Accidentally shorting an external antenna jack?

zzqzzq_zzq · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 21 Oct 2005 Posts: 13

In a long story that I shan't repeat (but does involve a busted pigtal cable) what would be the effects of accidentally shorting out the external antenna jack on a EVDO card?

Mostly, would it do damage? Fry an output transmitter, etc?

Specifically, the card in question is a KPC650, and we were using the right most jack. (The one that improves transmit power.)

I'm trying to find out if anything is fried in the card, since the person involved is complaining about flakey performance ever since the incident. There's also been some other variables introduced, but due to weather/time issues, they've not been eliminated.

Like today, its clear and sunny out, however, the connection is bordering on unusable due to packet loss. (Can't pull signal strength, since I'm remote, and the router is Linux, and the CSQ numbers stopped making sense when we installed the HyperLink 2.4Ghz antenna.)

I'm more inclined to believe its either water in the cables/connectors, or water still in the tree's, (we've had a LOT of rain in the last 3 days) but since the woman I'm trying to help has been asking if she fried anything, and I don't know, I thought I'd ask.

Personally, I'd think it'd be a all or nothing sort of thing, and its not a "fried antenna jack", since we have had good days since the incident involved too, but I've been wrong before..

thanks for any input....

David

n6gn

zzqzzq_zzq · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 21 Oct 2005 Posts: 13

Hey,

Thanks for the input. That's pretty much what I figured. Is good to know you can't roast anything by doing that..

At about 6.2 miles from the tower, there are LOTS of environmental issues. She being stuck down in a small valley (relative to the tower) is one of the worst. I'm pretty certain we're running into fresnel zone effects as well.

The antenna is up about as high as we can go w/ out starting to involve professional help. (ie: 20' above the roof line atop a TV tower bolted to the side of the house.) We could move the tower, but I really don't think moving it from one end of the house to the other is going to make a difference, since the same line of tree's will be in the way.

We're also using one of the Hyperlink 2.4Ghz antenna's. Frankly the antenna has done wonders..... (IMO)

We've also kicked around buying an amplifier, but that's more money than she's really willing to throw at something that might (or not) help. (Yeah, I know there's a return policy and all, but the only time it gets bad is when things get wet, and since we don't control the weather....... )

Verizon has one other tower that's closer, and I think has better line of sight, however, it doesn't have EVDO on it.

I went out there, and checked out everything last evening. Fixed a aiming error of a couple of degree's, and corrected the polarization of the antenna. It was wrong, but previously had been working fine.

So either Verizon fixed something that was polarizing wrong on their tower, or it dried out enough to start working during the 4 hours I was running up and down the tower yesterday. (<suspects latter>)

<shrug> My suggestions of moving don't seem to be taken too terribly seriously ether. Cool

Oh well,

Thanks for your input (again) Smile

David

PS: Yeah, we've thought about satellite, but since she is a 'home based employee' and requires interactive (ssh/telnet) response, its my impression the bandwidth limits, as well as latency will become an issue.

n6gn · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:04 pm Post subject:

One other possiblity to consider, though it may not be possible/practical, is to put a Cradle Point of similar EVDO/WiFi bridge at a relatively nearby site that is more LOS to the tower and also LOS to the residence. Put good antennas on both Wifi and EVDO (requires pulling out an external EVDO connection on the phone side of the Cradle Point but I hear that is easy to do).

Having this work for you all revolves around finding a location (other side of the trees?) that gets you to EVDO and yet still allows a WiFi connection to the residence.

I suspect that this has the potential for a lot more bang/buck than an amplifier, which unless your cable length/quality is pretty bad, probably isn't hurting you a whole lot. To get improvement with the amplifier you'll want to mount it right at the grid antenna, of course.

Given the path variation you are experiencing, unless you can get the Verizon tower to go EVDO soon, I think you almost certainly want to find a way to get a better path to the current EVDO tower. If local access/layout doesn't allow that, you may have to wait for Verizon to get EVDO on the closer tower.

n6gn