Bettering my 3G signal

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shaanl

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I know this has been discussed plenty in these forums, but I "think" my situation might be a little different to others.

I stay in Linbro Park in Johannesburg, the tagline for this area being "Country living in the City", and it's exactly that. I am surrounded by trees and a lot of open space, and my 3G signal sucks!

I have a Huawei E367 connected to a TPLink MR3420 using 8ta. The modem shows a blue light so I'm assuming that I am connected to 3G, at a speed of average 1Mbps.

On the property there is a tennis court with high poles for lights, and I have spoken to my landlord about maybe putting up an aerial on one of the poles to get a better signal, and he says its fine. The closest pole however is about 10m away and has a tree right next to it. I do have an active 20m USB cable which does work with the modem and router (but I haven't been able to get to the roof to actually check if the reception would be better, waiting for him to bring me a ladder so I can get on the roof). The cottage I'm staying in also has trees all around it, higher than the top of the roof.

As I see it, I have two options, first one being to try put the modem on the roof (in a plastic container) and see if I can get better reception there, or, buy an aerial to put on one of the light poles and attach the modem to the aerial outside using the USB cable.

I know there are some aerials that can boost the signal (Outdoor High Gain GSM Antenna 11dBi from DBG or a Yagi aerial), however I would like to know if any of you have any experience with which one will work best in my situation. I don't want to have to go out and buy different aerials just to test (I'm not being stingy! Just dont want to waste money :) ).

I'd appreciate any advice.

Thanks!
 
Cool, thanks Sneeky, I'll give them a call. I've actually just received a PM now from the 8ta guys saying that I'll probably receive poor coverage with the LPDA11A antenna, sucks.
 
Don't use USB extension. It effectively reduce your choice to two options, all with external antenna.
1. Modem with router on the roof (pole - whatever), Ethernet cable or wireless connection to the receipient. Matter is to suppliy power to the router.
2. External antenna with long cable to your house and modem/router inside house. It will lose some signal strenght, but still delivers clean signal to the modem, important for 3G speeds.
 
Last edited:
Thanks sajunky! How come you don't suggest the USB extension? It is an active USB extenstion
 
shaanl said:
Thanks sajunky! How come you don't suggest the USB extension? It is an active USB extenstion
Click to expand...
Active should be fine. :)
Remember that directional antenna is still an option!
 
I'm thinking of using both to extend the range. I've asked the 8ta guys what aerial they recommend as they said the LPDA11A antenna might not work so well, is there a better aerial that I could use? Even a DIY one....
 
If they say so, they might have a reason. I was unable find meassurement drawings for this antenna. The one which works for sure is LDPA-A0021.
 
I only find the LPDA-0044 on the poynting site, has this maybe replaced the LPDA-A0021?
 
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