A friend uses a Voda broadband 3G dongle. She only gets 2 or sometimes 3 signal bars with a 'poor signal' message. The speed is slow. I wondered whether a signal booster might help. I have found one at a reasonable price on eBay item 270627294549 but I have no idea how well it's likely to work. Has anyone tried one of these or something similar to recommend?
Peter Scott
It will make a little bit of difference provided there is a strong signal outside the property where the external aerial is mounted. But unless the signal outside is strong then any gain from the outside aerial is likely to be wiped out by the length of cable involved (or the SNR wrecked by the repeater amp). 3G UMTS in the UK operates at 2.1GHz and cable losses will be high. I'm also not sure of the legality of an active 2.1GHz repeater in the UK.
A better solution would be changing to a provider who already provide a stronger signal in her house (ie because their base station is nearer), or fixed line broadband.
That type (i.e. an amplifier) are not legal, you can get the femtocell type, but they require a broadband internet connection (sounds in this case like lack of broadband might be reason for using the dongle).
Try a USB extension lead to raise the dongle higher and away from the PC.
This can make a very large difference. The maximum length of USB extension leads is 5m and I have used several 3G dongles on such a cable without problems.
Consider mounting the dongle high up outside in an inverted plastic bottle to keep the weather at bay.
John
You can get USB repeaters which give you the 5m. I guess there's no reason why you can't use a few in series. I think mine was about £6 off eBay, though not sure.
It is illegal to use one in the UK.
Many thanks for all replies and the warning about legality. I did try using a USB extension indoors and got a bit more signal. I'll certainly try raising it further and the outside plastic bottle idea. She spends quite a bit of time travelling so doesn't want a permanent connection. Might come to that though. Speeds, especially at peak times, not good on Voda.
Peter Scott
The other neat dodge is a parabolic reflector made out of tinfoil behind the antenna. Gets you good boost as long as you know where the transmitter is located relative to you.
There is a limit of the number of USB repeaters you can use in series. I think it can extend up to about a total of 30 metres depending on the device.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Peter Scott saying something like:
I wish those were available four years ago, at that price. What I did was simply mount a good quality external antenna on a 30' pole and point it to my nearest cell - some 5 miles away. Boosted the signal from one bar to three on 3G and from two bars to four on GPRS.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Peter Scott saying something like:
Use a rudimentary dish of sorts, behind it - makes all the difference.
In article , Peter Parry scribeth thus
Not that its likely to be any good either. Do what the others have suggested and get a USB extension lead and put your dongle outside and as high as you reasonably can, in some sort of weather proof enclosure.
Will work much better then any silly "booster"!...
Is that a power issue, rather than how many "hubs" you can have in series? I've seen a maximum of 5 mentioned in a few quarters, but don't know what the reason is. Some repeaters just clean up the signals, others act a hub.
The "proper" way to fix this if its a static installation, is with a better external antenna. Something like:
Some dongles have an option for connecting an aerial. However if that one has no connector then something like:
A better solution however would be to ditch the dongle altogether and use a 3G router of the type with a built in modem - hence you just use the sim card from the dongle. These usually have much better antenna in the first place, and also make it easy to substitute higher gain aerials when required. You can also keep the RF signal paths short and cover most of the distance with ethernet.
e.g.
series.
No it's a timing problem, 75% of light speed is just so slow, that and the electronics in each repeater... From what I remember of this when I looked at using long USB a while back for best results on the extended cable plug directly into a port on the host computer and don't connect anything else anywhere in the cable run. ie daisy chain the (active) extension cables.
At the frequencies in use for 3G 2.1 Ghz the cable losses will be rather high so unless your using a -very- low loss cable which will be quite pricey and rather unwieldy for any length you'd be far better off keeping the "RF" part of this with as low a loss as possible and using the USB grade cable to carry the baseband as it were, signals.
This is in effect what they do with some equipment's for mobile telecoms base stations anyway keep the RF as short as possible and just run the power and data to it.
A router with a built in 3G modem isn't going the be that much better if at all as its the location of where the 3G signal is being received thats the problem. Local screening inside the house .. get it to somewhere where it can "breathe" a bit better is the better way of doing this.
We have a 3 G dongle as a backup for a ADSL Draytek router and have done just that, used a USB extension with excellent results just got it outside the building and somewhat higher and as solid as a rock!...
Orange offer a free service on some phones called UMA, which seamlessly diverts calls onto a home wifi network -
Yes I was going to suggest something similar, though I'm a bit rusty on how I achieved it - as it has worked flawlessly, unlike the purpose made dongles that kept disconnecting. This was just for passing signals between routers in house, but I'm sure such a router as described would work better than an ordinary dongle.
Incidentally, I have ethernet leads 20 and 30 feet long and they work fine - better than the wireless, but more messy of course.
S
You need a length of 32 mm plastic drain pipe, an end cap and some brackets. Put the USB dongle on an extension in the tube (a bit of hot melt glue on the end cap works wonders) and mount it outside so the dongle is above the roofline (if possible).
It's tiresome that all of these interfaces could have been made to work over far greater distances with just slight changes to specs and little change to cost or performance.
We'll never need more than 640k of memory, we'll never need more than
30cm, 45cm, 60cm, 5m, 30m of cable. Why didn't I patent those hindsight goggles . . .HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.