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Old 06-08-2020, 18:12   #1
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Boat: Catalina 30
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Antenna only or M2M booster

Marina doesn't have WiFi. LTE service is spotty; I can get it in some places, so I know I'm not too far from a tower, but where I moor I get one or two bars, and no internet. I need WiFi internet connectivity.

My first attempt was to buy a Netgear Nighthawk M1, which I thought might connect better than my phone. It didn't. Internet was about the same as the phone (nothing in the mooring, out on the water it picked up when my phone did). I also got two antennas, BingFu 4G, about 12". These made no difference (which was frankly what I was expecting, once I saw them).

Here's my question: there is signal, and I need it stronger. Would getting a better antenna be enough, or do I need a full M2M booster? I was looking at something like https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/hot...-kit-wa974471/, but with the hotspot itself the total solution is close to $800, which is a lot to spend for the amount of time I'm using it. On the other hand, Wilson has several antenna options that I could connect directly to the Nighthawk for closer to $200.

I realize that the answer is dependent on the signal in that particular location, I'm just trying to get a sense of the relative effectiveness of the two solutions. I can say that I get about 2 bars out of 5, but if I run speedtest.net it can't connect.

Another possibility that crossed my mind is that the Nighthawk just isn't that good. It looks like the Peplink Max-BR1-MINI-LTE-US-T is only about $250 on Amazon, which is cheaper than the Nighthawk. I bought the former mainly because as a consumer oriented product I thought it would be easier to deploy.

Suggestions?
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Old 08-08-2020, 15:20   #2
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Re: Antenna only or M2M booster

All the devices will have similar performance for LTE signals; the differences will be in the antenna gain (directivity) and the antenna location. You should be using the highest location possible that will allow you to point the antenna towards the cell tower (LTE) or Access Point (WiFi).

Omni antennas may not suffice for this range; you may need to use a directional, like a Yagi. Note that the more directivity the antenna has (and thus higher gain) the more difficult it will be to maintain the antenna’s main lobe upon the donor cell (or access point)

You can also try a diversity play, using a two element antenna like Poynting Omni-402. The two feeds allow the modem module to select the best antenna signal in real time. This also has the advantage of being an Omni antenna, eliminating the need to point the antenna in the azimuth plane.

Regardless of the antenna type, try to mount it as high as possible to remove clutter from the signal path; a line-of-sight signal is the goal.

An M2M booster (e.g. Wilson’s) will amplify the signal of interest plus the noise in that band. If your signal-to-noise ratio is low to begin with, then amplifying will result in higher power levels with similar SNR. Expensive way to not achieve much. It does raise the incoming power level above the noise floor of the modem’s receiver, so it would show some improvement.

My setup is a MikroTik Groove A, with a MikroTik hAP-AC and then a Teltonika RUT240 that provides failover from WiFi to LTE. The Groove antenna is a 9dBi gain Omni, the LTE antenna connected to the RUT240 is a Poynting Omni-402.
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Old 28-12-2020, 13:50   #3
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Re: Antenna only or M2M booster

I’ve been meaning to post an update, if only for anyone else who stumbles on this thread. In the end I bought the PEPLink and a Wilson Electronics 9.88-inch 4G Wide Band Omni-Directional Marine Antenna ($120). I tried to do a side to side comparison, but it is quite hard because service tends to be intermittent, so it’s hard to get a large enough data sample to be sure. I also have not optimized the antenna placement. That said, so far this seems like a better setup than the Netgear. Hopefully I can mount the antenna better in the spring, and maybe update this thread.
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Old 01-01-2021, 21:20   #4
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Re: Antenna only or M2M booster

I have installed many wilson boosters to LTE routers. hard to tell if they really work or not.. but one caution is some boosters are direct connection (ie hardwired to router) but most are deigned for an internal antenna. the 2 models are not interchangeable. both will have the same jacks for cables. so make sure you get the correct one for application.
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