Mbps downloads. Something has to change.

The Poynting limitation is with the 5m cable length which means I have it mounted halfway up my wall outside with no LoS to a mast. I was fixing the TV aerial last week and I can see mast 526085 (only 1/2 mile away) from the chimney.
I think I have a couple of options...
- Get another LTE aerial, but probably a directional one, and stick it on a pole on the chimney breast. I should get LoS, but the cable length would be around 8m. I could reuse my router though.
- Get a Mikrotik SXT LTE6 ...that I keep reading about here :-) ...and stick it on a pole on the chimney breast.

I'm not exactly a tech genius...If I go for the SXT LTE6 what is the cheapest way of getting a wifi signal that maybe 10-15 devices could use? Also, any recommendations on cables?

Would locating the 4G aerial/receiver near to my TV aerial cause any issues with 4G or TV signal?

Any limitations on the mast that I'm trying to get a signal from? I put my Vodaphone sim from my router into my phone and when up at the chimney breast I was getting -90Db RSSI using Mastdata (no idea if that is any good or not). But Cellmapper shows the Vodaphone signal as missing me I think (I am at 'X')...
1639481509397.webp


All thoughts / advice welcome!
 
Oh, and please bear in mind that I'm coming from barely useable signal so as long as I can get to a minimum of 15-20Mbps minimum I'll be a happy chappy!
 
First things first, there are no guaranteed speeds - all you can do is try maximise your signal to ensure that that link is not the bottleneck.

Secondly, the Vodafone signal doesn't 'miss' you according to cellmapper, its much more likely that that cellmapper doesnt have enough data to fully fill the 120degree normal span of the signal from that sector - unless there's a massive hill in the way entirely blocking the rest of that signal but it doesn't seem so since the mast is on top of the hill.

Does your MR6400 report the current signal metrics with your current setup? Particularly RSRP/SINR as RSSI isn't particularly useful on its own, and even less so from a phone instead of the router - you've changed all the variables!

Our of interest have you tried any of the other providers? It seems all 4 are hosted from that same mast, though as they all cover a vast area, the slice of the spectrum pie that you'll be getting is likely to be small - and could very a a fair amount, as you're finding.

If you did go for a SXT then you could still use your MR6400 router for the Wifi, as I assume you do currently?
The SXT would be connected via ethernet to the LAN/WAN port on the MR6400 - that might need to be set explicitly to WAN use, if there is a configuration for that in the UI.
 
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@GavinAshford Thanks for the tips.
That's good news that I can use that I can use my MR6400. I had assumed that I needed a new unit with PoE? Or do I need a separate feed for power to the SXT?

I'm using the TP-Link Tether app for the MR6400. No info on there at all regarding signal. There is an option for WAN / 4G though.
'Network Diagnostics' sections only states "Great! Your network is online" ...hmmm
Are there other apps that can access the router data?

Oh and the Mastdata values I was just using as a basic signal comparison in different areas around the house. Chimney definitely the best signal and seemed I good enough increase from the existing aerial location to invest in something new.
 
Assuming you're talking about the 'kit' version then that should come with everything to power the SXT.
Power adapter and injector, with the male end of the injector plugging into the MR6400 WAN port and the female would receive the ethernet from the SXT (through which the power would flow back up to the SXT).
1639488191330.webp



I dont know if your MR6400 web UI looks like this random youtube video's, but it shows the 4G metrics... you probably need to be looking at the browser version of the UI, rather than any app.
1639488799052.webp
 
Band 20 is usually pretty bad speed-wise, you may wish to look for other providers with Band 3/7 or better.
 
Band 20 is usually pretty bad speed-wise, you may wish to look for other providers with Band 3/7 or better.
OP is in the sticks... from Cellmapper only EE/Three have Band 3 deployed at their local mast. Its not surprising that Vodafone, who they appear to be using, don't have more than B20 given thats their primary 4G frequency and given its location.

I'd also add that it's also a bit of misnomer that B20 is generally bad for speed.
A single device connected to B20 for a given spectrum bandwidth (e.g. 10Mhz) would see the same throughput as if it were connected to 10Mhz of B3 or B7. It's more that lower frequencies cover a greater area than higher frequencies so the number of devices served from a single site is greater compared to the number of devices served by a higher frequency band and therefore each connected device gets a smaller number/percentage of the finite radio resources allocated, which results in a lower throughput.

Vodafone/O2 generally have a lower mast density than Three/EE as V/O2 own/deploy a larger spectrum portfolio in lower frequencies for 4G and so their sites don't need to be as closely/densely located as EE/Three who own /deploy higher frequency 4G, but that does mean with V/O2 you'll more likely to see a lower throughput, as each of their less densely located sites serve more devices.
 
