Ask Slashdot: DIY 4G Antenna Design For the Holidays? 135
eldavojohn writes "This holiday season I will return to the land of my childhood. It is flat and desolate with the nearest major city being a three hour car drive away. Although being able to hear the blood pulse through your ears and enjoying the full milky way is nice, I have finally convinced my parents to get "the internet." It's basically a Verizon Jetpack that receives 4G connected to a router. My mom says it works great but she has complained of it cutting in and out. I know where the tower is, this land is so flat and so devoid of light pollution that the tower and all windmills are supernovas on the horizon at night. Usually I use my rooted Galaxy Nexus to read Slashdot, reply to work e-mails, etc. I would like to build an antenna for her 4G device so they can finally enjoy information the way I have. I have access to tons of scrap copper, wood, steel, etc and could probably hit a scrap yard if something else were needed. As a kid, I would build various quad antennas in an attempt to get better radio and TV reception (is the new digital television antenna design any different?) but I have no experience with building 4G antennas. I assume the sizes and lengths would be much different? After shopping around any 4G antenna costs way too much money. So, Slashdot, do you have any resources, suggestions, books, ideas or otherwise about building something to connect to a Jetpack antenna port? I've got a Masters of Science but it's in Computer Science so if you do explain complicated circuits it helps to explain it like I'm five. I've used baluns before in antenna design but after pulling up unidirectional and reflector antenna designs, I realize I might be in a little over my head. Is there an industry standard book on building antennas for any spectrum?"
30$? (Score:4, Insightful)
Something like this costs 30$
http://www.wpsantennas.com/700MHZ-LTE-4G-Antennas.aspx [wpsantennas.com]
Ebay has things for 20-25$
Did you look at these options before deciding to building your own?
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WTF? Seriously, what happened to /. being a place for nerds?
Re:30$? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:30$? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say that an antenna like a cantenna [napoliwireless.net] would be the thing to look at.
Here's an instruction video [in.com] too.
The main thing with a cantenna is to have a 1/4 wavelength distance between the antenna in the can and the back wall and the antenna in the can shall be a 1/4 wavelength. pin.
Here's also a good site with another cantenna calculator [changpuak.ch].
And when you make your cantenna you should allow for fine tuning of the position and length of the antenna pin inside the can.
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A Chock Full O' Nuts can may be a better choice, and if there isn't one already available, well, then that geek cred is shot, as well as all the fantasies I have about living in the desolate flat nowhere. But such is the stuff of reality. Go buy them some coffee. Better cantenna.
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Chock Full O' Nuts didn't work as well as Bush's Baked Beans, in my early wardriving experience. YMMV (slow-clap pun intended).
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Then build your Pringles Yagi. In my case 1.8GHZ yields a 17cm full wavelength driven element. That's 6.6 inches. You can do half wavelength and even quarter wavelength too.
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He said they're using Verizon, which uses 700Mhz for LTE
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Another way to calculate this: Google "c/1.8GHz" and it'll give you the result in centimeters. Then just divide by two to get a half-wavelength dipole or divide by 4 to get a 1/4-wave ground plane length.
If you want a high-gain directional antenna for >1GHz you're probably best off with a dish, perhaps using a cantenna-like feed horn [wallawalla.edu].
Re:30$? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nerds build stuff nobody else thought of or with material nobody ever expected to work that way.
OR
Nerds like to build things in unusual ways for the enjoyment of succeeding at it.
What nerds don't do is spending hours building stuff they need that they could have shipped to them for little money and is plug and play. At least the intelligent nerds don't do that.
Now if these products do not satisfy, that is a completely different matter.
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"Nerds like to build things in unusual ways for the enjoyment of succeeding at it."
Which is exactly what this story is about...I detect some contradiction in your post.
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From the story:
So no, this article isn't about building for enjoyment, it's about finding an affordable way to get online. Now, perhaps $30 + shipping is within the OP's "way too much" range, but perhaps he just didn't see that item.
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Could buy one (two would be better to allow for disassembly), use it as a reference and a benchmark for his own creation. Then return them (if not destroyed in the process).
