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Antenna installation and alignment

Awesome, thanks! I will do some tests tomorrow morning and try it every 5 degrees or so and test if I can get a reasonable upload speed again.

Do you have a suggestions for a router that I can alternate between 1800 and the 2300 band range and which can take the two antennas? Im at a loss for a solution if the direction method does not work other than buying another router.
 
hercovandyk said:
Awesome, thanks! I will do some tests tomorrow morning and try it every 5 degrees or so and test if I can get a reasonable upload speed again.
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There are some caveats to that process, but a lot of help in this thread and the B593 one.
Since it turns out that you do actually have the B593-s601, which is 2300MHz/TDD capable, you have the additional variable of the frequency band : your modem/router could be on the Telkom 1800MHz/FDD band or the 2300MHz/TDD band, and there's no real way to know from the Web UI which it's using.


hercovandyk said:
Do you have a suggestions for a router that I can alternate between 1800 and the 2300 band range and which can take the two antennas?
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The successor to the Huawei B593 is the B315, which is identical in many respects but is 2100MHz (Cell C) capable. It also has the newer API which works with "The Toolbox" and hence can be forced to use one or the other frequency band (1800 or 2300, in Telkom's case). You might also consider the Huawei E5186 which has the same API but is LTE-A capable. Check out the B315 and E5186 threads for more details. All these modem-routers have the dual antenna sockets required for LTE, yes.


hercovandyk said:
I'm at a loss for a solution if the direction method does not work other than buying another router.
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It's always good to optimise your own signal arrangements in terms of signal strength, signal quality and connection stability; but at the end of the day, your throughput is still determined very much by the performance of the particular station you get service from. Changing stations and/or frequency bands often helps, but it isn't a panacea for blistering speeds. See this post for an example of what I mean :

Station / Result
A RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-53/-80/?; DL/UL=61.2/8.2
B RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-52/-81/-8; DL/UL=11.2/7.8
C RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-54/-81/-7; DL/UL=30.0/7.2
D RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-47/-73/-6; DL/UL=22.9/9.1
E RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-53/-79/-6; DL/UL=76.5/4.5
F RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-48/-74/-6; DL/UL=58.6/8.5
G RSSI/RSRP/RSRQ=-48/-75/-6; DL/UL=28.3/8.2

Happy hunting!
 
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jcheek said:
MTN & Vodacom - 1800MHz FDD
Telkom - Originally 2300MHz TDD and later added 1800MHz FDD
Cell C - 2100MHz FDD and also 1800MHz FDD (in some places)
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Very interesting. I'm fiddling with my antenna to get my Cellc nice and stable. Cellc has a lot of 1800MHz coverage actually. By using the toolbox to force the bands I notice Cellc has atleast here in Kosmosdal Centurion a lot of 1800MHz coverage along side their 2100MHz coverage.

That said the 1800MHz is probably a last resort for the phones not supporting the 2100MHz band because speeds on the 1800MHz band I have yet to see exceed 5Mbps download and 8Mbps upload on 3 towers nearby where the 2100MHz band performs better speed wise and probably have the LTE-A on for me it does not feel as stable as the 1800MHz band.
 
cavedog said:
I'm fiddling with my antenna to get my Cell C nice and stable. Cell C has a lot of 1800MHz coverage actually. By using the toolbox to force the bands I notice Cell C has at least here in Kosmosdal Centurion a lot of 1800MHz coverage along side their 2100MHz coverage.
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Although Cell C's LTE/LTE-A 1800MHz coverage still seems much the same as it was when they first launched it back in late April 2016 (ie 3 major cities), within those areas the coverage is pretty good, as you say.


cavedog said:
That said the 1800MHz is probably a last resort for the phones not supporting the 2100MHz band because speeds on the 1800MHz band I have yet to see exceed 5Mbps download and 8Mbps upload on 3 towers nearby where the 2100MHz band performs better speed wise and probably have the LTE-A on for me it does not feel as stable as the 1800MHz band.
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Interesting feedback, thanks.
I have a Cell C Giga100 package as failover for my fibre connection, using my old B593-s601. The -s601 is only 1800MHz/FDD-capable (not 2100MHz/FDD); so I can only get Cell C on the 1800MHz band. Although I don't use/test it all that often, to date my experience has been much the same as yours, ie never much more than about 10Mbps download. The limit seems fairly "hard", which makes me wonder if the Giga100 package might be bandwidth-limited to 10Mbps or so.
Edit (31 May 2017) : Scratch that. Managed to get 23.6Mbps down and 4.6Mbps up with my outdoor external antennas this morning.

