I've given up with my yagi for my 2100MHz mobile phone / internet unit.
Firstly, it seems that the tower I have it pointed at, probably isn't in use anymore
The UK Ofcom database of cellphone masts appears to be horrendously out of date.
I tried installing an app on my smartphone called OpenSignal. It's quite nifty in that it shows you a map with all the cell base stations marked on it, and connects a red line from your position to the tower you're connected to in realtime.
Well when I ran it, I ended up with a list of about 10 different cell towers, and the phone regularly swapped from one to the other.
Now I did go out in the car to the locations indicated & could not see -anything- at all that looked like a cell tower at any of the locations indicated. One of the locations is slap bang in the middle of a large field owned by a friend, and he's fairly certain he ain't got no cellphone masts in there, just some horsies.
The phone was pretty consistent in finding and re-finding each of these transmitters though, evidenced by their CID/LAC numbers. So, they must be out there *somewhere*.. maybe OpenSignal tries to deduce their position from the crowdsourced data they run on, and so the indicated locations are only 'average probabilities'? I've tried contacting the mobile operator for cell tower locations but might as well talk to the wall.
Anyway.. what I did figure was, that all these regularly changing connections, are in different compass directions.
So, a highly directional yagi would probably actually be a BAD idea in practise! (especially if it's pointed at nothing energised *slaps own forehead* DOH)
So.. I guess what I'm looking for is an omnidirectional / omniazimuthal antenna.
A plain vertical 1/4 wave dipole has a radiation pattern shaped like a doughnut laid flat on the table. I understand you can get more gain in a horizontal direction by 'squashing' the doughnut flatter, by using some weird and wonderful antenna variations.
I've heard of discone, coaxial collinear, biconical designs.. they all seem pretty heavy on the maths and I don't think I could come up with anything workable unless I had exact plans.
I had a good look at the biquad antennas but maybe they're still too directional. Could you set up 4 biquads at right angles to each other and connect all the feeds together? Or would the maths mess up and signals just cancel out and all go to hell in a handbasket
What's the easiest and most reliable antenna I could try that has a good bit of squashed doughnut omniazimuthal gain?
Firstly, it seems that the tower I have it pointed at, probably isn't in use anymore
The UK Ofcom database of cellphone masts appears to be horrendously out of date.
I tried installing an app on my smartphone called OpenSignal. It's quite nifty in that it shows you a map with all the cell base stations marked on it, and connects a red line from your position to the tower you're connected to in realtime.
Well when I ran it, I ended up with a list of about 10 different cell towers, and the phone regularly swapped from one to the other.
Now I did go out in the car to the locations indicated & could not see -anything- at all that looked like a cell tower at any of the locations indicated. One of the locations is slap bang in the middle of a large field owned by a friend, and he's fairly certain he ain't got no cellphone masts in there, just some horsies.
The phone was pretty consistent in finding and re-finding each of these transmitters though, evidenced by their CID/LAC numbers. So, they must be out there *somewhere*.. maybe OpenSignal tries to deduce their position from the crowdsourced data they run on, and so the indicated locations are only 'average probabilities'? I've tried contacting the mobile operator for cell tower locations but might as well talk to the wall.
Anyway.. what I did figure was, that all these regularly changing connections, are in different compass directions.
So, a highly directional yagi would probably actually be a BAD idea in practise! (especially if it's pointed at nothing energised *slaps own forehead* DOH)
So.. I guess what I'm looking for is an omnidirectional / omniazimuthal antenna.
A plain vertical 1/4 wave dipole has a radiation pattern shaped like a doughnut laid flat on the table. I understand you can get more gain in a horizontal direction by 'squashing' the doughnut flatter, by using some weird and wonderful antenna variations.
I've heard of discone, coaxial collinear, biconical designs.. they all seem pretty heavy on the maths and I don't think I could come up with anything workable unless I had exact plans.
I had a good look at the biquad antennas but maybe they're still too directional. Could you set up 4 biquads at right angles to each other and connect all the feeds together? Or would the maths mess up and signals just cancel out and all go to hell in a handbasket
What's the easiest and most reliable antenna I could try that has a good bit of squashed doughnut omniazimuthal gain?