Does external antenna really work?

@ Chronos - you should be connecting to either Kyalami or Sandton depending which has best LOS maybe even Kempton ?
 
Try a yagi

I have had endless problems with my connection in Fontainebleau. The Northcliff tower swamps everything.

I tried a WBS panel antenna without much success. Today I bought a yagi from Poynting Antennas (just under R1000 with a 6m extension cable), pointed it in the general direction of the Roodepoort tower and everything seems to be working one heck of a lot better. I'll give more feedback after a few days trial.
 
Had major connection problems until I had the WBS antenna fitted (for free due to my incessant complaints to WBS about their product and service).

It is mounted on my TV antenna pole and is directed at the Northriding/Olivedale tower (Bahai Centre).

Have had no problems since then.
 
Report back on Yagi

As promised - feedback on use of yagi antenna.

I have it located on a pole 2m above the roof of the factory and pointing directly at the Northcliff tower (not visible from the roof). I now have -80dB or better whereas before I had around -90dB or worse so the gain of the antenna is around the advertised 12dB.

In Fontainebleau I am in a dip and Nothcliff is far and away the strongest. None of the other towers near me, Randburg, Linden, Roodepoort, give me a strong enough signal to work with. I can get Linden at -88dB if I point the right way, but Northcliff is still -85dB so I can't force a connection to a different tower.

The improvement in connection speed is worth the expense. Previously I battled to get more than 128Kb/s, now it is usually better than 300Kb/s using various speed test pages as a guide. Early mornings I can get better than 600Kb/s until everyone else wakes up.

OK, there are still problems with dropped connections but I think that is an issue with Northcliff.

I can recommend the yagi for anyone with a signal strength problem and R1000.00 available to fix it.
 
well, i use an antenna and it works wonders for me. I was on the Indaba tower originally, and signal was pretty bad. Then signal went up when WBS installed the kyalami tower, but the antenna was already ordered. Speeds are good. About the cable extension, i would really recomment not to, since there is a major drop in RF signal strength when extending the cable. This can negate the improvement, and even worsen the signal from what it originally was without the antenna.
 
I'm about 7 km away from the only tower in my are and i could only just pull off 20-50% with a plain UTD, the antenna pushed me up to 80-90%, but never quite 100%. Pretty bad latency though, and rather slow connections to sites in the daytime especially. Still its definately worth it if you got a bad connection, only R599 for the standard WBS one which works pretty well.
 
Ekhaatvensters, at least you know the Plumstead tower is a good one as I have 100% connection and speed 99,9% of the time with no disconnections except for when I hit my cap.:D

I just hope that this month I go to 64k after cap or I'm likely to go mad.:eek:
 
Ja, know what you mean, took my Iburst to a friend that live about as far as you do from the tower, less than 1km away.I wish my connection in Bergvliet was like that! Nice pings and online gaming works alot better... one thing that an antenna isn't really going to sort out for you completley, you need to be close to the tower for good gaming if gaming is going to be possible at all.
Oh so youre one of them ABUSERS MrH, should have reckoned! ;) stupid cheesy smileys, only way to get sarcasm across i geuss.
 
I would not consider myself an abuser since only twice did I ever get to around 5gb.

All the other months I maybe went about 500 to 800mb after cap except for the last two months when it all went dead as I reached the cap.

If that happens this month I'm really going to be pissed off with wbs.
 
Antenna extension cable

I agree with mic_y that an antenna extension cable reduces the signal, however the tradeoff is to get the antenna high enough to do some good, especially if you are in a dip like I am. RG-174 and RG-58 cable are not a good idea as the losses are high at 1.8GHz. Poynting Antennas recommend HDF-195 which is what I bought.

I don't have any figures on it, but in practice I get better results with the antenna 2m above the roof with a long extension than in an upstairs office without.

Another option would be to put the UTD in a weatherproof box and mount it on the pole. I seriously considered this option but I take it home at weekends (where I get a much better signal) and an external antenna was the better option.

A couple of hints.

Although antenna connectors are supposed to be weatherproof I recommend protecting them from the elements. Tape them up with some insulation tape, or glad wrap or, even better, put them in a box.

Earth the pole properly.
 
abusers

Ekhaatvensters said:
was joking ne... not an abuser i know
Click to expand...
This term has developed a very special meaning for me (and only relevant to iBurst users) and I hope for most forumites. I have the utmost admiration and respect for the subscribers that find clever ways to maximise the use of the resources they have purchased. I wouldn't know where to begin with the 'tweaking' they do (torrents and all that).

Unfortunately, the word is like a red flag to a bull for certain members. You are fully entitled to burn the bandwidth you bought in any way you wish and I don't suggest any limitations being put on what anyone can do or not do.

Please see it as a compliment if you are called an abuser, or at least see the joke.
 
Last edited:
8321 said:
Please see it as a compliment if you are called an abuser, or at least see the joke.
Click to expand...

Hehe, well I agree with you. I have officially been given abuser status, after last month. and this shows on the fact that i got the "death-by-cap" syndrome this morning at 3.15gig's. But yeah, still proud of it...
 
not too clever... hey, you shouldn't really hit ur cap if you know youre an "abuser"! Now ur hardcapped not all that much to be proud of, and not like you can read this... But you must continue to fight the machine of WBS, go mic_y
 
Abuse, Abuse

I thought the subject of this thread was external antennas.

Surely you could use normal e-mail for your love letters?

:p
 
I have an external antennae mounted indoors on the side of my desk. When my UTD does that funky thing where it disconnects you every 5 seconds or so as it can’t decide on which tower to connect to I plug in the external antennae. This definitely sorts out the disconnecting and for a short while the speed problems. After a while (between 1 hour and 2 days) speed dies again and I unplug the antennae. Speed is up until disconnects start again.

So in summary I get some use out of it, nothing remarkable but use nonetheless. Having it outside made no difference.
 
Personal experience...

Even if you do get the external antenna, and you don't manage to get atleast constant 3 lights (while connected), take it back and tell them to shove it.

You'll be joining a VERY unstable network which doesn't give you speed/reliability when you need it most.

I ordered my 1024 adsl today. I'll pay a R100 extra p/m anytime for the stability.
 
Or get someone to place the arial correctly so you do get 5bars and more than -85db
 
lol, havent had a bit of downtime on Iburst yet... R100 for what, but I have had sporadic decrease in performance once so you never know. (ok also personal experience) Its also alot more than R100, Line rental on 1024 is R680 then 3gb accounts are R199 so thats alot more than R599pm right?? The 6gig Iburst options are also cheaper than ADSL then from 1 Nov, otherwise I'd be on ADSL, but when I ordered 192 2 months ago they told me it would be installed by 25th October!
 
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