Is a 7 Inch Swivel Blade Really Worth $30? (Score:5, Interesting)
Something like this costs 30$ http://www.wpsantennas.com/700MHZ-LTE-4G-Antennas.aspx [wpsantennas.com]
Ebay has things for 20-25$ Did you look at these options before deciding to building your own?
If you're telling me that works and that's the best I can do, then okay, you've got it figured out and I just don't understand antennas at all.
Like I said, I googled and looked for costs. The models that I see on your link that are $30 are 7.72” in length and look like the same things that come with any wireless router. I assume the Verizon Jetpack already has an antenna of this quality. What I was hoping for by asking Slashdot was that someone would belittle me and tell me how to build something more like this [wpsantennas.com] but without the $120 price tag since it's probably just a bunch of metal configured a certain way connected to a balun connected to the device. I know where the cell tower is from my parent's house, I just don't know how to construct something that will function better than the little device they have.
Also, I was kind of hoping that there were really cool designs people knew of that consisted more than just "a big stick of metal you point at the tower." However, like I admitted in the submission, I don't know jack shit about antennas.
Re:Is a 7 Inch Swivel Blade Really Worth $30? (Score:5, Informative)
Myself, I'm a newb radio technician, so I know where you're coming from.
What you want is a "Yagi" antenna. Very directional and therefore, longer range.
Search for "Cantenna"
Also try: http://www.skyscan.ca/Antennas.htm [skyscan.ca]
I had previously found a website that had a good modeling program to show you the lobe of radiated power, but don't have time this morning to find it again.
I'm also not sure what frequency you want to build it for. Some sites say 700mhz, some 1800mhz.
Hopefully someone with more radio know-how can add to the discussion. If you're near south-east BC, bring it by and we'll test the antenna on my (absurdly expensive) service monitor. I'm wanting to build a long range wifi net connecting to several buddies in town, so I'll be watching and hoping for some insightful help on this thread.
Re:Is a 7 Inch Swivel Blade Really Worth $30? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is a 7 Inch Swivel Blade Really Worth $30? (Score:5, Informative)
A cantenna is NOT a Yagi. It's a waveguide antenna.
And a cantenna at 700 MHz is barely feasible. Anything with acceptable gain is going to be absolutely gigantic. You would need a proper Yagi at this point.
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any comment onna phazed array antenna?
or are we still feg specfic ?
pat
Re:Is a 7 Inch Swivel Blade Really Worth $30? (Score:5, Informative)
I would go with a Yagi or a multi element beam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi-Uda_antenna [wikipedia.org]
You could start out with just a half wave dipole .
Here a a very good site to get you started.
http://www.antenna-theory.com/ [antenna-theory.com]
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what's wrong with spending $120? (Score:4, Insightful)
something more like this but without the $120 price tag
It seems to me that if it works, it would be $120 well spent. It would improve your parents' internet connection, which is your main goal, right? It would also require a minimal time investment on your behalf, which should also be a goal for you as you did not mention making frequent visits there. Third, if something goes wrong you have a manufacturer and a vendor to talk to - rather than having to rebuild the damned thing on your own.
One way to look at this is that if you visit once per year (you do see your parents once a year, right?) this will cost you only $10 per month. That is nothing. Besides, if you're three hours from the closest town, what are the chances you'll be able to get anything useful for building / repairing an antenna when you're out there? You seem to be about to start yourself on a project with very low probability of success for no apparent reason.
Buy the antenna and then spend your time building them a home file server to back up their important documents instead. Much better use of time and more tangible results.
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Re:what's wrong with spending $120? (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree. For $120 you are basically getting exactly what the OP described in one of his responses: a bunch of metal configured in a certain way.
Antennas are one of the easiest "geek projects" to do, and if the OP has access to the materials described, it should be a fairly simple (2-4 hours) project...
Actually, just googled "DIY LTE Antenna" and came across this [dslreports.com] . Apparently 4 hours to build, and cost all of $10.
Sure from a pure time/money perspective, you are only saving $27/hr, but IMHO it's time well spent.
