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Tested MC888 and directional NR7101 - thoughts on NR5103E with directional antenna?

justyn

Casual Member
Long story short(er), I was temporarily using both a 3-branded MC888 and also a Zyxel NR7101 (which is directional) in the loft. Both have had to go back (for different reasons) so I'm looking for a replacement setup.

Everything below is on 4G on 3: we seem to live right on the edge of 5G availability and I've found that whenever it would pick up a 5G signal the speeds would drop dramatically, and I found this on the NR7101, the MC888 and my phone (a Pixel 5). On all 3 devices I get a faster connection if I disable 5G, so that's what I've done.

The tower is 1.2km away.

The MC888 came on a 3 contract which I'm cancelling and replacing with a 3 sim-only plan. I needed to buy a hub and since I know where the tower is I thought the directional NR7101 would make most sense, so got one, but ran into a problem.

I had both the MC888 and the Zyxel NR7101 (the directional one) running and could compare, but got these infuriating speed results:

Weekend testing:
ZTE MC888: Download 120, Upload 23.5
Zyxel NR7101: Download 45, Upload 37

Monday morning testing:
ZTE MC888: Download 244, Upload 27.3
Zyxel NR7101: Download 100, Upload 42

Note that the directional Zyxel is always able to get 50% more upload speed than the MC888, but it gets less than half the download speed.

This was driving me crackers until I did the fabled MU5001 Javascript hack on the MC888 to get the connection details (the NR7101 already provides them) and could compare them.

Connection bands being used:
ZTE MC888: B3, CA: B32 + B1
Zyxel NR7101: B3, CA: B1

So I can see that the difference is that the NR7101 isn't using B32, which apparently is a supplemental download-only band. This sneaky band seems to explain clearly why the MC888 is able to get so much better download, yet worse upload.

The better upload seems to show that the directionality of the NR7101 is really helping here - but the bad news is that it doesn't support B32 at all, dammit! So it's going back.

What to replace it with?

I can live with the download speeds of the MC888 so another is definitely a possibility, but I can't really bear to leave extra upload on the table, so I'd like to try another directional option. Sadly I can't really see any up-to-date directional hubs besides the NR7101.

The Zyxel NR5103E with it's external antenna ports seems like quite a good idea in theory because I can set it up with directional antenna for now, but retain the option to flick the switch back to the internal omni setup if there's a problem at the tower (or someone decides to build a 5G mast closer to our house).

BUT there are some things that worry me:
1) You can't just buy the NR5103E direct from Zyxel like I could with the NR7101
2) Nobody seems to be able to say with absolute certainty what the specs of the 4 external antenna ports are, and therefore the possible/optimum configurations
3) I've got to make sure I get directional antenna which supports the B32 band (1452.0 to 1496.0 MHz) which limits options

Regarding points (2) and (3), I'm wondering if its possible to use 2 ports for directional (in a MIMO config) and the other 2 for an omni as a "backup" in case the tower goes down. All this will be in the loft so cables can be as short as possible.

I'm new to all this so any thoughts, wisdom or general ignorance from you fine people is appreciated!
 
Replying to my own post with a follow-up question - are there any directional antennas that work well in the B32 band (1452.0 to 1496.0 MHz)?

Looking online, its sometimes tricky because there aren't always detailed specifications.

The flat ones seem generally to have poor gain in that frequency region.

The LPDA ones have fine gain but high VSWR around B32.

Is there a fundamental issue with that band?
 
Replying to my own post with a follow-up question - are there any directional antennas that work well in the B32 band (1452.0 to 1496.0 MHz)?

Looking online, its sometimes tricky because there aren't always detailed specifications.

The flat ones seem generally to have poor gain in that frequency region.

The LPDA ones have fine gain but high VSWR around B32.

Is there a fundamental issue with that band?
B32 is a bit of a niche band, only for downloads, I guess not very broad adoption.
I see some of the Panorama antennas support this freq range, worth check a better look or just get in touch with them.
eg:
 
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Thanks for the tip, I've contacted Panorama and another manufacturer.

I've also seen the Poynting LPDA-500 which explicitly includes the B32 range. However it's over £200 for a single - it would cost over £400 just to do a 2x2 MIMO setup!
 
Look at Iskra antennas
 
Yeah as dazmatic says look at the Iskra P-62 which can be bought from Finland, great antennas, very high gain. I have a set in the loft, but currently am using the Poynting XPOL-24 with my NR5103E for our house broadband.


See this thread:
 
Thanks both for the suggestion.

The Iskras look ideal in terms of signal and directionality, although pretty large (1m+).

I also got a response from Panorama, they suggested their 2x2 MIMO panel antenna the WMM8G-7-38 which seems to be better suited for band B32 that their 4x4 MIMO version.

They've also suggested that spacing two of the antenna 80-100cm apart might allow them to operate in a 4x4 MIMO configuration.

I'm not really bothered about the 4x4 MIMO but since the NR5103E has 4 ports, I decided to get two anyway.

So I've just ordered two of the WMM8G-7-38-03NJ variant from 3G Router Store, which has 30cm N connector leads, and a bunch of adapters to get me to TS9 (TS9 -> SMA, SMA -> N).

I'll post here how I get on.
 
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