Antenna installation and alignment

This has been a great experience so far sadly no rewards yet, but learning only.

Showing that the 500m tower is not my connecting tower and my assumption
that it was due to my powerful signal was all misleading.
Hey, who knows ? Maybe later Telkom confirms that it is their tower!

Now it makes me wonder why I have such a stong signal if I can't see the tower!

Will find out soon
 
Sweet photo, thanks for posting that. I am planning a new thread on cell towers / sites soon so keep a lookout for that.

Cell C LTE, once commercial, will be a viable option for you for sure! They also have very nice Giga packages with huge caps - up to 200GB if memory serves.

The only real way to get a grasp on cell towers in your area is to do a survey from your roof, assuming you have good visibility up there. It can take time to spot them but your eye will soon adjust. It's just that it's difficult to drive around blindly and look, since we could be talking 25 square kilometres of suburb.

Poynting refer to 35km links but let's stick to < 5km. So far I'm 1622m away (with full signal @ -78dBm and high download/upload) and I saw another user at 2.3km away posting 85Mbps speeds. It'll be interesting to build up a history of distances relative to our cell sites. On that note, can everyone please use Google Earth ground measure for that? There are also mobile apps that work, such as Measure Your Land (free).
 
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Good point, again this will make an interesting new thread.
 
:whistle:
Another thread, won't B593 users get lost? ;)
Will you put a link of all the related threads together somewhere?
 
Indeed I will (link). The new thread will concentrate more on getting to know one's cell tower/site.
 
Azimuth said:
You will definitely fry the device if one of the LAN ports doesn't support PoE injection.
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If you're not capable of DIY and connect power to ethernet, you should clearly not DIY. Just split ethernet and power on both sides and run ethernet on 2 pairs and power on the other two.

Regards the fiberglass box, I guess it will be RF transparent but then on the other hand, how hot will it get in the sun? I'll stick to a simple outdoor antenna thanks. :p
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I wasn't objecting to an external antenna, I was merely stating that it's quite possible to house the internal antenna in a box. Of course you can use an external antenna. The router can sit in the box right near the antenna with a shorter cable to the antenna.

The XPOL-0001 is a smidge over R600. I think that's affordable. Would be nice to see a new version with 2300MHz support though.
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Very affordable
 
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iaywtimnbe said:
If you're not capable of DIY and connect power to ethernet, you should clearly not DIY. Just split ethernet and power on both sides and run ethernet on 2 paris and power on the other two.

I wasn't objecting to an external antenna, I was merely stating that it's quite possible to house the internal antenna in a box. Of course you can use an external antenna. The router can sit in the box right near the antenna with a shorter cable to the antenna.


Very affordable
Click to expand...

It sounds like you need to post this project for us. :D

DIY nutters will love it and those who want to skimp on an outdoor antenna, can.

#NoAntennaProject :p (sorry)
 
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Here you go:

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/how-to-make-a-power-over-ethernet-poe-adapter-19818.html

http://underdesign.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/make-your-own-power-over-ethernet-injector/

http://elabualg.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/power-over-ethernet-poe-adapter/

It's really simple in theory - only two pairs of the ethernet cable are used for network, the other two can be used for power. Very important that you don't reverse the polarity on the power (i.e. it comes out the other end the same way it came in).

d22181d49d4845306cacc2818ff189d0.png
 
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I came across this on a Sprint forum - might explain our confusion with signal strength that people have been posting:

The LTE Signal Strength Scale:

Better than -88dBm RSRP is a strong signal
Between -89dBm and -96dBm is a very good signal
Between -97dBm and -105dBm is good
Between -106dBm and -112dBm is fair
Worse than -113dBm RSRP is poor

Source
 
Teejaybee said:
It's winter in Cape Town - it rains here in winter so the tree is rarely dry - so it's not a solution to leave the tree alone (as much as I like trees) :-)
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I see you are looking for appreciation from others for wrong doing.
 
sajunky, you made a statement that trees are RF transparent, except when wet. Surely this relies on wood density? TJB already tried going through it and got only 1 bar with no change in speed, this despite the tower being close and confirmed by Telkom as being 100Mbps. Clearly the tree is not RF transparent.

Note I'm not looking to trade insults with you, I just want to have a meaningful discussion. It would be nice to solve this particular issue together.
 
Azimuth said:
sajunky, you made a statement that trees are RF transparent, except when wet. Surely this relies on wood density? TJB already tried going through it and got only 1 bar with no change in speed, this despite the tower being close and confirmed by Telkom as being 100Mbps. Clearly the tree is not RF transparent.

Note I'm not looking to trade insults with you, I just want to have a meaningful discussion. It would be nice to solve this particular issue together.
Click to expand...

Note - it could be that my router had not recognised my change in antenna direction at that point - i.e. maybe it was on 1 bar because it was still connected to the low output tower (even though I had rotated my antennas towards the strong tower). I just don't know.
 
jcheek said:
All well and good on a Fast Ethernet (100Mbps, 2-pair) installation.
Just don't try it on a Gigabit ethernet link!
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3G/4G routers don't have Gigabit Ethernet. Besides there is a way to do it (properly) on Gigabit Ethernet.
 
Teejaybee said:
Not at all....it's just that your solution is not a solution at all. Besides - I love trees and I'm not asking for it to be removed - just to be trimmed a little.
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Now I feel better that I tried to help you. :)
Other thought that you can do final antenna aligment before trimming the tree, right? ;)

I am talking about borrowing LTE modem with external antenna connector (and Cell_ID indicator) with laptop, move little bit away from the tree direct path and see it will help at all, right?
 
sajunky said:
3G/4G routers don't have Gigabit Ethernet.
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Bit of a broad statement, that.
We may not have seen any yet, but on LTE devices Category 4 (150Mbps) and up, they should start to appear.

sajunky said:
Besides there is a way to do it (properly) on Gigabit Ethernet.
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Of course. "Proper" PoE has already mentioned (there are in fact two Gigabit PoE modes).

What's been shown here is a DIY version that will work fine on Fast Ethernet only.
 
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