4/5G antenna recommendations

[Korhaka]

With 4G I can get a pretty good speed where I live if there is a good signal and the SIM is only £24/month. Faster is possible with a fiber connection but costs more than twice as much and I don't really need gigabit speeds when I mainly play Factorio and Rimworld. It would be nice, but not for the cost. The problem I have is signal strength is generally lacking. Right now RSRP is -115dBm, RSRQ -11dB and SNR 3.4dB. While it of course varies this is generally fairly typical.

 

Current setup is a TP-Link MR600 with the antennas that it comes with. Looking at replacing the antennas but looking at Amazon its difficult to know what is actually good and what is just a questionable or misleading "marketing" claim. Along with likely fake reviews Amazon appears to be filled with these days. 18dB gain vs 3dB gain, both claim to be omnidirectional. The first is £6 and the other is £86. I would assume the £86 is the better of the two but really don't know how to tell how much better it really is or how to compare 2 comparably priced antennas.

 

Ideally I would like to know how to identify what is good or not, what is better than the antennas the router comes with. Which manufacturers are generally good to look for and which are some random Chinese mass produced junk?

[DoctorNick]

6 minutes ago, Korhaka said:

With 4G I can get a pretty good speed where I live if there is a good signal and the SIM is only £24/month. Faster is possible with a fiber connection but costs more than twice as much and I don't really need gigabit speeds when I mainly play Factorio and Rimworld. It would be nice, but not for the cost. The problem I have is signal strength is generally lacking. Right now RSRP is -115dBm, RSRQ -11dB and SNR 3.4dB. While it of course varies this is generally fairly typical.

 

Current setup is a TP-Link MR600 with the antennas that it comes with. Looking at replacing the antennas but looking at Amazon its difficult to know what is actually good and what is just a questionable or misleading "marketing" claim. Along with likely fake reviews Amazon appears to be filled with these days. 18dB gain vs 3dB gain, both claim to be omnidirectional. The first is £6 and the other is £86. I would assume the £86 is the better of the two but really don't know how to tell how much better it really is or how to compare 2 comparably priced antennas.

 

Ideally I would like to know how to identify what is good or not, what is better than the antennas the router comes with. Which manufacturers are generally good to look for and which are some random Chinese mass produced junk?

I found this, and damn a dude went crazy with testing this router. Also explaines db gain: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/272342

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

12 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

I found this, and damn a dude went crazy with testing this router. Also explaines db gain: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/272342

 

Them mentioning cable length is important.  For absolute best reception an outdoor router is recommended as then there is effectively zero cable run on the antennas (they are usually built-in to the PCB).

[Korhaka]

1 hour ago, DoctorNick said:

I found this, and damn a dude went crazy with testing this router. Also explaines db gain: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/272342

 

Oh wow that is a lot of information. I think that is mainly for LPDA directional antennas, I live in an urban area and there are multiple towers somewhat nearby, I have read that in this situation it is generally better to use omindirectional rather than directional antennas. Although if this isn't true I could look at identifying the location of towers my provider uses and try pointing it at each one to see what happens if I did get some directional antennas.

 

Edit: Possibly relevant, while the router would mostly be positioned at home I am also aware that I could take it anywhere as long as I can power it, even with a 230vAC powerbank if necessary. Doubt it would be used much while literally moving - though the idea of an internet enabled kayak amuses me. The potential to work from home in unusual locations certainly has its appeal. Stick a small pole in the sand at the beach and mount the antenna to that, work from the beach? More realistic but also more boring use case is to bring it when visiting family who don't have internet.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On 5/8/2024 at 1:01 PM, Korhaka said:

Oh wow that is a lot of information. I think that is mainly for LPDA directional antennas, I live in an urban area and there are multiple towers somewhat nearby, I have read that in this situation it is generally better to use omindirectional rather than directional antennas. Although if this isn't true I could look at identifying the location of towers my provider uses and try pointing it at each one to see what happens if I did get some directional antennas.

 

Edit: Possibly relevant, while the router would mostly be positioned at home I am also aware that I could take it anywhere as long as I can power it, even with a 230vAC powerbank if necessary. Doubt it would be used much while literally moving - though the idea of an internet enabled kayak amuses me. The potential to work from home in unusual locations certainly has its appeal. Stick a small pole in the sand at the beach and mount the antenna to that, work from the beach? More realistic but also more boring use case is to bring it when visiting family who don't have internet.

Usually using a phone is better for that though.

[Korhaka]

Been looking into this even more and it looks like directional is the better choice. Found this guy on youtube who is using the same router as me by the look of it too, and he did a follow up review using an expensive directional antenna - it made no difference although arguably it looks nicer. But directional is without a doubt better than omni which isn't entirely surprising I guess when you think about it, but it looks like he is in an urban area too. I guess its better to have a great signal to 1 tower than a mediocre one to 6.

 

Keeping them in a location that they are somewhat accessible to rotate them to point at another tower might not be a bad idea, also depends on how wide of an angle they realistically get.

 

However, it is always possible he just got a really terrible omnidirectional, there just doesn't seem to be much info out there that involves actually testing and comparing them.