Poynting (sic) an antenna

[bosun]

Does anyone have any tips on aligning a Poynting directional antenna to the appropriate base station.
I use a Linksys router, so cannot judge signal other than "Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent" and have no clue as to which base station I am picking up or where the best one might be.
I live on top of a hill, (with line of site to pretty much the whole of northern JHB) and just watching the cell broadcast on my phone it jumps between 1 of about 6 within a space of 5 minutes, without moving, ranging from Krugersdorp to Bryanston to Fourways to "Georgia 1" and "Strawberry 1" wherever those might be.
Any hints or tips on how to determine the best BTS for data would be most welcome.
Thanks

 

[vodacom3g]

Does anyone have any tips on aligning a Poynting directional antenna to the appropriate base station.
I use a Linksys router, so cannot judge signal other than "Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent" and have no clue as to which base station I am picking up or where the best one might be.
I live on top of a hill, (with line of site to pretty much the whole of northern JHB) and just watching the cell broadcast on my phone it jumps between 1 of about 6 within a space of 5 minutes, without moving, ranging from Krugersdorp to Bryanston to Fourways to "Georgia 1" and "Strawberry 1" wherever those might be.
Any hints or tips on how to determine the best BTS for data would be most welcome.
Thanks

Using the 2G cell-id's probably won't help as you might have better reception from a different 3G tower.

Most likely your best bet is to get hold of an E620 or E220 and put it in a laptop, using ginggs app to find the optimal direction for the antenna.

Point in in a direction, wait 3 seconds and take reading, move a few degrees and repeat. Once you've done a full 360 you should have a nice radiation pattern for your location.

Then plug the antenna back into the 3G router.

 

[Big Kriss]

I got onto my roof,looked for the flashing red lights on the tower and pointed the antenna directly at them.
Full signal,no probs. Granted,mine was easy to do.

 

[CellPoynt]

I agree with Vodacom3G. I have used the E220 tool with great success.... I know that the new version also supports other HSPA cards now...