help with 3g on farm

P

pjbouwer

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Oct 16, 2007
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Location
bloemfontein about 2km on jagersfontein road
i get only 2 bars, in the main bedroom but i MUST move it to another room where i get no signal at all so a guy at a cellphone shop told me to buy a yagi antenna and connect it with the antenna i got with my datacard. but it doesnt make my signal stronger it only make me able to move the antenna where a 3g spot is where still 2 bars are but the last week when i play age of empires 3 online it dissappears and i lose my match so is there any other tips i can use?
 
There must be something wrong if you still get 2 bars with the antenna.

You mention connecting the Yagi antenna with the antenna you got? That doesn't make sense. Maybe post a picture of your setup?

You should mount the Yagi antenna outside to get better signal. You should get at least 2 bars more with a properly installed antenna.

Where roughly are you?

PS. Welcome to the forum, I am sure you will get ninja'd by TIAL soon...
 
that small flat black antenna i got with my option fusion card i cut of the cord and link it with the new antenna i bought for R180 at ellis. i did not find a socket to that goes into the data card so i used the original small flat antennas socket instead. but my signal is soooooo sensitive before i installed the antenna. if i moved my pc box like 5milimeters the signal gets lost. but with the new antenna i was everywhere on the roof it only goes 2 bars and goes away to none, not once i got 3 bars or so. i live about 2km outside bloemfontein on the jagersfonteinrd. sorry cant view the pic.
 
You must get a LPDA antenna, not a yagi. The LPDA antenna was developed to work with 3G/HSPDA where the yagi only works with normal voice calls.

Look at poyntingdirect.co.za to buy this for your datacard.

I live more than 10km out of town and connects to a tower 8.8km away with the LPDA antenna and get download speeds of 1.5Mbps, I am also able to remain connected for weeks without signal ever dropping.

Regards

FireTelkom
 
pjbouwer said:
that small flat black antenna i got with my option fusion card i cut of the cord and link it with the new antenna i bought for R180 at ellis. i did not find a socket to that goes into the data card so i used the original small flat antennas socket instead. but my signal is soooooo sensitive before i installed the antenna. if i moved my pc box like 5milimeters the signal gets lost. but with the new antenna i was everywhere on the roof it only goes 2 bars and goes away to none, not once i got 3 bars or so. i live about 2km outside bloemfontein on the jagersfonteinrd. sorry cant view the pic.
Click to expand...

Maybe the socket/connector is your problem. How good a connection did you actually make? www.poynting.co.za can organise a cable for you. You just tell them what card you have and the connector type that is at the end of your Yagi. If you don't know, send them a pic.

Firetelkom could be right too, are you sure your Yagi is specified to work in the UMTS (2.1 GHz) band? R180 for a 3G antenna sounds fishy to me. Maybe you have a GSM 900 MHz antenna. They typically sell those to farmers in rural areas for improving voice reception.
 
To the best of my knowledge, Ellies only make TV antennas and these will not work with the datacard. As mentioned by the other guys, bet hold of Poynting and get the right antenna and cable and you should see a huge improvement.
 
FireTelkom said:
You must get a LDPA antenna, not a yagi. The LPDA antenna was developed to work with 3G/HSPDA where the yagi only works with normal voice calls
Click to expand...

Actually a yagi specificaly designed for UMTS 2100MHZ would be better than a LDPA (which is effectively a good multiband approximation).

However on the local market a LPDA is probaly the best bet (all that is available to the best of my knowledge) ;)
 
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You could also try www.spacetv.co.za. I see they sell a 3G/HSDPA Yagi external aerial for R299. They also sell the pigtails for R69. I'm not sure how it compares with Poynting's LPDA one but you could ask them as I haven't tried it myself.

I wouldn't recommend that you try to construct your own pigtails to begin with as the connectors often require special tools or jigs to connect them properly to the microwave cable. You can lose a lot of the signal at the joint between the connector and the cable if this is not done correctly. There is lots of information available on the Internet about how to assemble pigtails correctly if you want to learn more about microwave antenna techniques. In some cases you may be able to get by using TV coaxial cable, a soldering iron and a makeshift connector but this approach is not recommended at least until you have a working setup. The microwave connectors themselves are also quite expensive and difficult to source.

http://www.spacetv.co.za/stores/spacetv/articleimages/ASPC3G.pdf
 
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I am also having a problem. According to the vodacom coverage map I am on the edge of the 3g coverage. I mostly get 2G connection and only some times 3G.
Will a antenna help me, and if what tipe.
I am using the vodafone USB modem.

Thanks
 
rjac said:
I am also having a problem. According to the vodacom coverage map I am on the edge of the 3g coverage. I mostly get 2G connection and only some times 3G.
Will a antenna help me, and if what tipe.
I am using the vodafone USB modem.

Thanks
Click to expand...

(Supposedly) switching your profile to 3G Only should help. Your modem is then forced to use only the 3G Signal it picks up.

Now this is where my argument comes in. You're right on the edge of 3G Coverage, which means your strongest signal is GPRS. And as you said, you mostly pick up GPRS, so if your switch to 3G Only, (logically) chances are that you'll be stuck with little 3G signal, or no signal at all.

AFAIK, VMCLite doesnt have the option to force 3G(Except for version 3). So i'd suggest installing Version 9.2 (or version 7.03.005.) to allow you to force 3G Only.

If that dont help, try the Antenna ;)
 
Thanks for the help. It is working nice to see a blue light and not green.
 
I would also like to know how you got it working, did you get a antenae for the modem or did you change the settings and what modem are you using?
 
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