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I only semi agree with that. Making antennas out of a bunch of wire is quite easy. However if you're after good performance then you typically want to buy something manufactured. The tolerances on antenna design to get nice high gain lobes require some very damn precise metal work, not to mention potential impedance matching though the use of expensive measurement tools and or very precisely terminated connectors on carefully measured tails (again impedance issue).
DIY antennas typically have a very high VSS
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If the existing antenna is almost adequate, then perfection is not all that important. Any meaningful amount of gain, combined with improved placement, is entirely likely to be sufficient to make a marginal connection reliable.
Indeed, depending o
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*: "Very well" meaning that I went from receiving one ATSC station some of the time, to four stations all of the time. Perfect? No. But it was better than the bunny ears and tunable UHF loops I also had laying around by a practical factor of 4, at least**.
**: Put that in your SWR meter and smoke it.
Puhleese I live in a country where it was standard practice to throw a bicycle wheel on the end of the antenna to pick up a few new stations that didn't quite fit in the normal tuned range of the UHF antennas of the time.
I fully agree with you. If you're after a marginal improvement then whack some crap together and try point it in the right direction. But don't confuse anything you'll make at home with a $120 antenna from the store.
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I completely agree. Antenna engineering is not a trivial matter and if the proper R&D has gone into that $120 unit and it actually works, then its worth double that.
Anything you homebrew will end up being a copy of it, and probably not as good unless you've built a yagi before and know exactly what you're doing.
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If you look closely, the lengths of the antennas themselves are the same on the one you linked to the one that the GP linked. That's because the frequency an antenna is tuned to receive depends on the length of the antenna itself. A simple dipole made out of a coathanger would work fine, as long as they're the right length and put in the right place.
Now, putting a simple antenna like the one described in probably won't actually improve things, because her cellular modem is probably located in a dead spot, w
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You don't want the $30 omni antenna. The directionals on there are more like $80.
A well built cantenna will cost less and work better.
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Someone below points out the Verizon frequencies are around 700mhz. You will want a Yagi and not a cantenna. Should be easy to do. Yagi calculators are all over the Internet.
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I'm not sure if this antenna does what you need, but http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=41160 [l-com.com] , 800 MHz - 2.5 GHz 11dBi Log Periodic Broadband Yagi Antenna $60. If you have the 700MHz LTE that may not work.
I've been using l-com since early 2000 when they were still Hyperlink Technologies and can attest to the quality of their products. We had many of their antenna up for 8 years, only switching them to another model of their product in the 5GHz range so we could get higher speeds with newer radios. They have
Its not really the size (Score:2)
A small active antenna can give tremendous improvement over a passive antena. calculate dipole length based on your frequency, and then look up some simple circuits for active antenna.,
From your post it appeared that you wanted something cheap.
20$ will give you some real good antennas from ebay
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My company has some field engineers who frequently spend time inside construction trailers (usually steel ones like this [vegasequipment.com] which are then located inside steel buildings. Their work is never near a metropolitan area and usually in the middle of nowhere with poor cell reception. They use the more expensive antenna+powered amplifier systems and can usually get a usable signal even when I can't.
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The $30 antennae linked are omnidirectional, which isn't ideal in this situation.
A directional antenna is a better solution in this case - neither side of the RF link is going to move (much). Directional antennae are also linked, but they're $80. (In my opinion, that's right on the edge of the make vs buy tipping point.)
The easiest antenna to construct will simply be a reflector for the existing antenna. The easiest way to do that is probably to put a piece of sheetmetal near the antenna, opposite the di
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Not knowing what Verizon uses for bands, looks to me like the cheapest he'd get away with on that site is $79.95. Remember, he is 3 hours from the nearest town.
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ARRL (Score:5, Insightful)
Start with ARRL (http://www.arrl.org/)
Antenna Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/087259694X/
*The* Handbook: www.amazon.com/dp/087259419X/
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If you are not familiar with radio and antennas, I would not recommend trying to use this book. I am a ham myself. You might go to www.eham.net or www.hamradioforum.net. The hams there will probably be glad to help you design one.
Sounds like you need a WOKtenna! (Score:2, Informative)
As the Jetpack is so small, could you mount it inside a parabolic dish - i.e. WOKtenna?
