How far is a 3g signal transmitted. Frequently Asked Questions about Cellular Signal Strengthening

My dacha is located in the middle between two large settlements (2 km in both directions) that have 3G. Yes, and in the forest, and the terrain is hilly, so the signal reception is very bad. mobile connection it can easily not work in one place, but it works fine in another, at a distance of 20 meters

Googling, I found out that many people amplify the 3G signal using a collective farm of all sorts of antennas, from a simple piece of wire to a satellite dish.

In general, these days I spent the whole day on the Internet. At first, I really hoped that it would be enough just to put the HTC smartphone in a place with good 3G reception and surf the Internet directly from it via Wi-Fi. But it didn’t work out that way, and it doesn’t have an output for an external antenna.

Therefore, I decided to try collective farming a reflector from what I found on the Internet.

I started by taking a laptop and a megaphone usb modem with me. Before leaving, I put a very convenient one on the laptop, which allows you to accurately determine the signal level, and not by some sticks that show complete nonsense (this is me already from personal experience understood).
In general, I connected the modem through a cord, attached the modem to the mirror and went to travel around the neighborhood in search of towers cellular communication. As it turned out, there are quite a few of them, and not everything can be seen just like that. I always thought that the nearest tower to me is at a distance of 5 km. (and my friends and parents were sure of this), but having driven from all sides around the district, I was able to find an inconspicuous tower at a distance of 2 km. Hell, I could have found her without this program, literally 5 meters high. Not knowing that 3G-strong is beating from her to the fullest, I would never have thought that this was a cell tower. Having driven for an hour, I realized that all sorts of obstacles extinguish the signal very strongly, in my case it is a forest. Well, there are a few hills, but I was lucky with the hills, I am quite high up.

Having understood where the nearest tower is for me, it became easier for me to look for the source of the signal. Stable EDGE 100% appeared right away, as I understood which side of the house the modem should be placed on. And then I began to collective farm the antenna / reflector to catch a clear 3G.

I started with the simplest, wound the wire around the modem, but this did not give any results (the photo is not mine. And I stuck the modem through an extension cord so that I could twist the whole thing in different directions):

Then I decided to try with a coffee can (the photo is also not mine):

But I didn’t find coffee cans, so I decided to cut the can:

It looked something like this:

Oddly enough, but this can gave an increase of about 7 dBm. Although no dimensions were observed, and for the cylinder it was necessary in right place make a hole into which the modem is inserted. At that moment, I realized that this whole collective farm could work

And then it dawned on me and my father almost simultaneously, and he didn’t even have time to voice it. We remembered that we have an ancient spherical diffuser from the heater, and I began to collective farm a reflector from it:

I measured it all, calculated the focal length for it. I disassembled the modem, found the place where it has an antenna, and fixed the modem so that the antenna point coincides with the focus point of the diffuser:

This turned out to be the coolest option, which almost always gave out WCDMA:

The average speed of 3G Internet in Russia is 3-4 Mbps, and in some regions it can reach 15 Mbps, however, one can only dream of such speeds. USB modems and mobile devices are not able to establish a stable connection using 3G protocols at distances of more than half a kilometer from the base station. External 3G antennas help to achieve an acceptable 3G Internet speed.

The most long-range 3G antenna.

At a significant distance (more than 10 km) from the 3G base station, we recommend using an antenna. The antenna gain is 20 dB. With the help of this antenna, it was possible to connect to high speed internet house located at a distance of 25 km. from the operator's 3G tower.

Other popular antennas are:

• with 4G LTE support.

Antenna cable.

An important factor affecting signal amplification is the antenna cable. Some antennas are initially equipped with a cable (,), for most you can do it yourself. The shorter the cable, the less loss it has. With a cable length of 10 meters or more, it is better to use a 5D-FB or 8D-FB brand cable.

Antenna connection to 3G modems.

3G/4G MIMO antenna.

