What type of antenna for Non-Line-Of-Site

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integraoligist

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So our best ISP option is to use cellular networks, mainly an AT&T cell tower which is 4 miles away. There is a T-mobile tower 2.6 miles away which would be much better however the modem: Huawei B882-66 is having issues with getting on the T-mobile network for some reason. So we're stuck with use AT&T.

Indoors with the supplied mini antenna were getting a strength of -101 to -110 and the signal drops every few minutes...... we also have one of these antennas for outdoors:
https://www.amazon.com/weBoost-700-2700-Directional-Antenna-Connector/dp/B00J14YEHQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1486231584&sr=8-3&keywords=lte+antenna

It's supposed to be a gain of 9db... When attaching the outdoor antenna above, to a 20' pole, we get a steady signal of -97 but still drops every hour or two.

We're located in a very hilly and tree covered area and there is no way to get Line-of-site to the cell tower. But seeing as the above outdoor antenna actually did help (which is surprising to me as that is a strict LOS antenna) a bit, is there another type of antenna what will help much more, like a parabolic grid antenna? I see those online with a 26db gain and assume the angle is so large it would help even though it's still NLOS.

Thoughts?
Thanks all!
 
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Most antenna are directional. I suppose a omni might work better if you are getting reflected signal. I would still suspect you would use a directional antenna and keep moving it around the total signal will be the best.

The best antenna is likely a yaggi that is tuned for the frequency you want. It just get expensive if your ISP would change frequencies or you wanted to use a different tower
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bill001g

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Very technically it is illegal to put antenna on any kind of cellular equipment. There is some strange exception when the license holder (ie the cell company) allows it. The cell company in the end owns the radio frequency used and is responsible for ensuring their usage meets the FCC requirements. Mostly do not advertise the fact you are doing this.

Unless you know the exact frequencies used the outdoor antenna you linked is your best option. You want to minimize the amount of cable you run and use the best stuff you can afford to reduce the loss.

Cell stuff is line of sight the lower frequencies tend to be a little more forgiving and are not as easily blocked.

Really all you can do is mess with this and see how well you can make it work. The problem is the cell tower can detect the signal levels and it may actually turn the radio power down if you put to large a antenna on. Partially the reason it is so hard to do things like this is the cell phone company wants to always be able to deny they allowed you to use antenna if you would somehow cause issues.

A added note. Most of the new LTE configurations use Mimo. This mean you need 2 antenna, The recommendation is to rotate them 90 degrees out of phase with each other.
 
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integraoligist

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The current connection is 730mhz to 738mhz down and up respectively.
i'm asking about the "type" of antenna that is best for this situation as there is no line of site, however the LOS antenna that is connected is boosting the signal... will a parabolic grid work even better whereas it has a wider degree to collect data from?
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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Most antenna are directional. I suppose a omni might work better if you are getting reflected signal. I would still suspect you would use a directional antenna and keep moving it around the total signal will be the best.

The best antenna is likely a yaggi that is tuned for the frequency you want. It just get expensive if your ISP would change frequencies or you wanted to use a different tower
 
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