Cellular antenna problems

I have hooked up a yagi antenna on the roof and have a repeater and panel antenna in the house. I'm not getting any signal from the panel unless I hold an att hot spot directly to the panel, doing so causes the signal to go from 120dbm down to 77dbm...even an inch or 2 away and the signal climbs back to 120

 

Welcome to the forums.

Moving very high frequency signals takes special equipment and cabling.
Is this a kit you're using or something you've put together ?
We need more info on what you have there.

 

It all came in a kit...volferda yagi, repeater and indoor panel. Band 2 1900mhzb although I've worked professionally with television antenna and satellite systems, this of course is a little different. So I understand the concept but I'm totally lost on somethings

 

With my installation the cabling was a big part. The coax cable looks more like a garden hose and it's very important to keep the cable runs as short as possible as the losses at these high frequencies are pretty high. Since you're not getting good results from the one indoor antenna I would double check the cable run and connections to that antenna. Also, it wouldn't hurt if you told us what antennas and amplifier you are using.

 

Both the repeater and panel say volferda...the yagi says nothing on it. Also, I've read that the stronger the signal brought in by the yagi to the amp, the further the panel will send inside the house? Is this correct? If so, why do I get 70 to 75 dbm against the panel but 110 to 120 a few inches away?. I've tested placing 2 Android phones and a hot spot directly on the panel and they all show within 70 to 80 dbm. Oh, and I'm using rg6 cabling. It came with the kit

 

A yagi needs to be pointed at the cell tower. Do you know where YOUR service tower is located ? Not just any tower. All services are not on all towers. Wireline and non wireline services cannot be at the same location.

RG6 would not be a proper coax to use. RG58, RG8, RG8X would be some of the proper ones.

Can you link to the kit ?"
Is this one of these $150 kits ? I haven't found them to be too effective.

 

I'm definitely pointed at the tower, and I'm definitely getting a good signal at the panel...problem is my panel isn't broadcasting. Like I said when I sit any of the three at&t devices I have directly on the panel I go from 120dbm to 70 to 75 dbm. Pull the device a few inches away and it jumps back to around 120dbm. I'm trying to determine if I have a faulty repeater/amplifier or if the panel is bad. Having a signal of 75dbm should be enough to "make" the panel broadcast right?

 

Other than swapping parts.... there is really no way to test it.
You'd need a spectrum analyzer for test measurements and those are megabucks.

 

Ok thanks for the information

 

The system you named is incredibly inexpensive. It's about 20% the cost of reliable repeater/amplifier systems that I've used. I would suspect that either their claims are not accurate or they have a quality problem and you have some bad components.

Is your amplifier plugged in and powered up? What does the display on your amplifier show? Have you verified that all your cable connections are good. Did you kink or tightly bend your coax?

You are getting a good signal right next to your patch because you are so close. The signal strength drops off quickly with distance. It sounds like your amplifier is not working but is allowing at least some of the signal to pass through since it seems you are detecting output from the patch antenna.

 

A couple of things.
When I look up the brand name you gave us it only shows the booster with an included panel type outdoor antenna.
Was tha Yagi included in the kit or did you purchase it separately and if purchased separately did you try the panel antenna?

Also, separation and direction of the external and internal antenna is important.
Mine suggested 20' verticle and 50' horizontal separation.
The orientation is also important in that the outside and inside antenna should not be on opposite sides of the house pointed at each other.
If the two antenna are pointed at each other you can get a feedback loop that will greatly reduce its ability to boost the signal.
Some amplifiers have an indicating light for each frequency that indicates feedback and the ability to reduce power on each channel to eliminate feedback.
Does yours have this feature?

Not sure if you are using this type of tester that can indicate cell signal strength and tower location......if not they are fairly usefull.

 

yagi, amplifier and panel came with 50' of rg6 all in 1 kit. i think i may have found my problem... over loading. as of now, i'mgetting -75dbm with my hotspot directly on the panel...but when i run a speed test i'm only getting about 2mbps down. if i move the hotspot to the window sill i get 112dbm but running a speedtest i get around 5mbps. (the very reason i'mtrying the antenna is the signal fluctuates badly in the window)

so doesn't this kinda point to the problem being overload? i haven't changed the direction of my antenna since starting this thread, it's on my roof and a pain to get to. but i'lldo that later today and post what i find

 

Here is a Wilson PDF installation manual that explains antenna placement.

 

thanks. i'lllook into it, although i have followed a handful of tutorials already

 

What do you think is being overloaded? -75db isn't a strong enough signal to overload anything. That's a good, normal signal strength.

Another issue can be the use of RG-6 cable. It's losses at high frequency are pretty bad. The cabling could be loosing some of the high frequency band forcing your device to use lower, slower frequencies.

 

from what i understand overloading can happen when u have 2 or more signals being picked up by the outside antenna, the booster compensates by restricting the amount of signal pushed to the inside antenna, but it restricts ALL signals. and rg6 is what comes standard in most of wilson kits... it's a low loss cable good to up to 50'...which is what i have.

 

I recently bought one of those ebay $100 cell repeaters for my AT&T band 12 but I haven't gotten it yet. I'm thinking about installing the amp close to the yagi and feeding the cable into the house putting the indoor antenna away from the yagi. The system I got includes 30' of 50Ω cable with N connectors but I'm thinking of replacing it with RG11 which is available cheap and is pretty low loss for the price. It's usually better if you put the amp at the receive antenna and run the coax inside because you will get less loss in the coax than if you run the coax 30 or 50' from the rx antenna to the booster. But we'll see I still have to get the stuff yet. I just couldn't see spending $500 on one of those Wilson boosters. Luckily I've got a 1GHz.spectrum analyzer so I'll be able to tell what's going on when it all comes.

 

Rg-11 has lower loss at high frequencies but is not as flexible as Rg-6.