Some modems and 3G routers are equipped with two connectors for an external antenna at once. As a rule, this means that the router supports the 4G LTE standard. For such devices, it is recommended to use a MIMO antenna

Communication standards

One of my friends, a big fan of the idea of ​​family homesteads, about a year ago began to settle in his plot of land away from villages and cities. He built a wooden house, a bathhouse, organized a subsidiary farm. He got a beautiful wife, a Huscoalabay model dog and a Kusey cat. And everything seems to be fine, you can live and develop, but there is a great lack of an Internet connection - every time you travel 70 km to the city to read forums on construction, solar energy, gardening, and just chatting with friends online has become inconvenient and expensive.

He came to me with this problem. I started solving the problem, specifying the introductory conditions:

• Of the cellular 3G operators, voice communication works only for Beeline, and then, if you go to the window. TELE2 is also caught, but it does not have 3G;
• Internet via USB modem at neighbors loads an average page for 10 minutes;
• The nearest settlement is 7 km away, the nearest “large” one (28 thousand people) is 30 km away;

Equipment selection

Of the financially affordable Internet access technologies, 3G was chosen, since LTE has not yet reached us, and CDMA EV-DO is offered by only one operator, which sharply narrows the number of available base stations.
After reviewing the assortment of Chinese and Russian online stores, I picked up two sets.

Cheap:

The Chinese claim 25dBi gain, but this figure is skeptical. For example, in the same "Anteks" a similar antenna has only 17 passport dBi. A cheap five-meter cable will take at least 3dBi more. As a result, in best case 14dBi for 1600r.

With maximum CU:

The total gain of the kit should be ~21-22dBi, total cost- 4045r.
Perhaps someone will say that the difference between 14dBi and 22dBi is only 8 units, why pay so much? But let me remind you that dBi is a logarithmic unit and + 8dBi means a signal power difference of 6.3 times.

Therefore, we decided to opt for a more expensive, but more reliable option.

Training

Having received the ordered cables, irradiator and modem, and having bought a reflector from a local store, we arrived at the site and proceeded with the installation. Assembling the antenna did not cause any difficulties - the main thing is not to forget two nuances:

• The irradiator is installed in compliance with the direction of polarization (the mark on the body must be vertical);
• To receive a signal propagating parallel to the ground, the plane of the reflector must be inclined downward at an offset angle relative to the vertical. In our case, the angle was ~20°;

As an application for monitoring the signal level, I chose MDMA (Mobile Data Monitoring Application), as the most informative of those tested. The modem, of course, was previously unlocked in the online application using the w3bsit3-dns.com method.

In my imagination, tuning the antenna to the BS was a simple and even fun process - you look at the signal level in a special application and mark the highest value while your partner fervently turns the antenna in a circle. Then the antenna is mounted on the wall with fine tuning - and voila! a window in the repository of human knowledge (and photos with cats) is cut through. I didn't even look closely at the 3G coverage map. And so we set up - just spit!

Rake walking

If the description of our misadventures bores you, I propose to go straight to the "Results".

To begin with, we decided to try out the rough tuning - I'm at the laptop in the house, a friend is outside, on the stairs, holding the antenna in my hands and smoothly rotates.

But here are miracles - without an antenna, the modem showed a signal of -97dBm, with an antenna, at best, it was possible to find -101dBm with an almost constant background of -111dBm. In addition, every now and then there were “fading” of the signal, when the level or SNR (signal / noise) values ​​stopped changing or dropped to -125dBm (the modem cannot show a smaller number). To return the modem to its senses, it had to be rebooted. Also, often at the same position, the signal level on the first pass was the same, on the next pass it was completely different. All this slowed things down a lot. Sometimes I checked the list of available networks: most often only TELE2 was visible, occasionally - Beeline and Megafon.

We spent several hours trying to get a direction to the BS by rotating the reflector from one side of the house to the other.
Completely to no avail.

Dog Baloo completely lost hope that the guest would become ashamed and finally play with him.