See: http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
High frequencies = hard (Score:5, Informative)
At the higher frequencies like 1.3GHz (LTE), the wavelengths are so small that the corresponding antenna features are also very small. They have to be extremely precise if you want the gain to actually be at the right frequency, and even then it usually takes some trial and error. Do you have a chemical or laser PCB etching machine, and a cellular antenna analyzer (Saw one SUPER cheap on ebay for $300 once). Otherwise, just making random things could result in reflections damaging your transmitter. This isn't like putting together a 1/4-wave dipole on 2 meters.
But you could try fashioning a parabolic reflector dish and put your existing antenna in the center of it. I've heard of people doing that with cell phones and wi-fi adapters before.
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Unless this is as much an educational exercise as anything else, they're going to want to skip even what you suggested there on DIY as the risks to damaging the unit's moderately high- and for what they'd have to spend for doing a DIY antenna the right way, they're going to spend as much or more than buying a 3G or LTE repeater kit (Typically around $400-800...).
The original poster of the question will thank themselves (as will their parents) for some time to come if they did that instead. Especially with
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But you could try fashioning a parabolic reflector dish and put your existing antenna in the center of it. I've heard of people doing that with cell phones and wi-fi adapters before.
To me this sounds like the easiest approach. But, the reflector doesn't necessarily need to be parabolic, see, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi-Uda_antenna [wikipedia.org] .
Also, before trying to build an antenna, one should probably experiment with placement of the current antenna. Even with LoS and flat terrain (no vertical reflectors), there will still be a ground reflection that can double or zero your received signal.
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Verizon's LTE (which is the context here) is, always, 700MHz-ish, which is well within the grasp of a tinkerer. And I don't see anyone asking for perfect; all anyone really needs here is functional.
To use a computer analogy: No home user cares how well a Cat6 cable performs on a Pentascanner or a Fluke network analyzer. They care that they can plug it in and have reliable data transfer betwixt whatever real gear happens to be at either end.
Similarly, nobody cares how the antenna performs on a multi-kilob
10 seconds of google research (Score:4, Informative)
How about posting some pictures of the milky way? I've only barely seen it once while on Hilton Head island.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27484816-DIY-3G-4G-LTE-Yagi [dslreports.com]
http://bcbj.org/antennae/lte_yagi_diy.htm [bcbj.org]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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that is sweet of you.
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I hear you. I used to live in upstate NY. Every clear night there it was. Most magnificent sight there is on this planet. It caused me to buy a 6" cadiotropic telescope.
Aurora Borealis once in a while too.
Now I live in NJ. I lost:
- Milky Way
- Aurora
- 140 inches of snow per year
Cantenna Waveguide (Score:3)
From my limited knowledge of physics, it sounds like a custom-built cantenna waveguide would be perfect for you, although I can't help you with the design - the length and diameter of the can and the positioning and protrusion depth of the tranceiver element need to be calculated depending on the frequency of the signal you're trying to pick up. I imagine there are formulae or even online calculators for this stuff online, so if you can find those you may only need to find out the frequency band you're trying to select to get the design calculated. Then it's a matter of making it precisely enough.
Antenna design (Score:1)
your library should have a copy of 'The Amateur Radio Handbook'. If I remember correctly, there is some sort of log periodic design calculator that will design a fairly broadbanded yagi that can be adapted to different frequencies.
LTE yagi (Score:5, Informative)
http://bcbj.org/antennae/lte_yagi_diy.htm [bcbj.org]
Decent instructions for an LTE yagi.
A note on grounding (Score:2)
If you dont know how to ground this properly please ask or hire someone who knows what they are doing. You could kill someone with improper grounding in case of a lightning strike.
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numbers should be similar for a cubicle quad. At LTE freqs it shouldn't take up the whole back deck like the17 element cubicle quad I built for 2M back when I was 14 or so :)
You could just... (Score:5, Insightful)
scrap the tons of copper and steel you have, then buy an antenna.
