I'm assuming you have a usable signal when you use only the Modem, because you say "
my signal drops to nothing"
If you haven't tried using the utTraceStar utility mentioned all over the forum, then try it out. It helped me realise that I am getting a stronger signal from a base station 8 KM away, than from the Base station 3Km away. Based on topology maps I figured that the 8Km base station would be useless... mmm
utTraceStar (The latest release apprently also adds support for USB UTD) (assuming you are not running Linux or Win 95 or 98...) If you are running something other than w2k or XP, then you could try downloading a different file from the same site every time instead of using utTraceStar and note the dload speed. (different file to avoid caching) but then you would have to try about 16 different compass directions to get a decent spread of results to decide on a direction to use.
http://seburn.unchained.co.za/Downloads.php
Here's hoping that your Directional antenna is not mounted in a very uncomfortable place because you might need to have someone help you to determine what the best signal is by moving the Antenna.
It might seem like schlep, but do it and you can enjoy the best signal possible from then onwards.
The basic steps you need to perform are (according to my experience and some advice from Webb technologies):
1) Switch the modem off
2) connect the directional antenna
3) Point it in an arbitrary direction, let's say East.
4) Turn on the modem
5) Run utTraceStar and check which "Towers that have connected". The one at the top of that list should be the strongest for the direction you are currently facing. The longer you run utTraceStar, the better the information will be. Then the average signal column will have more meaningful info
6) Make a note of the top tower name and the Average signal strength. maybe make a note of the min and max also, if you want to make sure than there isn't too much of a gap (not sure if that is relevant).
7) Close utTracestar
8) Switch off the modem (for at least a few seconds) (important to not just change the direction, because the modem remembers the best tower while it is switched on and tries to recoonect to it even if you change direction)
9) Point the Directional Antenna in the next arbitrary main compass direction (e.g. South)
10) repeat Steps 4 to 10 untill you have monitored all 4 compass directions.
11) Pick the best Tower from the notes you made.
12) View the area map on iburst.co.za to view the towers are in your area. Check on the
www.IBurst.co.za we site (Get Iburst->Network Coverage)
13) Determine which direction you should point your Directional antenna by finding the location of the selected tower/base-station in relation to your residence.
14) Close utTracestar
15) Switch off the modem (for at least a few seconds)
16) point the Antenna in the direction determined in step 13.
17) Turn on the modem
18) Run utTraceStar
19) The Average Signal should be the same or better as the best noted so far for this tower (-50 is better than -100)
20) If it's worse then point the Antenna more in the direction of where the best signal was detected for this tower and repeat steps 14 to 18 to find the sweet spot.
21) To fine tune, repeat steps 14-19 and try different directions in a 15 degree radius on each side of the best direction detected thus far. Some friends have also said that they get a better signal by changing the height of the Directional Antenna, and the interesting thing here is that higher is not always better...
Any comments will be appreciated.
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