I double-checked all cable connections and connectors, measured the geometry of the dish, tried to remove the irradiator and move it, trying to find the “knocked down” focus. To no avail. Then we decided to try to determine the direction of the signal from the house by putting the antenna on a stick to make it easier to turn it accurately. The first stars appeared in the sky, but we still had only a weak, jumping back and forth signal that did not give useful information to tune in to the BS.
The next step was to install the antenna in a complete bracket on the wall of the house - suddenly, without a stationary mount, there is not enough rotation accuracy? No sooner said than done. However - here's a surprise - the tuning results were no different from all other attempts. In desperation, we moved the mount to the opposite wall and repeated the passage of the beam in a semicircle with the same success.
In a gloomy frame of mind and far past midnight we went to bed.

Morning brought new idea- we decided to raise the plate above the roof of the house on a makeshift mast. So we, firstly, improve the signal and, secondly, simplify fine-tuning.

The total length of the mast is 8m.

After installing the antenna, I returned to the laptop. Once again I took a look at the MDMA interface that had become my native… And then it dawned on me! After all, I had the Connection type selected: "3G Prefferred", that is, the preferred, and not the exclusive 3G mode!

This explains everything - periodic “fading” when the modem switched 3g / 2g modes, and -97dBm of a signal without an antenna (from TELE2) and other oddities.

With the “3G-Only” mode turned on, the setup went much faster - the modem “hangs” less often, and the background signal level dropped to zero, so turning the reflector towards the 3G BS immediately gave a jump.

However, even with an antenna above the roof, the maximum 3G signal that we received was -109dBm, and this is in the direction of the settlement, which is only 12km away! Weak result for such a large reflector.

I already sadly imagined communication with Anteks, an attempt to return the kit for verification under warranty, I thought about how much time and nerves it would take. And I decided, just to make sure that the signal was disgusting, to connect to the Internet. Surprisingly, the connection went through instantly. But the ping was no longer going:

“Nothing surprising,” I thought, “with such and such a signal.” But wait, if the channel is so unstable, how could the name ya.ru be resolved? I check other names - they are also resolved. I open the browser and immediately directs me to the Beeline stub page, reporting an insufficient balance. I connect another SIM card - and indeed, there is Internet! Speedtest.net showed a speed of 2.19mbps incoming and 0.12mbps outgoing. Great, now you need to fine-tune the position of the antenna.

Another half an hour on the roof - and the signal was raised to -97dBm at SNR=-94!

results

Compared to 3G signal strength without antenna:

Modem 1.5m from the floor.

With the help of the antenna placed on the mast, it was possible to achieve an increase in the signal level by 28 dBm, or 630 times!

Antenna at a height of 7m.

It was possible to provide a speed of ~ 5 Mbit / s downlink and ~ 1 Mbit / s uplink.

But the funny thing is, after looking at Beeline’s 3G coverage map and calling their technical support, I found out that in fact we connected to the BS in the village for 33km from us, and not 12, as they thought at first. Closer to Beeline in that direction there are simply no sectors with 3G. For such a distance, I consider the received signal gain to be good. True, because of the distance, an unpleasant effect of “BS breathing” appeared. With an increase in the load on the sector, the BS reduces the range, which is why in the evenings the Internet sometimes “falls off” for a while.

But in any case, the task was completed - my friends got quite fast Internet. And I could finally play with Baloo with a clear conscience and get ready to go home.

UPD: By the way, after about a week, my friend adjusted the antenna by tilting the dish down a little more. He received a signal of -95dBm, and at night, in torrents, the Internet now accelerates to an incredible 8-10Mbps downstream.

Question:
Do you have a gsm repeater without an antenna? For example, through a network cable?

Question:
I live outside the city. Around the forest. The 3G reception area ends somewhere in three kilometers before reaching my site. I want to use 3G internet at home. What equipment do you recommend?

Answer:
The kit will fit
which will additionally need to be reinforced with an adapter
Also cable
Modem
and a router for distributing the Internet via wifi

Question:
What is the difference when amplifying the 3G signal using equipment from the Antenna kits section and from the Repeaters kit section

Answer:
When using the Antenna + cable + adapter for a 3G / 4G modem / router, you get amplified signal 3G/4G on one device (modem/router).
When using the Repeater kit, you get a zone of reliable reception of the GSM and / or 3G signal. There can be several consumers (modems, router, tablets, phones).
By the way, with the first option, you can also distribute the Internet (but not the GSM connection) between several consumers using a wifi router.

