Forum Discussion
External Antenna Makes Massive Difference For Me!!!
Ok I decided to see what an external antenna would do and wow.
I got the kit from Waveform as it’s an ok price and reputable money back company.
So I have an n41 tower 3 miles to the SW, a B66 .5 miles to the W, and a n71 2 miles to the NW.
If I put the can in the NW window it get the B66 ok and never holds the n71 for long. If I put the can in the S window it just does not hold the n41 or the B66.
So I have been living with the can in the NW window with the B66 and 75/25 average and solid for days on end slow and steady.
I wanted the n41 tower as my test show it rock on my phone so I figured let’s see if an ext ant can do anything.
So remember can in S window cannot get the B66 to the W and also n41 is to weak. Open up can, remove 3 and 4, snap on new leads, put can back together, hook up ext ant that is just outside window aimed right at the n41 tower. Time to rock great signal and 650/110 speeds.
So not that bars matter but in the NW window B66 was 3 bars almost -100dBm with SNR of 10db so ok but not great. Now in the S window where I had nothing really of used mounting the ant just outside I have that B66 at -76dBm but SNR is 7db 4 bars speed is good. Also that n41 comes in at 4 bars and wow -81dBm with an SNR of 7db so ok. So huge improvement in signal strength and overall quality slight degradation in SNR but bigger ant picks up more of what you don't want too.
They say you will get 9db improvement I have more so I am happy. I mean the b66 improved over 24db and I am not even pointing the ant at that tower. Also if I could get the n41 it was -107db now wow that is at -81db so again same massive gain in power.
The cable they give you is huge 30ft and as thick as your pinky. If this works out for several days I think I need to order a shorter cable as this is to much in my case I need like 3-5 ft max. As you see for testing I have the cable run thru the window with duct tape holding the gap. Again I don't want to go drilling holes until I decide this is good for several days and I am keeping this setup. Plus maybe since my run is so short I can go with a thinner cable and way shorter.
Again only time will tell if this setup hold for several days solid but initial results are looking good.
Read through several posts on the T-mobile Home Internet Facebook group you mentioned, Bond, and one stuck out for me in particular, which is pretty much the polar opposite of your experience with an external antenna. A person installed an external antenna and lost their connection completely and doesn’t know what they did wong. One person suggested their sim card might be a little out of position.
Okay, I know that’s a worst case scenario, especially if they can’t get their connection back without exchanging their gateway, but another reason I can add to the pile of reasons it is taking a risk. My main reason for not getting it is that I’m used to crawl speeds on DSL so the 200 down average I get now with TMHI is blazing.
There was one post on the Facebook group I liked especially of a guy getting speeds in the 200s and very happy to ditch his 1G speeds with Cox at $180/month. Realistically, unless you have like 5 kids all downloading games or watching different 4K TV programs, or a real need for speed because of frequent work-related uploading/downloading, the speed part alone isn’t all that important between getting 200 and getting 600.
However, I can see how an external antenna might help some people get better latency and maybe even fewer disconnections, if that is their problem, and that’s part of why I would go for it if it were a simple plug-in, although for me my latency is fine (under 50 on the ping test), jitter is usually between 3 and 5 which is very good at my distance. And after the 1609 update, my minor disconnection problem, maybe once every other day, has disappeared. Haven’t gotten a single disconnection in over three weeks since the update. And of the past disconnections, all were reconnected in the 2 minutes it took to restart.
The Facebook group is good though, because I found a lot more comments there about, for example, people with faulty gateway issues, what their problems were, and if they were resolved with a new gateway. Again though, I’ve been fortunate with my gateway, as I notice no overheating issues or other issues.
I think you are probably right about their lack of testing gateways before they recycle them. With electronics though, sometimes problems don’t surface until they’ve been on for a while. If the problem with the gateway is that it starts malfunctioning after it has been on for one hour, the person testing it would not find that issue. I don’t even know if they have the means of testing something like this without having to find problems just as a user would.
I’m sure that Nokia is doing fine on this deal but I see TMHI as entering a period of exponential growth in this service. It is revolutionary for rural users who were stuck on slow speeds, as well as people who are sick of having their fees jacked up by cable and other providers. The thing that stops it from exploding into millions of users in a month is the reliability, and the variability of people’s experiences with it.
