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cggray
EVDO Newbie
Joined: 04 May 2007
Posts: 1
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 Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject: Super Dish Cantenna Los Angeles Adventure |
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Where to start.
So, I live in Los Angeles in the hills facing south into the city with maybe 150 feet of hillside around me on 3 sides.
I am using a KPC650 and Verizon (VZAccess) on a Powerbook G4 and for the first hour or so of using the card i get around 300kbps and then it drops to NationalAccess.
I used the website antennasearch.com to try to find a tower that I could point a cardboard box/foil antenna at, and now im trying to do the same with a cantenna but the website is difficult at best to understand what I am looking for.
I have an old DirectTV Multisattelite dish which i would like to modify into a super-cantenna and point it at a tower to get awesome reception.
So the big questions are:
1)Assuming I build the cantenna and it is fully functional, could i run a cable 100ft from the Rx/Tx plug out to the dish.
2)Assuming all of that works and its just a matter of pointing the cantenna, i assume its just a matter of trial and error watching the kpbs on VZAccess go up and down, or is there a solution like iStumbler/Kismet(Kismac) that will give me ultra responsive kbps readings.
3)Assuming I get all that to work, will Verizon kick me off for "overloading" or noise/signal ratio or melting my neighbor's dogs with the EVDO beam?
4)Any better solutions or ideas, and no I cannot get Cable or DSL.
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n6gn
EVDO Junkie
Joined: 22 Aug 2006
Posts: 337
Location: Northern California
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| Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 5:08 am Post subject: Re: Super Dish Cantenna Los Angeles Adventure |
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| cggray wrote: |
So, I live in Los Angeles in the hills facing south into the city with maybe 150 feet of hillside around me on 3 sides.
...
So the big questions are:
1)Assuming I build the cantenna and it is fully functional, could i run a cable 100ft from the Rx/Tx plug out to the dish.
2)Assuming all of that works and its just a matter of pointing the cantenna, i assume its just a matter of trial and error watching the kpbs on VZAccess go up and down, or is there a solution like iStumbler/Kismet(Kismac) that will give me ultra responsive kbps readings.
3)Assuming I get all that to work, will Verizon kick me off for "overloading" or noise/signal ratio or melting my neighbor's dogs with the EVDO beam?
4)Any better solutions or ideas, and no I cannot get Cable or DSL.
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Sounds like you might be near Sierra Madre where my brother used to live. Right under Mt. Wilson and terrible area for RF. Multipath (from Mt. Wilson signal) was horrible even though signals were strong.
1. Yes, you can run 100' of cable but at that length I'd suggest LMR400 or better. LMR400 probably has a bit less than 6 dB loss at PCS and around half that at 850 MHZ which may be where you are with Verizon. Use the Times-Wire web site to figure out the precise loss if you are interested.
2. Better to start with a ##DEBUG# mode and initially peak on maximum signal strength. That will give you an idea of your margin as well. It would be good to monitor both total signal strength and received power since that may give you an idea of signal/noise ratio (I think). Perhaps your monitor mode may list Eb/N0 which would be the single value to watch. If your location is as I guessed at the top, you may have more difficulty isolating a usable tower than just getting enough signal strength. In any case, measuring only speed is problematic because factors other than signal strength and signal/noise ratio can enter in and fool you. Measure both signal strengths and speed as metrics
3. I have no idea what Verizon will do WRT heavy usage. There have been long threads about there response to heavy users though. So far I haven't seen any similar threads with Sprint. You aren't going to melt anyone. In fact, the near field of a gain antenna is *weaker* than that of a dipole because the transmitter power is spread out over a larger area. It only looks like a "killer beam" in the far field *relative* to a smaller antenna. Your total transmitter power is always spread out over an aperture at least as large as the antenna, that results in smaller milliwatts/sq-foot for a large gain antenna than for a dipole. It's a bit counter intuitive.
4. Use as much antenna gain as you can muster... This means that PCS (Sprint?) would be a better choice than 850 MHz and a large reflector antenna (3 or 4 foot dish) would be better than something smaller. The large antenna isn't just for signal strength but for tower isolation. It will tend to minimize the unwanted tower signals at the same time it maximizes the wanted one, resulting in higher signal/noise ratio. That's what directive/high_gain antennas do.
n6gn |
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