Line of sight is important. (Score:3)
If you get a USB adaptor for your 4G signal, and stick it outside on a long pole nice and high up plugged into a USB extension cable it'll work just fine. Remember to tape the whole thing up with self-amalgamating tape (not lx tape) to keep the water out, and leave a drip loop where you bring the cable into the building.
It's the simplest thing that could work.
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And remember, a drip loop does not involve a cable tie. Just sayin...
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And remember, a drip loop does not involve a cable tie. Just sayin...
It *does*, but it's really important to put it in the right place ;-)
Signal booster article... (Score:2)
http://www.alternativewireless.com/cellular-antennas/mobile-signal-booster/novatel/novatel-4620l-jetpack-signal-boosters.html [alternativewireless.com]
I got that when I googled "novatel 4620l ports"...
Verizon Home Fusion (Score:1)
They don't really advertise this service, but you can get Home Fusion from Verizon. If you sign up, they'll send a professional out to install a 4G antenna. A little on the pricey side but if you are a heavy internet user it's not a bad deal:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/homefusion/hf/main.do
heavy internet user no way at $10 per gig overage (Score:2)
heavy internet user no way at $10 per gig overage
Answer! (Score:1)
What band? (Score:3, Informative)
LTE doesn't really mean anything for an antenna designer. It's all about modulation type, rate and protocol. What matters for antenna design is center frequency and to some extent bandwidth.
In North America, there are several LTE bands in use: 700/800, 1700/1900 and 2500 MHz. If you can, find out what bands Verizon uses in your area.
Don't buy a cheap 2dBi antenna. The antenna in the module is probably around 0dBi already so it won't help much. What you want is a directional antenna you can point at the tower to get a big improvement. The good news: this IS something you can build yourself. If you need to cover all three bands, you'll might need a log-periodic. If it's one frequency you can build a Yagi and it will do better than the log-periodic.
Books for antenna design for amateurs:
AARL Antenna Book
AARL Wire Antenna Classics
There are more books that are written at various levels. I suggest the AARL books because they assume you have some technical knowledge but aren't necessarily an electrical/electronics engineer. You can also find free designs on-line for antennas made by radio amateurs. These are often very helpful and tell you exactly how to build their antennas and show you pictures. Some engineering and science libraries will let the public come in and peruse their books. If so, you can go there with a pad and pencil and design your antenna right in the library.
Since your antenna will be bidirectional (same antenna for up and downlink) you will need to use low-loss cable to connect them up. This is very important because if you use the wrong cable or too long a cable, you may overcome the gain of the antenna! That's another reason to build a high-gain antenna.
Pointing a high-gain antenna at the tower also gets your RF out of the house where it's less likely to interfere with other stuff that might be in your house, like phones.
books (Score:2)
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LTE doesn't really mean anything for an antenna designer. It's all about modulation type, rate and protocol. What matters for antenna design is center frequency and to some extent bandwidth.
and polarization.
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What band?
FFS, if anyone read TFS, they'd have seen that it is a question about Verizon LTE, which only operates in one band.
It does if the antenna designer isn't a douchebag who can't read, since (again) the words "Verizon LTE" are very specific about what, exactly, is wanted and required.
(Sometimes I think the problem with engineers is that they expect everyone to speak their language and then spoon-feed them specific, concise instructions, all whi
Move the router? (Score:2)
Find out where the closest 4G transmitter mast is and then move the router to that side of the house, preferably with a little additional material between it and the outside. Maybe put the router upstairs. You can always pull cables and stick an additional wifi routers around the house to provide complete coverage.
Re: Digital TV Antennas (Score:4, Informative)
To answer your question about digital TV antennas:
Despite the marketing implications, there really is nothing different about antennas for Digital TV. The encoding is not important. The frequency is the main factor and that has not changed substantially. Most digital TV stations are on the UHF band around where I live. So, if you are lucky, you can get by with just a simple UHF antenna if the stations are nearby.
