Antenna installation and alignment

K-Tech said:
Oh shucks I forgot the internal antennas are omni.... total waste of a experiment :mad:
Facing different directions was a total Schuster move :o
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They post rubbish. Your device has two (MIMO) patch antennas, they are directional not OMNI. As device use both antennas at the same time (unless you go to setup and disable one), it can switch between two dynamically, so it can be the same effect as single OMNI antena.
In summary, if you disable Antenna2, you will get directional response. It is good idea to plug 50 Ohm terminator in a socket, otherwise settings can be ignored,
 
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I was moving the B593 around using only the internal (build-in) antennas.
No I did not disable any antennas

:D :D :D :D :D :D
 
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I would imagine that the B593's internal antennas is only 2 pices of wire...
Nope I can't see any wires other than the ones going to the ext. antenna ports

View attachment 136532

However this is not a B593-601 model

edit: sorry I might have posted this in the wrong thread
 
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K-Tech said:
http://opencellid.org/
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Handy-looking tool - useful post, thanks!

However ... on doing a few spot checks versus some physical tower locations and photos in my area, I see there are some definite omissions / errors :-(

For instance, this tower near me is actually an MTN-only one, but is shown as Vodacom on the OpenCellID tool :

MTN 2666.jpg

MTN 40782214.jpg

DSC01383 (Large).jpg

DSC01809 (Large).jpg

Either there's a Vodacom micro base station in the centre (in which case the whole MTN tower is missing); or the MTN tower is mis-represented. There are numerous other errors around my area too, unfortunately.

That's a noble attempt at a collaborative, open database, but to be used with caution, I guess ...
 
Azimuth & jcheek

Here is a link to the original posted link I refered to earlier...

http://www.cellmapper.net/map

Took me forever to find it again, hope it help.

edit: I do however see it does not list LTE on left hand side under networks for TM
 
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sajunky said:
In summary, if you disable Antenna2, you will get directional response.
Click to expand...

sajunky said:
In summary, if you disable Antenna2, you will get directional response. It is good idea to plug 50 Ohm terminator in a socket, otherwise settings can be ignored,
Click to expand...

As sajunky states (with strike #2, anyway), there's actually no way to disable one of the B593's antennas from the 'Web UI.

The only way to do so for sure would be to set one antenna to "external" and then plug a 50-ohm SMA terminator (a "dummy load") onto that antenna port. You'd also have to determine by experiment which physical antenna port corresponds to which firmware port. And once you're done, you still wouldn't know for sure which side was actually the "sweet spot" on the device's radiation pattern.

Rather just drive to the tower lol
 
jcheek said:
As sajunky states (with strike #2, anyway), there's actually no way to disable one of the B593's antennas from the 'Web UI.

The only way to do so for sure would be to set one antenna to "external" and then plug a 50-ohm SMA terminator (a "dummy load") onto that antenna port.
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How it differ from what I wrote? One guy is posting rubbish, some other one is always trying to be more clever - Animal Farm.
Yes, I edited my post few minutes later, adding extra sentence. Didn't get it right first time are you satisfied?
 
I am certainly going there tomorrow, I'll take a walk, it's only one block away.

I can't see the 500m tower on the map using cellmapper or opencellid.

It makes me wonder why I have such good signal readings as all the other towers around me are 2-3km away and not in LOS

Will check tomorrow, but now I certainly would like an ext outdoor antenna depending on tower speed.
 
sajunky said:
In summary, if you disable Antenna2, you will get directional response. It is good idea to plug 50 Ohm terminator in a socket, otherwise settings can be ignored,
Click to expand...

Please show us how this is going to help him connect to the tower 3km away with an internal antenna? Your ramblings are irrelevant.

sajunky said:
So now it is a time to realize that your input was completely pointless, stupid. and your insults only put a light on your own menthal condition. Right?
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Rather appropriate.
 
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Blame me, as I am the one with all the questions due to my initial non interest in an antenna because of my signal strenght/distance.

Edit: You are all very helpful and we all share experiments and knowledge like my Schuster move today! hahaha
 
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sajunky said:
How it differ from what I wrote? One guy is posting rubbish, some other one is always trying to be more clever - Animal Farm.
Yes, I edited my post few minutes later, adding extra sentence. Didn't get it right first time are you satisfied?
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Sorry sajunky, but you're missing the point.

