ANT-128-004

I decided to set up a backup Internet connection for use during weather related, long term outages of our cable Internet service. Because of the topography of the land around my rural home, we have no useful cellular service with a hand held device such as an iPhone or cellular enabled iPad. My plan was to replace the function of the cable modem with a cellular modem and directional antenna mounted high on the exterior of my home. I purchased a Netgear Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) Mobile Router which offers an Ethernet port to take the place of the cable modem. Since the M1 has 2 MIMO antenna connectors (TS-9), I decided to purchase a pair of these Proxicast 9/11 dBi Ultra Broadband antennas and mount them perpendicular to each other on my mast. Testing involved rotating the antenna mast in the general direction of all the cell towers I knew of, then checking the RSRP and run Speedtest. This M1 Mobile Router promises amazing speeds, but since my antennas don’t see a good signal, my speeds are more on the order of a DSL connection, but I expected that. Curiously, no matter where I pointed the antennas, my M1 always connected to the same Cell ID, with differences in performance depending on the azimuth. I plotted the location of all the nearby cell towers I knew of from a physical survey and then calculated the bearing and distance to each from my home to help with the antenna installation. I made an incorrect assumption that I must be connecting to a tower at bearing 51 degrees, 4.0 km (2.4 miles) because I was influenced by my knowledge of the terrain in that direction. Finally, I used the OpenCellID.org database to find the GPS co-ordinates of the tower I was connecting to and was surprised to find that it was at bearing 147 degrees, 8.25 km (~5 miles). So, back up on the roof and rotate the mast to that bearing. I’m leaving it there as the average of a half dozen speed tests today yields 8.2 Mbps D/L, 1.5 Mbps U/L, average ping 28 msec on ATT Mobile on LTE B 12 (700 MHz). I can live with this performance for emergency situations, especially because it will be accessible throughout my house using my existing WiFi network. Now that I have proved the concept to myself, I intend to replace the Nighthawk M1 with a different cellular router that can be configured for “fail over” as well as run on any US cellular carrier depending on which SIM I use. The Proxicast antennas seem nicely made and I am pleased with them. I did have to modify the supplied brackets to provide clearance when mounting the antennas at the 45 degree angles required for the MIMO installation, however I expected that as well from another review. The brackets supplied were NOT like those in the picture of the MIMO installation. Before I figured out about the true bearing of the LTE cell tower, I had tried the Proxicast panel type MIMO antenna. As it turns out, that may have been a cheaper solution compared to this pair of ultra broadband antennas had I simply aimed it properly.

I have purchased over a dozen of these antennas for my business. Some are in the field for 5 years now and have worked flawlessly. The plastic cover over the antenna keeps birds, spiders, etc. off of the actual antenna a big plus.

We had to purchase an additional part to get it to work with our Verizon Jetpack. We're still trying to finish setting it up with the Jetpack and finding the right position to get a good signal.

We had not gain at all in our signal strength with the device that arrived. It was very disappointing after waiting so long for it. In addition to that our neighbors bought one that works amazing for them. DoA

In my case, the LTE signal sensitivity did not improve.I was a bit disappointed.

Just like a well designed yagi it was very directional in received signal. Elements are well protected by plastic housing. Housing keeps birds from bending elements.

This is a great antenna. it covers a wide bandwidth so it's perfect for all the Verizon bands plus others for different purposes like ham radio. So much better than the typical antenna like this that only covers a limited range/band. I did paint/seal all the exposed metal to prevent rusting and am using a 50 ohm cable from Amazon. I have mine hooked up to a WeBoost internet booster. Point it using an app and it pulls in a solid signal!

Met my technical expectations & did the job.