Here is where you can find your nearby stations:
http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/# [fcc.gov]
I built a simple 4 bay bow tie antenna for UHF. Mine looks like the one pictured at the top of this thread.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/consumer-electronics/614073-how-build-your-own-4-bay.html [city-data.com]
Here is a really nice example of one:
http://www.dtvusaforum.com/dtv-hdtv-reception-antenna-discussion/8629-kosmic-antennas-superquad-4-bay-bowtie.html [dtvusaforum.com]
I also built a folded dipole for VHF: Here is an example:
http://crdahl.com/antennas/dipole.html [crdahl.com]
My stations were fairly close by. These two antennas are not high gain antennas. I added a Winegard preampt to bring up the signal a bit. I have been very pleased. So, in summary, there is nothing different. Just look up your local stations and pick an antenna based on band(s) and distance.
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I'd have to disagree with you. The changes are a matter of degree rather than principle, but they are real.
VHF-lo has be largely (but not completely) eliminated, meaning new (digital) VHF antennas are VHF-hi only, rather than full range.
UHF channels 52-69 have been eliminated, meaning many UHF antennas tha
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Yes, the user will have to pick the antenna appropriate for their situation. If your antenna didn't receive UHF before, it will need to now. But there is nothing new here. You had to pick the antenna appropriate for your situation when the stations were analog as well.
Like I said before:
"Just look up your local stations and pick an antenna based on band(s) and distance."
I guess I could add pick it based on direction as well. In my case, all of the transmitters were in the same general direction and
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You're just speculating. I am not. Broadcast radius has been reduced. Go read up on the subject if you don't want to believe me.
Whether a preamp helps OR HURTS depends on the sensitivity of your tuner, the noise figure on the preamp, and the di
Log Periodic (Score:2)
Coax cable (Score:2)
You might even be better puting the entire router/antenna system up high, and running power and ethernet down. (Of couse putting the whole thing in a waterproof plastic box.)
You can prototype it with a laptop and a ladder.
Woktenna? (Score:2)
ANOTHER THOUGHT (Score:2, Interesting)
Another thought comes to mind. . . what is the cause of the interruptions the parental units are experiencing with the set-up they already have?
How far is it to the tower? what is the noise floor like between the tower and their house? [What happens at your neighbors house that may interrupt the signal gettting to your parents house?] Are they enjoying any other wireless-frequency obtained signals, like satellite? Do any of your neighbors enjoy broadcasting CB or single side band radio? Around their ante
4G or 4G LTE? (Score:2)
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Moxon Antenna (Score:1)
Unless the frequency turns out to make this design prohibitavely small, try a Moxon: http://www.moxonantennaproject.com/design.htm/ [moxonantennaproject.com]
I built one for OTA TV broadcasts (somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 MHz) using spare wire I had laying around and had good results. There's a calculator program at that URL that will give you the dimensions of the elements for any given frequency. All you have to do is bend the wire and find a way to keep them at the required distances.
If your antenna needs to be really smal
4G LTE antenna optioins (Score:1)
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WTF is all this extra BS in the submission? (Score:2)
"Although being able to hear the blood pulse through your ears and enjoying the full milky way is nice, " - Irrelevant to the question.
"...this land is so flat and so devoid of light pollution that the tower and all windmills are supernovas on the horizon at night." - Turn down your bloom settings.
" Usually I use my rooted Galaxy Nexus to read Slashdot, reply to work e-mails, etc." - Irrelevant to the question. Who cares what device you use and whether it's rooted?
And more. You could have said this in about
So now you've built an antenna... (Score:1)
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RF connector on the phone might be an issue. (Score:2)
One of my friends did exactly what you're describing - he works on an offshore oil rig, and used a high gain antenna pointed at land to get cellphone service. It worked great... until he came ashore and his phone didn't get a signal.
Turns out the RF connector in the phone is only there for production testing of power/RF compliance - it's only intended to be connected to once, and it's not designed for daily connections/disconnections. The datasheet for one replacement connector we found was only rated for 1
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Don't build it yourself (Score:3)
To be honest, there's a time an place for homemade equipment, and this isn't it. You've admitted this isn't your area of expertise. Neither is it your parents'. If it breaks, what are you going to do? The idea of using a a Pringle's can is absurd. Get a strong, professionally built antenna and mount.
