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BiQuad antennas for 4G?

MrDave

Top Member
On my voyage of discovery trying to improve my reception for Vodafone using a home made Yagi for 2100MHz I came across BiQuad and Double BiQuad antennas.

They look super easy to build and they claim and have been proven to have a +13dbi increase.

There are various designs out there, even ones made with Fray Bentos pie tins haha
Has anyone got any experience of these?
 
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Just remember it also increases the interference by the same amount Dave, which is why a lot of people don't see any performance increase with an antenna.
 
Well, while I am waiting for the bits I need to make the antenna, I read about putting some foil wrapped card behind the router to help with the signal.

Wow what a difference, I went from a shaky 10-20mb D/L and 10mb U/L to 49mb D/L and 21MB U/L which is the max Vodafone say I will get in my location, and the SINR is the highest its ever been, that was with only the internal antenna and the foil card. Seems strange that this even works?
 
Not strange at all. It's how sky/satellite TV dishes work - by focusing the signal at a central point (I'm assuming your card is curved?!)
 
By placing a foil at one side of the antenna, you have basically made an reflector to distort the radiation pattern and force the energy out of one side of the antenna to make it semi directional, as opposed to the intention of the design, which was to be omni-directional. Doing this however will almost certainly cause the inductance and/or capacitance of the antenna to alter, as well as the impedance (which needs to stay as close to 50 ohms to present an acceptable voltage standing wave ratio to the radio). If the VSWR gets too high for the radio it leads to energy being reflected back to the transceiver, which could damage it. I am not sure if the power levels in consumer 4G radios is that high to begin with (0.5-3W maybe?), but I believe that the radio power output is managed by the receiving cell, so the EIRP will fluctuate as the conditions and loads on the cell dictate. You could take a chance and run it like this, and it might be ok for a while, but there is a risk you could damage the radio in your router, most likely the output stage of the amplifier.
If it was as easy as sticking a bit of foil to one side of a router there would be no antenna manufacturers. Same goes for homebrew designs off the internet imo. Unless you can measure the antenna you have created with an vector or antenna analyzer, you simply are not going to know what you have plugged into your device.

On the plus side, at least you now know u can gain some possible speed by adding an directional antenna.

If you have a genuine interest in making antennas, you can download lots of free design software, like EZNEC and MMANA-GAL
You can input the antenna dimensions and run simulations in free space and over modeled ground conditions to see how a design will perform before building anything. This will give you an understanding of the complexities and parameters that need to be considered to produce the best results.
 
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Yes, but, Mr Dave if it works for you then go on using it! The worst that can happen is that it fries your 4G router, but that hasn't happened to me yet, using the same work around with aluminium foil. With the foil I can get 4G+ and an increase in speeds by about 10Mbps from 25Mbps. Using a Poynting directional aerial the speeds simply get worse, so for zero outlay I get a significant improvement.
 
Well I built 2 bi-quads for 800Mhz and 2100Mhz, both didn't give any increase in gain, infact they are worse than the internal antenna.

I then built a Yagi for 800Mhz and again no real difference. Not sure I am making them to exact requirements, might have to try better coax etc and more elements.
 
Too many people have tried better antenna and seen no real positive results now, so I think we've pretty much confirmed that the level of signal we get at our routers from the masts is more than adequate for up to 100Mbps from band 3 alone.

(I know, I've seen 110-120Mbps last September using the B535's internal antenna alone.)

The low speeds we see from our masts isn't down to the signal, its down to the backhaul through the carriers core that is low on bandwidth, so they each use traffic management to limit the speeds we get.
 
Too many people have tried better antenna and seen no real positive results now, so I think we've pretty much confirmed that the level of signal we get at our routers from the masts is more than adequate for up to 100Mbps from band 3 alone.

(I know, I've seen 110-120Mbps last September using the B535's internal antenna alone.)

The low speeds we see from our masts isn't down to the signal, its down to the backhaul through the carriers core that is low on bandwidth, so they each use traffic management to limit the speeds we get.
It's like a broken record the amount of times myself and others blame the backhaul capacity but it seems everyone will still try anything and everything to find gold.
 
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Too many people have tried better antenna and seen no real positive results now, so I think we've pretty much confirmed that the level of signal we get at our routers from the masts is more than adequate for up to 100Mbps from band 3 alone.

(I know, I've seen 110-120Mbps last September using the B535's internal antenna alone.)

The low speeds we see from our masts isn't down to the signal, its down to the backhaul through the carriers core that is low on bandwidth, so they each use traffic management to limit the speeds we get.
It's like a broken record the amount of times myself and others blame the backhaul capacity but it seems everyone will still try anything and everything to find gold.

Im on Vodafone....so won't have that issue...hopefully
 
Im on Vodafone....so won't have that issue...hopefully
It’s been about 3 months since I put Vodafone in at my mums place on their B535 and it’s been flawless. They get around 20-40mbps on 2 bars so it’s working well. The area isn’t great for connectivity generally the masts are quite far away but Vodafone’s been good despite that
 
It’s been about 3 months since I put Vodafone in at my mums place on their B535 and it’s been flawless. They get around 20-40mbps on 2 bars so it’s working well. The area isn’t great for connectivity generally the masts are quite far away but Vodafone’s been good despite that
Yeah, I think my main issue is the SINR bouncing, I am sure these routers don't like it. We get the occasional glitch where we are connected to the wifi but there is no internet even though we have 5 solid bars and the B535 says its connected. My nearest mast is less than a mile away and I get 20Mbps down and up, sometimes it jumps to almost 40Mbps down on a good day. Not getting 4g+ so was hoping a directional antenna might help be connect to a mast with CA.
 
Not getting 4g+ so was hoping a directional antenna might help be connect to a mast with CA.

If my experience is anything to go by, it won't make any difference if you get CA because you're being limited to the amount of traffic the single band you already get is currently giving you. I noticed an initial improvement when I got Band 1 in addition to band 3 but once the traffic management noticed it made using CA even worse than just using the one band.

The problem with LTE at the moment is its far more expensive to provide bandwidth over the air than through fibre directly to a location, so LTE home broadband is just being hammered by the increasing number of customers and totally lacking in core investment.
 
When I upgraded my antenna the figures in good weather were unchanged, in bad weather such as rain, snow and fog they stay much the same whereas before they dipped significantly.
 
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Interested in the experience with Vodafone. I always thought they were poor for mobile broadband because they throttle the speeds available in a lot of their contracts. Has this changed? What deals have people got with Vodafone which aren’t speed restricted?
 
Interested in the experience with Vodafone. I always thought they were poor for mobile broadband because they throttle the speeds available in a lot of their contracts. Has this changed? What deals have people got with Vodafone which aren’t speed restricted?
Vodafone Lite is 2Mbps, default is 10Mbps. Avoid these.

You can get the Unlimited Max which is uncapped speeds. There's a deal on at the minute with cashback which makes it about £12.50 a month over 12 Months.

 
Interested in the experience with Vodafone. I always thought they were poor for mobile broadband because they throttle the speeds available in a lot of their contracts. Has this changed? What deals have people got with Vodafone which aren’t speed restricted?
I think back in the days of 3G they were **** poor but ever since the 4G launch their network has gone from strength to strength. Nothing but reliable in my recent experience.
 
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