Timsw wrote:
Bond, a bit of good news on your outlaw status. A comment in the comment section of a recent YouTube video by Peter Carcione, another external antenna enthusiast, said they called T mobile about their position on external antennas. I’ll just quote the comment:
“I called T-Mobile. Just got off the phone with them and we had a lengthy discussion about adding an external antenna to the gateway that I have. She told me that as long as there is no damage to the device that I would be able to return or upgrade.”
From watching videos of it, be careful when getting the tabs that are attached to the bottom out, and use any trick people suggest to do it carefully. The little tabs can break as you are trying to remove the bottom. I haven’t done anything to my gateway. But in one guy’s video, he cracked a tab. Of course, the bottom of the gateway will still stay on with one cracked tab fine.
Well when you need an ext ant the choice for TM is let them add an ext ant or lose a customer.
I had no issues with the tabs but I have taken things apart since a young kid so maybe that’s an advantage.
Based on the amount of bad refurb units they ship out you could probably send one back half apart with big holes in it and it would get sent right back out to a new customer. I am exaggerating but probably not far off the mark.
I found a Facebook group dedicated to the can I joined that quite interesting.
Bond, a bit of good news on your outlaw status. A comment in the comment section of a recent YouTube video by Peter Carcione, another external antenna enthusiast, said they called T mobile about their position on external antennas. I’ll just quote the comment:
“I called T-Mobile. Just got off the phone with them and we had a lengthy discussion about adding an external antenna to the gateway that I have. She told me that as long as there is no damage to the device that I would be able to return or upgrade.”
From watching videos of it, be careful when getting the tabs that are attached to the bottom out, and use any trick people suggest to do it carefully. The little tabs can break as you are trying to remove the bottom. I haven’t done anything to my gateway. But in one guy’s video, he cracked a tab. Of course, the bottom of the gateway will still stay on with one cracked tab fine.
OK I just installed the 10/100/1000 switch so now all the Google Wifi pucks are connected at 1000 and speed at all pucks matches the speed of the main puck. Really the pucks are not that far apart and in the past I always had a great connection so no idea why recently with no changes the wifi connection between them went to good/ok dropping the mesh speed. I seen a few guys claiming that Google dumbed them down for speed so they could get ppl to upgrade to the newer version. I kinda believe this could be true as I see no reason for the reduced mesh connection. But upgrading the switch and connecting them by ethernet has solved the issue. If I am going to buy a new mesh it will be wifi 6 not 5 so Google is not getting my business anyways.
So again to summarize what I did to take advantage of my new found speed.
- Replace the cable that runs from the can to the main Google puck as the old in walls cable was not up to par.
- Ran ethernet to each Google puck since wireless connection would only handle 75-80.
- Replaced house switch with gig since I needed the faster connection to the pucks.
At this point I think I am ok and if anymore is upgraded it would be to a wifi 6 mesh sys. But not sure that’s really needed as speeds all around the house are fast enough and every room has an ethernet port if you really want a full speed connection.
gabegellert wrote:
007BondMI6 wrote:
Still holding strong the next day things are looking good still getting 600+/100+.
what antenna did u use, would you be able to post a link
https://www.waveform.com/products/mimo-panel-kit-for-hotspots-routers?variant=39349359476839
There are 2 types one if you have direct line of sight one if not, I used the regular one since I do not have line of sight.
007BondMI6 wrote:
Still holding strong the next day things are looking good still getting 600+/100+.
what antenna did u use, would you be able to post a link
Just now.
Ok so before installing just the can best location in my home 75/25 best case. It was solid at this speed but again not what I signed up for but solid 75/25.
My signal was weak 2/3 bars near -100dbm so really weak and could not hold the 5G signals they would drop soon after reboot so I was stuck with 4G speeds.
Now I can hold the n41 tower so we are talking 500/100”+++ speeds solid now for 2 days.
What were your readings before installing the antenna? download and upload speed please?
dilbert wrote:
Nice description and pics of your setup.
With the outdoor antenna, is it necessary to have the gateway near the window?
No actually you can have it many feet away I just chose this because it was convenient for me. Based on my testing you can locate the can anywhere you need just run the cables to it.