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The SXT is a fully featured router with firewall and NAT and everything else you might wish. So one option would be to use the existing TP-Link purely as a Layer 2 device, a switch and wireless access point. This will make management access to the SXT easier as well.

Which way you go really depends on how much network customisation you have, special routing or fixed IP addresses, VPN etc.
 
The SXT is a fully featured router with firewall and NAT and everything else you might wish. So one option would be to use the existing TP-Link purely as a Layer 2 device, a switch and wireless access point. This will make management access to the SXT easier as well.

Which way you go really depends on how much network customisation you have, special routing or fixed IP addresses, VPN etc.
That's sounding more and more like the best option.
No fancy customisation or VPNs needed. Just plain old vanilla wifi for the family.
 
OP is in the sticks... from Cellmapper only EE/Three have Band 3 deployed at their local mast. Its not surprising that Vodafone, who they appear to be using, don't have more than B20 given thats their primary 4G frequency and given its location.

I'd also add that it's also a bit of misnomer that B20 is generally bad for speed.
A single device connected to B20 for a given spectrum bandwidth (e.g. 10Mhz) would see the same throughput as if it were connected to 10Mhz of B3 or B7. It's more that lower frequencies cover a greater area than higher frequencies so the number of devices served from a single site is greater compared to the number of devices served by a higher frequency band and therefore each connected device gets a smaller number/percentage of the finite radio resources allocated, which results in a lower throughput.

Vodafone/O2 generally have a lower mast density than Three/EE as V/O2 own/deploy a larger spectrum portfolio in lower frequencies for 4G and so their sites don't need to be as closely/densely located as EE/Three who own /deploy higher frequency 4G, but that does mean with V/O2 you'll more likely to see a lower throughput, as each of their less densely located sites serve more devices.
I do have EE in my mobile, although due to rubbish signal in the house I use Wifi calling. But I guess I could simply try the SIM in the SXT once up and running to compare signal.
 
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One thing I did consider trying is getting extensions for the two leads from my Poynting antenna and moving it up to the chimney breast. It would need to be about 9m total - so about 4m extension, if such a thing exists? Am I more likely to lose too much signal with the longer cable and extra connections for it to be worthwhile?
Also, can anyone advise if positioning the 4G aerial near to the TV aerial may cause interference to either?
Thanks all!
 
OP is in the sticks... from Cellmapper only EE/Three have Band 3 deployed at their local mast. Its not surprising that Vodafone, who they appear to be using, don't have more than B20 given thats their primary 4G frequency and given its location.

I'd also add that it's also a bit of misnomer that B20 is generally bad for speed.
A single device connected to B20 for a given spectrum bandwidth (e.g. 10Mhz) would see the same throughput as if it were connected to 10Mhz of B3 or B7. It's more that lower frequencies cover a greater area than higher frequencies so the number of devices served from a single site is greater compared to the number of devices served by a higher frequency band and therefore each connected device gets a smaller number/percentage of the finite radio resources allocated, which results in a lower throughput.

Vodafone/O2 generally have a lower mast density than Three/EE as V/O2 own/deploy a larger spectrum portfolio in lower frequencies for 4G and so their sites don't need to be as closely/densely located as EE/Three who own /deploy higher frequency 4G, but that does mean with V/O2 you'll more likely to see a lower throughput, as each of their less densely located sites serve more devices.
Nailing my moden to H3G B20 in a semi urban environment delvers a solid >80Mbps, or B20 + B32 (1500MHz SDL download only) in 4G+ mode even better aproaching 100MBps

Leaving modem in "Auto" mode it hunts B3 or B1 and flips between them based on RSSI/SINR strength. Consequently downloads peak around 8 MBps because B1 & B3 are so congested or the cell is massively over subscribed

As he says B20 is the background/long range frequency which ensures that the networks can claim 4G coverage everywhere & the prized 4G symbol appears on your smartphone. The upside is if the mast is undersubscribed you'll still get great performance even if its nearly always preferable to connect on the highest frequency band possible for better performance, subscriber numbers dictate everything....
 
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If you go ahead with the SXT then just post up any questions. Default configuration will give almost all you need but a few tweaks may be beneficial.

Ideally the specific SXT you want is "SXT LTE6 Kit" as shown in the link above. "Kit" means LTE modem is included and "LTE6" is Category 6 version. Having said that I use the previous model "SXT LTE Kit" and at my location I wouldn't actually see any benefit from the Cat 6 model.

Going with my idea, the TP-Link would need its DHCP server disabled, and its IP address changed. Then you connect it to the SXT from one of its LAN ports.
 
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