SUCCESS! New blazing speeds with my Grid Antenna.

signal_loss · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 01 Mar 2009 Posts: 11

Well blazing for me anyway...LOL

Just wanted to report my success with my new setup. Got all the info from this site and great customer support from 3Gstore.

I live out in the country here in South Carolina. I had satellite for years but was never really impressed with the speeds and unhappy with the cost. So a couple of months ago I made the switch. My old set up was a um175 with the Omni external antenna. Could not connect to the broadband service was only getting national access. Speeds were horrible. 112 down and 32 up. Ping was 999.

Did a lot of reading around here and decided to get the grid antenna. Spent a couple hours today getting it all set up and finding a good tower to aim at. Any way found the best one and now...

1280 down and 124 up. Ping 263

IMO big improvement! Just wanted to say thanks to all for the great info around.

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grandmsue · Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:13 pm Post subject:

Congratulations! I have good speed now, but really wonder about how the signal will be come spring and summer. I live in rather hilly terrain with lots of trees all around. The tower is a little over 2 miles away, but I do not have a direct line of sight from my house. I am getting Rev A, and just hope I don't have to get an antenna to maintain these speeds. If so, I think the grid type might be best for me since I know exactly where the tower is in relation to my house.

I, too, went the satellite route for two years.

WWAN

If you're signal impared like me, you can improve your signal with the grid antenna by (1) add a 1/2" nylon spacer between the front reflector and feeder assy. This will convert it from 2.4g. to 1.9g. Use the same size screw as the original, but 1/2"longer. This is important, as a screw TOO LONG WILL DAMAGE THE INTERNAL FEED ASSY. This mod produced a small improvement in signal strength for me, but I need all I can get. (2) Obtain a GPS fix at the tower and at your antenna. From these two fixes, obtain a bearing FROM your antenna TO the tower. This number will be your TRUE bearing. Convert it to a magnetic bearing using GOOGLE to find one of many compass declination calculators. Set a compass
to your magnetic bearing and set your antenna to the same magnetic bearing. It will be aimed directly at the tower. Good luck!