Some things to think about: the higher gain of a highly directional antenna comes from focusing the energy more tightly than a lower-gain directional antenna. The more directional an antenna is, the more precision and accuracy must be used in aiming it. It will also, presumable, but outside in the elements, with wind, rain, snow, animals, and sunlight. All of these can degrade the antenna or interfere with its aiming. Therefore, a very strong mount must be used when using a high-gain antenna.
My suggestion is to go to your parents' house well prepared, with antennas of differing gain. Use the one with the lowest gain which gives a moderately strong signal. For instance, if 5 bars means the strongest possible signal, use the antenna that gets your 4 bars. The antenna which gives you 5 bars is most likely providing unneeded signal strength, at the cost of requiring better aiming. This doesn't mean you should use the antenna that provides one or two bars, however, because the extra signal strength might be needed during strong rain or snow. you should also go prepared with a proper knowledge of antenna installation, including lighting protection and grounding, use of a drip loop, know the signal loss of the cable you are using, etc. You should already have calculated the path loss from the cell site to your parents' house, and know the receive sensitivity and transmit power of the cell site and the 4G device for your parents' house. You can then figure out if this is in the realm of possibility. When you go to do the installation on site, bring spares, the proper tools, some general tools, gloves, clothing appropriate to the task, safety gear, and make sure that you have health insurance coverage.
It's easy to do a bad job of antenna installation. Sometimes you get lucky, and it will be sufficient -for a while. But then it will fail and you're up a creek without a paddle. Spend the money and do it right, or hire a professional to do it. These are your parents, after all, you don't want to disappoint them.
Going To Try Old Dishnetwork Dishes (Score:1)
The thing with my "hotspot" is, there is no place to connect an external antenna to point at the cell tower. I intend to one day soon try an experiment where I put the hotspot at the focal point of one of my old Dish Network dishes and see if I can get better signal.
I live in an Internet desolate place and we use an AT&T "hotspot" that connects to a cell tower and is a little Wi-Fi "router" (that seems to only have one route, but that's a different rant). AT&T recently upgraded a cell tower in my
The bigger, the better (Score:2)
(House) Fire Walk with Me!
Legality? And cantenna can choices (Score:2)
What's the legality of building your own cell phone antenna, though? (If that matters to you.)
I've build several cantennas for 2.4gHz WiFi. The dimensions of both of the commonly-recommended cans (pringles and chock-full-of-nuts) are not ideal. The length-width ratios are off. I can see a few hundred WiFi signals off my balcony, including ones across San Diego Bay, a couple miles.
I found a can that is ideal, and the coffee (from a local San Diego coffee roaster) is excellent:
http://www.caffecalabria.com/cof [caffecalabria.com]
Cantenna connection (Score:2)
Oh, forgot to mention, I don't actually use an adapter cable. Instead (for WiFi) I use a small external USB-connected WiFi adapter (since my Macbook doesn't have an atenna connector) and a small metal adapter from the WiFi adapter connector to the N-connector on the cantenna. Zero cable length. The USB adapter just hangs on the side of the can. Cable loss can be considerable at these frequencies. Obviously, suitable for indoor use only. If you are using a USB dongle, and it's not very heavy, this could be
Book (Score:2)
Look for the ARRL Antenna Book [arrl.org]. Its a good reference for DIY hobby type projects.
Based on the commercial offerings, I'd look at building a log periodic Yagi. That should give you decent gain plus directionality over a wide frequency range. If the gain from one beam isn't enough, you could build several in an array. Its all in the above book.
Most of the skill you will need will be in metal/plastic working. At the frequencies in question, a few millimeters will affect the antenna pattern and gain, so atten
Verizon HomeFusion Broadband (Score:2)
I know this isn't what you were looking for based on the summary, but you never know, sometimes there are options you've never thought about, so I'll posit it anyway:
Verizon Wireless offers HomeFusion Broadband [verizonwireless.com] for a professionally-installed, rooftop-mounted 4G home broadband service. It sounds like it's ideally suited to your parents, and for $6.99/mo, you get the peace of mind knowing that they will send a technician out to fix any issues that may arise.
I don't know if it's in your parents' price range (i
Yes, there is... (Score:2)
Why DIY? (Score:2)