madbilly
Casual Member
Hi everyone,
I've been reading as much as I can on your forums however I've got to the point where I need to ask some questions!
We recently moved house and found that the mobile data connection is very poor, especially indoors because the house has thick stone walls. I work from home and fibre installation is going to take months (Gigaclear, can't find the pot, separate conversation!). I've ordered bog standard ADSL but in the meantime I need a better mobile data connection. I bought an NR5103E from Cex as that seemed to be a good option based on what I'd read here, and it's certainly been better than hanging my phone out of the window! However, getting a strong 4G connection has been tricky (there's no 5G near here), finding that the best option is to put the modem on the outer window sill on the top floor held in place by the half-open window, with this I get about 40Mbps DL with EE and about 7 UL. Not bad, you might say, but obviously having the modem out of the window isn't going to work when it's raining! So, I need an antenna I can stick out of that window, and maybe eventually mount to the side of the house.
The nearest mast is at Birdlip radio station, less than one mile away, but whilst my phone will connect to it the modem will not with EE, though it will with 3 but unfortunately the transfer rates are much lower (~4 Mbps DL and <1Mbps DL). I've also got SIMs on O2 and Vodafone networks but they're not as good signal and according to Cellmapper they're only band 20 masts, not band 3 (and those masts aren't at Birdlip radio station anyway, they're further away) so I presume that the data bandwidth would be even lower. On EE the modem instead prefers to connect to the mast at Miserden, which is 3-4 miles away although possibly a clearer path, because the path to the Birdlip mast could be compromised by all the trees which are close to our house between us and the Birdlip mast. I've used the Ubiquiti ISP design centre https://ispdesign.ui.com/ to try and estimate the topography here, and there should be a LoS to the Birdlip mast and actually a bit trickier to Miserden (the Fresnel zone gets interfered with), so even with the trees I'm surprised the modem prefers Miserden.
Onto the antenna options: I was initially going to go for an omni-directional, cross-polarised antenna with the best gain for band 3 that I could afford and that would fit within the permitted development restrictions (1m max length, 35 litres max volume), however I've read some threads that suggest a linear polarised antenna may be better? Or maybe just cheaper! A directional antenna would almost certainly get a stronger signal, and now I've figured out that Miserden is the way I need to point it then it probably would make sense for a permanent installation, however for hanging out of the window I doubt I'd be able to align it well. I also hadn't figured out if, with the NR5103E and only a 4G signal available (no 5G), whether a 4x4 MIMO or two 2x2 MIMO would be better given that I've read that the antenna connections are for different frequencies... or maybe even 4 separate SISO antennas?! Although, permitted development rules mean I can only have two antenna, one max 1m and one max 0.6m, unless one is targetting sub-GHz frequencies in which case it gets a free pass! I don't really want to get into planning permission territory, even if these are temporary antennas.
Lastly, I can't find anywhere an official document which says which antenna connections are for which frequencies, is there one? I've read lots of opinions on this on the forums but they're not all consistent.
I think that covers it. Helpful thoughts and recommendations appreciated
Cheers
I've been reading as much as I can on your forums however I've got to the point where I need to ask some questions!
We recently moved house and found that the mobile data connection is very poor, especially indoors because the house has thick stone walls. I work from home and fibre installation is going to take months (Gigaclear, can't find the pot, separate conversation!). I've ordered bog standard ADSL but in the meantime I need a better mobile data connection. I bought an NR5103E from Cex as that seemed to be a good option based on what I'd read here, and it's certainly been better than hanging my phone out of the window! However, getting a strong 4G connection has been tricky (there's no 5G near here), finding that the best option is to put the modem on the outer window sill on the top floor held in place by the half-open window, with this I get about 40Mbps DL with EE and about 7 UL. Not bad, you might say, but obviously having the modem out of the window isn't going to work when it's raining! So, I need an antenna I can stick out of that window, and maybe eventually mount to the side of the house.
The nearest mast is at Birdlip radio station, less than one mile away, but whilst my phone will connect to it the modem will not with EE, though it will with 3 but unfortunately the transfer rates are much lower (~4 Mbps DL and <1Mbps DL). I've also got SIMs on O2 and Vodafone networks but they're not as good signal and according to Cellmapper they're only band 20 masts, not band 3 (and those masts aren't at Birdlip radio station anyway, they're further away) so I presume that the data bandwidth would be even lower. On EE the modem instead prefers to connect to the mast at Miserden, which is 3-4 miles away although possibly a clearer path, because the path to the Birdlip mast could be compromised by all the trees which are close to our house between us and the Birdlip mast. I've used the Ubiquiti ISP design centre https://ispdesign.ui.com/ to try and estimate the topography here, and there should be a LoS to the Birdlip mast and actually a bit trickier to Miserden (the Fresnel zone gets interfered with), so even with the trees I'm surprised the modem prefers Miserden.
Onto the antenna options: I was initially going to go for an omni-directional, cross-polarised antenna with the best gain for band 3 that I could afford and that would fit within the permitted development restrictions (1m max length, 35 litres max volume), however I've read some threads that suggest a linear polarised antenna may be better? Or maybe just cheaper! A directional antenna would almost certainly get a stronger signal, and now I've figured out that Miserden is the way I need to point it then it probably would make sense for a permanent installation, however for hanging out of the window I doubt I'd be able to align it well. I also hadn't figured out if, with the NR5103E and only a 4G signal available (no 5G), whether a 4x4 MIMO or two 2x2 MIMO would be better given that I've read that the antenna connections are for different frequencies... or maybe even 4 separate SISO antennas?! Although, permitted development rules mean I can only have two antenna, one max 1m and one max 0.6m, unless one is targetting sub-GHz frequencies in which case it gets a free pass! I don't really want to get into planning permission territory, even if these are temporary antennas.
Lastly, I can't find anywhere an official document which says which antenna connections are for which frequencies, is there one? I've read lots of opinions on this on the forums but they're not all consistent.
I think that covers it. Helpful thoughts and recommendations appreciated
Cheers























