#Diy omni directional 4g antenna booster how to

A good low loss 20-foot cable should have a loss of 1 db or less. We now have all the major components and just need to connect everything together with good “low loss” RF cable since we do not want to waste precious signal power with leaky high loss RF cables. The higher gain amplifier will provide better coverage, including the ability to drive more than one indoor antenna if a wider indoor coverage area is needed. This worked perfectly and took my cabin from no coverage to 4-5 bars of coverage in any weather condition, including SNOW! That said, if the budget allows for a higher gain amplifier, go for it. In my case, I picked up a 55 db gain amplifier (fig. With your booster, it’s all about GAIN and ensuring the gain can be adjusted accordingly.

With both antennas in hand, you’ll need to pick out your bi-directional booster.

By using a dual polarized (vertical & horizontal) ceiling mount antenna, you can provide 360-degree coverage around the antenna with a vertical beam width of 150 degrees down from the antenna to the floor. Also, to keep household peace with the lady of the house, installing an ugly antenna on the wall was “not” an option for me, but luckily a ceiling mount was. We want to maximize indoor coverage hence the gain number will be much lower, as we aim wide, not far. The antenna I used is a 13 dbi gain 800 MHz Yagi antenna (fig. This is referred to as antenna gain and the higher the gain number the more focused the antenna power will be. By keeping the antenna highly focused, we ensure that all the signal power is directed at our target tower and not sprayed over a wide area. For the best performance, make sure that your outdoor antenna is highly directional, essentially a narrow, laser-like beam that points directly to the nearest cell tower. Your basic list of required components consists of a tower, an outdoor antenna, an indoor antenna, a bi-directional amplifier, and RF cables. With my research done, it was time to move on to gearing up for the build. In my case, the nearest Rogers cell tower is located in Bon Echo Provincial Park and operating at 850 MHz. On Android, I use the Open Signal app, which provides the direction of the nearest and strongest tower.

Additionally, you can search your phone’s app store for “cell signal,” and multiple apps will pop up that can help. You can also check with your mobile carrier and ask the technical support department for the nearest tower and its frequency band. The 800 MHz band will have a greater range than the 1.9 GHz band due to atmospheric attenuation, hence many carriers prefer the 800 MHz band for greater area coverage.įor my fellow Canadians, here’s a great website which maps all the towers in Canada for multiple carriers and provides details, including their frequency band. Most 3G/4G systems operate in either the 800 (824 to 894) MHz or 1.9 (1.85 to 1.99) GHz band.

Step 1 in the process is to find the nearest cell tower to your location and figure out on what frequency band the tower operates on. Here’s how I did it using common materials you can find online or at your local home improvement store.

#Diy omni directional 4g antenna booster how to

So my engineering challenge was to figure out how to obtain great mobile coverage at my cabin, allowing me the occasional Friday work day there versus being in the office cube. In fact, many renters in the area take a daily walk to the top of a nearby hill just to receive their text messages and emails. If I’m on top of a hill on a clear day, I might be able to pull in one bar on my mobile. It’s beautiful and peaceful there, but the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away in a town with a population of less than 1,000 people. In my case, I have a cabin in Northern Ontario. My solution was to build my own cell tower. But as an avid do-it-yourselfer and an engineer, that wasn’t my style. For most people, the answer to these problems is to ‘just deal with it’ or try switching providers. Al Lounsbury is based in Ciena’s Ottawa Campus and is part of our Digital Marketing team.ĭo you have a special place where you love to relax and unwind, but can’t because of a lack of cell phone or mobile data coverage? Or maybe you’re having issues getting good cell reception in your own home where your second office is located.