Question1:
I want to provide a stable 3G Internet signal in the country. There is a 3G antenna, directed towards the tower, 3G still does not appear on the modem.
Question2:
What is the difference between a 3G repeater and a 3G amplifier?

Answer:
For cases when the antenna simply cannot cope, you can install a 3G repeater, for example,
- it distributes an amplified 3G signal through an internal antenna,
or an antenna amplifier - it gives out an amplified signal further along the cable to the modem.
The second option is more efficient, but we get an amplified signal on one device (modem or 3G router). The Internet, by the way, can be distributed further via WiFi.
In the first option: the 3G signal is relayed in an amplified form to many devices through an internal antenna from the repeater kit. All consumers work each through their SIM card.

Question:
I live 15 km. from the 3G tower, I tried the largest antenna 42x42 cm, 3G did not appear.

Answer:
For a distance of more than 12 km. it is recommended to additionally use an antenna amplifier - it allows you to receive a 3G signal at a distance of up to 20 km. and sometimes even more.

Question:
Will the 4G Antenna switch from one network to another automatically (2G/3G/4G LTE)?

Answer:
This antenna primarily amplifies the LTE signal.
3G and 2G are amplified to a small extent by this antenna.
It should be purchased if you are at a distance of up to 8 km. to the coverage area of ​​LTE (4G).

Question:
Hello! By installing a repeater with antennas, all users can use them in the coverage area or there are some prohibitions, passwords. Those. can I limit the number of users of my amplifier?

Answer:
The repeater is an analog amplifier without connection authorization. Base stations have this functionality - they are set by operators.
You can limit the number of repeater users by limiting the coverage area - select and position antennas based on the task, and also adjust the repeater in terms of power.

Question:
What is the range of this antenna.

Answer:
Antennas do not have such a parameter, the range of the system depends on the transmitter power, receiver sensitivity, cable losses, antenna gain and radio wave propagation conditions.

Question:
I use usb modem 4G LTE from MTS. At work, I have to periodically move to objects in different parts of the city. Stable communication is not always carried out, it is possible that industrial buildings are screened (metal walls, roof). Please recommend an antenna that can be easily removed and transported to another location. Internet is only required for my laptop.

Answer:
Lightweight, compact, inexpensive antennas will do.

Or something more:

One is enough, but two identical ones are better (then receiving one by one, sending by the second).

Question:
Need advice on choosing an external antenna for amplifying 3G / 4G signals.
For example, I would like to understand what, in the case of an external antenna, does such an option as MIMO mean? - several antennas connected to one device or several devices connected to one antenna?
How is MIMO implemented in the LTE standard? Is MIMO supported by the LTE standard, or is this a feature only for the WiFi 802.11n standard?

Answer:
In the case of an external antenna, these are two antennas in one housing. Accordingly, the MIMO antenna has two connectors and it connects through two cables to a modem or router with MIMO support. Those. the receiving device (modem/router) must have two antenna connectors (reception and transmission are separate).
Separate receive and transmit (MIMO) is supported in both LTE and WiFi standards.
MIMO is also used in the latest 3G release - DC-HSDPA Release 9.

Question:
I am in a village 10-12 km from the tower. The signal strength shows 90-99% (EDGE), but the speed is 236 Kbps. How to increase speed?

Answer:
The EDGE mode has a speed limit of 474 kbps, in practice about 250 kbps.
Greater speed can be obtained in 3G mode (UMTS2000, HSPA). To receive a 3G signal (and it is weaker than EDGE GSM), you must apply

Hello, friends! Today we're going to talk about how you can improve weak signal your 3G modem. Many citizens actively use 3G Internet, access to which is mainly provided by mobile operators, the so-called "big three" Megafon, Beeline and MTS. But 3G "coverage" is not everywhere, and the reason for this is that cell towers mobile operators, not everyone has broadband access to the network. If your modem is far from such a tower, then it will not register in 3G protocols, and you will use regular GPRS, the speed of which, as you know, leaves much to be desired. But if you improve the receiving properties of the 3G modem by connecting an external antenna to it, you can achieve a stable connection to 3G. Such 3 G antenna It is not difficult to do it yourself, with your own hands. I will tell you how you can amplify the 3G signal using a conventional satellite dish.