PS: Which modem/router do you have ? B315 (LTE), or E5186 (LTE-A) ?
 
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I'm using the B315 from telkom with the telkom uncapped antenna whic is the xpol 006 or something like that not sure.

Helps a lot but yeah so many towers atound me. Atleast three 2100MHz towers and two 1800MHz towers. Might not be actual towers but rathwr5same setup as Telkom dual frequency towers.
 
Not too shabby on Cell C this morning:

View attachment 439664

Using dual Poynting LPDA-0020-V1 antennas, 45°/135° configuration, about 1.6km to base station
RSSI : -44dBm
RSRP : -64dBm
RSRQ : -7dB (varies between about -10dB and -6dB, average about -7dB. Not that great)
Download : 23.6Mbps
Upload : 4.6Mbps
Ping : 17ms
 
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Referring to this MyBroadband update, I noticed this morning that the WBS network (PLMN = 65519) is now also visible in my home area (Pretoria East) :

20170531 WBS on B593.JPG

I've seen the WBS network before in Jo'burg, about a year ago, but this is the first time I've seen the network come up in my area.

According to the Wikipedia entry for WBS, the Multisource/WBS network is in the 2600MHz MHz band using TDD, though they also apparently have spectrum in the 1800MHz band (source here). The B593-s601 modem/router only supports FDD in both 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands, so I guess I must've been picking them up on 1800MHz/FDD ... ?
 
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Bought a B315 router today, so I will force 2300 band tonight and test if my speeds are improved.

Thank you to everyone for the help, this forum has become a valuable resource. <3
 
So, download went down to 3mb/s and upload to 10mb/s! I am struggling to force the new settings with the toolbox.

How long should I wait after pressing the "Write directly to api." button?

ThIaLLp.png
 
Hi @hercovandyk
I followed the instructions as mentioned in my post #527 of this thread and it worked perfectly.
If I recall correctly, it's a case of copying the new API and clicking write directly to API.

As it's a new router, have you set the Antenna to External 1&2 in the router settings?

If the API is applied correctly when you login to your B315, click on Dial up, then Network Settings, then make Network Search Mode set to manual and click apply, it will ask you if you're sure as it may disconnect you etc, click yes. The router will search for new networks. The available list of towers that it'll now pick up will only be Telkom towers and no longer other service providers.

As a side note, in the Dial up settings mentioned above, make sure that under Network Settings, Preferred network mode is set to 4G only.
 
nemisiz said:
Anyone know where is can get hold of this Bracket from poynting http://poynting.tech/product/brkt-33/ as per Ivy from poynting it is a European product and not available in SA.

shoot me a PM if you have one for sale :) or let me know where i can get one.
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Yep - that is a product for Europe and will most likely not work here. You should have one antenna mounted vertically and the other horizontally at approx 300mm apart on one pole i.e. one antenna above the other. I have this setup and it works great. Good luck.
 
Teejaybee said:
Yep - that is a product for Europe and will most likely not work here. You should have one antenna mounted vertically and the other horizontally at approx 300mm apart on one pole i.e. one antenna above the other. I have this setup and it works great. Good luck.
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I have been blessed by a person on myBB that has hooked my up with one of these brackets that i'm busy testing , and can say alot easier to mount antennas and not have to worry about distance between vertical and horizontal. takes up alot less space vertically , looks alot more stream lined. and the best part , i doubled my speed i was getting and solid as a rock. just need more time now to test and align.

:)
 
There is a company in Anderbolt. Boksburg called Telscrew, they can normally make you any bracket.
 
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