Some advice for my setup please!

ctincher · EVDO Newbie Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 1

Hello everyone,

I'm someone who has been dealing with pretty spotty off and on evdo alltel coverage. I live in a rural area, only option for high speed, you know the drill. I'm looking to pick up an antenna, maybe a booster, and a router to get things going smoothly in my home for multiple PC's. Anyway, here are the specifics.

I live about 1.2-1.5 miles from a tower almost directly south of me in southern Illinois along I-57 near Goreville. If I drive down the road just a bit and sit under the tower it maxes out at -75 dBm, and at my house I'm only getting anywhere from -85 to -100, or sometimes long periods of 1x speeds.

I live in a pretty densely wooded area, but if not for that, I believe I could see the tower, so I'm not too sure what is causing my lower ratings. Could the trees be the problem? I'm thinking I should get a directional antenna and point the sucker right at the tower. Would that give me an increase in speed or am I just out of luck?

What kind of antenna would everyone recommend I use. It needs to be compatible with Alltel's Pantech UM150. On that same note, what would be a compatible router that's good enough to give a signal both upstairs and downstairs and 30 or more feet away.

I don't know a lot about all of this stuff, and I'm provdided all the information I can think of. I would really appreciate any and all help the experts here can offer.

Let me know,
Corey

F34R · EVDO Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 168

My situation is almost exactly like yours. I am about 3.5 miles from the tower in a direct line. I have a LOT of trees, 30-40 feet high, between my house and the tower. My signal without the antenna hooked up is 72-75, sometimes higher. With a simple trucker antenna, my signal is -60 to -62. I think I have about 32 feet of cabling from the antenna to my router without any signs of significant signal loss.

Hollywood · EVDO User Joined: 23 Mar 2008 Posts: 33

I was in the same shape low signal high dbms I live in WV and have a couple of mountains and lots of trees in between me and the tower I am about 4 miles from the tower by the way the crow flies my dbms were staying in the high 90s and had 1 to2 bars I got a * amp and a yagi antenna and it helped some then I got this antenna and now I keep a full signal and my dbms stay at a steady 74. I highly recommend this antenna. http://www.hyperlinktech.com/item.aspx?id=225
hope this helps it sure helped me! I am using the UM150 and a MBR1000 and a * amp and have the antenna about 15 feet on a mast on top of my house. Even through thunder storms my signal stays good.

whyzeman · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 103

Those trees are definitely a factor. I live in a wooded area as well. From November to mid-March, I was getting a steady 1.5-2 Mbps. As soon as those leaves bloomed, I was lucky to get 500 Kbps with signal strength in the mid to high 90s.

I understand that Yagis won't work through trees (they need direct LOS), but as a newbie I could definitely be wrong on that. I bought the booster advertised here with no help, but I bought a mag-mount antenna and struggled with it until I realized that it needed a ground plane. I still don't think I did the "groundplaning" right (mounted a 12x18 thin steel plate on the side of my house - I'm going to make a topic on that later), but there is slight improvement. So, now, I'm holding in the 70s in signal strength with about 650-700 Kbps.

If I put the mag-mount on top of my car and drive to the interstate exit (about a quarter mile from my house out of the trees), the signal strength drops into the low 60's and I get approx. 1.5 Mbps again.