Just got the modem, antenna needed as suspected

MarkJC

We received the modem today and i've spent the last hour testing it out.

As expected, the signal is not too great. Plugging the UM150 modem directly into the computer without a cable, we get about -92 to -98 on average. What surprises me is that the internet still works fine at these speeds - we had no hiccups whatsoever, except at one point for a few seconds when it fell to -110. At -92 to -98, speed fluctuates between 600k-900k with a ping about 120ms-180ms. It's raining today, though, so i'm not sure what impact that is having on it.

If I use the Y-cable and elevate the modem about 3ft and rest it on a shelf, the signal averages -86 to -92 with ping 90ms-160ms. At this signal i'm averaging about 800k-1200k. Very pleased with this!

In light of this, do you think an indoor antenna would do the trick? I'd like to bring the signal down to -80 to -85. I should note that i'm rather limited in testing around the house and outside since I have no laptop. But our house does sit at a much lower elevation than the tower.

n6gn · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject:

It sounds like you're doing pretty well inside the house - and on a wet day.

If I were you, I'd try to determine where the cell site is and find a location near a window where I could permanently mount the antenna, either within the device or an external antenna with a relatively short cable. Verify that you have good RSSI numbers there and test it for a few days. You very likely won't need to do anything else.

n6gn

Alex · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:56 pm Post subject:

unless i read it wrong, it seems like you only tested indoors.

you may want to go the extra step and test outdoors/around house, just to see if signal and speeds are significantly improved.

it may help you decide if an externally mounted antenna would be justifiable.

http://www.EVDOinfo.com/RSSI

xrayman · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:22 pm Post subject:

MarkJC,
I understand that you don't have an laptop to test with. If you could borrow a laptop it would make testing much easier.
n6gn has give very good advice in his posting. Depending on what your walls are made of and what siding type is used on the outside walls the signal may be reduce greatly inside your house. By placing the device next to a window on the side of your house facing toward the cell tower could increase your signal significantly. I will caution you about screens on you windows that could reduce the signal. Also look out for windows that use Lo-E glass, they also could reduce signal.
Longer USB extension cables are available that may help you with testing. Use caution because very long USB cables could cause problems.
You also may want to invest in an EVDO wireless router. The 3Gstore.com store sells many good EVDO routers. The router and your UM150 device could be placed near the spot with best signal and then you could use the wireless part of the router to connect to your desktop computer with the help of a wifi adapter or you could just run cat-5 cable to hook from the router to the computer. Using an router will also make it easy to have more than one computer hooked to your EVDO connection at the same time.

MarkJC · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the advice guys.

I'll see if I can borrow a laptop from a friend to test this and find out more on the signals before proceeding.

MarkJC · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject:

Well, I did some testing with a laptop, but i'm not sure if i've learned anything useful from it.

The best spot I found while roaming around was outside on the edge of our roof. (We live in an earth contact house - the back side and edges of the house rests against a hill essentially) I was getting between -75 and -80 there. Here is the confusing part though. My pings were no different than before and in every speed test I ran at those great signals, I ended up with 400k-700k download. I'm wondering if this wasn't due to some issue with the laptop. Is there any logical reason why I could get a greatly improved signal but lower download speed, or can I write this off as bad luck/some other issue that is unrelated to the wireless?

By moving to another room inside the house, I was able to achieve about a 3dB-4dB improvement over the room where the modem currently resides. Height seems to help quite a bit. At this point, i'm not sure what to do. I think i'd like to try an indoor antenna just to see what happens. Are there any special considerations I should give when choosing an indoor antenna?

widgetman101 · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 101

Its possible that when you took it outside the modem picked up a different tower that had a better signal but slower overall speeds.

xrayman · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:39 pm Post subject:

MarkJC,
To help you decide what antenna you will need to buy, first you could do some more testing to find in what direction the cell tower is in that will give the best signal and highest connection speeds. A very low cost method that has worked well for many is the metal coffee can directional antenna. You can buy a new unused gallon paint can if you have trouble locating a metal coffee can. Look on the link below for DIY instructions on the can antenna and much other EVDO info.
http://evdotips.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Coffee%20Can%20Yagi%20-%20Redux