The aim of the exercise is for K-Tech to try and identify a tower with Telkom equipment that supports a higher connection speed than his nearest one, which it seems is putting out a humungus signal and blowing everything else out the water.

The suggestion made was that he actually drive to the potential "high-speed" tower, try to connect from right next to it using the modem's internal antennas, and see if he gets a higher speed connection which would indicate higher tower capacity ("100Mbps category" equipment and a decent backhaul connection).
To do that, he needs his B593 modem to have full receive diversity (both antennas) and the potential for full LTE speed.

No matter what the possible effect might be on its directionality, trying to connect with a modem that has one antenna disabled (ie with one leg cut off) is not going to be helpful.
 
Hopefully we're on the same page here, let's try and make sure ... ?

K-Tech said:
It makes me wonder why I have such good signal readings as all the other towers around me are 2-3km away and not in LOS.
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You get good (nay, great!) signal readings because the 500m tower (the "slow" one) is drowning out all other potential signals from more distant towers. Your modem is - we suspect - selecting the "slow" cell every time because it can't "see" anything else.

What you need to do is take a drive to other nearby Telkom tower(s) - ones that might potentially support a higher connection speed - and try to connect right there, ie take your LTE modem and laptop (and bodyguard!) with. If that exercise shows you the location of a high-speed tower, then you could look at the possibility/challenge of connecting to it from your home location.
Depending on the "fast" tower's location relative to you, a highly directional antenna might help you to do that by excluding the signal from the nearby "slow" tower. But given that your local signal is so strong, it's a challenge.
 
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Another (quick!) international speed test tool

Came across this alternative speed test tool from CNET in a mailshot this morning :

CNET speed test.jpg

Why another speed-test tool when we already have good old Ookla ?
Well for one thing, it's a really quick test - 3 seconds flat !
Just the thing for a quick spot check on international connection speed.

Use it, don't use it .... but if you want to try it, find it here.
 
Reading K-Tech's posts now - interesting. My situation is/was as follows:

1. I am situated inbetween 2 Telkom towers. The one tower which is a 100meg pipe tower is 0.54km's from me (line of sight distance)
2. The other Telkom tower (which is a 30meg pipe tower) is 0.86km's from me (line of sight distance).
3. When I had a demo to see if I have LTE in my area - the rep came out and switched on her B593 router in my place. Now which tower would this have connected to (given that it would normally connect to her own tower - wherever she lives)?
4. Her router showed 1 bar (sometimes 2 bars)LTE and download speed was 12Mbps (no antennas - router internal antennas only).
5. My own router once I got it displayed the same - 1 bar sometimes 2 bars LTE - same download speed.

Bear in mind the closer tower is the stronger one - and I have no LOS to either tower inside my flat - which tower would it have connected to?

Now with 2 external Poynting LPDA-0092 antennas pointing to the 30meg pipe tower I have 5 bars LTE on my router - RSSI and RSRP improved a lot but download speeds remained the same at around 12Mbps.

Interesting!
 
The closest tower should have the strongest signal, so for the demo it would've been the rooftop cell site.

What about taking your findings and reporting the cell site to Telkom? Get a case # to make sure something is actually done. Lots of people have reported cell towers and had a drastic change, including me.

Rooftop...cell site or cell tower?!?
 
jcheek said:
Sorry sajunky, but you're missing the point.

The aim of the exercise is for K-Tech to try and identify a tower
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No. Your posting had a different agenda. It didn't bring anything in addition what I already wrote. Your real agenda was to point out that I didn't get it right on the first time. Otherwise you wouldn't have to escape to the comment like this:
jcheek said:
As sajunky states (with strike #2, anyway),
Click to expand...
 
Azimuth said:
The closest tower should have the strongest signal, so for the demo it would've been the rooftop cell site.

What about taking your findings and reporting the cell site to Telkom? Get a case # to make sure something is actually done. Lots of people have reported cell towers and had a drastic change, including me.

Rooftop...cell site or cell tower?!?
Click to expand...

Both towers are rooftop towers (both towers are on top of the roof of a block of flats). Although the 100meg pipe tower is closer - it is "over a rise" whereas the 3-meg pipe tower is slightly further but more on a level plain to where I am. I wish I knew which tower it connected to.

I did contact Telkom and complained about the relatively slow download speed. Their response was that the 30meg pipe tower was not in the pipeline for an upgrade anytime soon.

Where/how do I log an official complaint with Telkom - is there a specific website for this?

Thanks
 
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