I must say that 3G Internet in our country is not yet a cheap pleasure, so you should connect to it if there is no other alternative. Like, for example, in my country house. Having bought a USB 3G modem from a megaphone, and connecting it to a laptop, I, of course, found that it works via GPRS. Having found out the distance to the nearest 3G tower, 3-4 km, I decided to amplify the signal using a conventional satellite dish, the mirror diameter of which is 55 cm. Such an antenna is supplied with the Tricolor TV kit. The HUAWEI E1550 modem that I bought in the promotion for 900 rubles can receive data at speeds up to 3.6 Mbps, and is used by all three operators. In addition, it is not difficult to flash it to work with three SIM cards. The modem is connected to the computer via a USB port and does not have a connector for connecting an external antenna.

USB 3G modem HUAWEI E1550:

How will the antenna work? The satellite dish mirror has the ability to reflect waves and focus them at one point in space, the 3G standard operates at a frequency of 2100 MHz, the signal of this frequency will be perfectly reflected from the metal mirror of the antenna, we just have to place our modem at this point and adjust the maximum signal value, turning it and directing it to the repeater. To begin with, the modem must be fixed in the converter holder, so that its front part is directed towards the mirror, i.e., is located in focus. To the USB male of the modem, we connect the USB female of the extension cable for USB devices, which can be bought at any computer store. The cable must be long enough to be enough from the antenna to the computer port, for example, I achieved this by arranging two such cables of 2.5 meters each, and I got 5 meters, that was enough for me. The photo shows how such an antenna should be arranged. You can fix the 3G modem in the converter holder different ways, for example, using electrical tape. You should also think about how to protect the modem from the effects of precipitation. I adapted for this purpose plastic bottle from under a mineral water with a capacity of 0.5 liters, one of my comrades, who also assembled a similar antenna, in my image and likeness, used an ordinary plastic bag, wrapping the modem with it in several layers and securing it with the same electrical tape. As for low temperatures, I can say that my modem worked perfectly when it was -20 ° C overboard, operation at lower temperatures was not tested, so I can’t say how the modem will work at temperatures below -20.

The antenna was very easy to set up. I attached it to the wall of the house, and directed it in the direction where, as I knew, there was a 3G station, and simply turned around the axis and vertically until I saw registration in the 3G protocol in the lower left corner of the MegaFon Internet program interface. The program that you run whenever you want to connect to the Internet, and with the help of which you control the connection (checking the balance, calculating traffic, sending SMS, etc.), in my case it is MegaFon Internet, has an indicator in the lower left corner networks. If this indicator shows EDGE or GPRS, then your Internet speed will be no more than 128 Kbps. It's not 3G. If the modem registers in 3G, then the indicator will display HSDPA or WCDMA protocols. HSDPA (High Speed ​​Downlink Packet Access) - high speed downlink packet access. WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) - wideband code division multiple access. The operation of the modem in the WCDMA standard allows it to receive and send data over a wireless line at speeds up to 42 Mbps, but let me remind you that my HUAWEI E1550 modem allows you to work at a speed of no more than 3.6 Mbps, which is quite enough for a normal Internet. Besides tariff plans operators limit the speed, according to the principle of pay more money you get more speed.

Without using an antenna, my 3G modem displayed a full EDGE antenna on the indicator, respectively, the data transfer rate did not rise above 128 Kbps, and the Yandex page loaded in 1-2 minutes. My goal was to achieve a stable 3G signal. With the help of a satellite dish, this was done. The modem showed confident registration in the WCDMA standard, sometimes slipped HSDPA. As a result, we got a completely different connection speed.

When setting up an antenna, the height and line-of-sight conditions between the tower and the antenna can play an important role, the presence of a large number of external obstacles will affect the signal. Height can save you from this, i.e. raising the antenna above obstacles. Therefore, to determine the exact location of the antenna, you should try to determine it experimentally, holding the antenna in your hands. Also, such an antenna can be assembled on the basis of a reflector from