Any upload benefits of dual antennas for a single stream on Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) Mobile Router?

[FloodlightMedia]

Hi,

Our business has purchased the Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) to assist with livestreaming from the field. This involves installing it in a pelican case to protect it from the weather, so we're trying to determine whether we can expect to benefit from drilling holes for 2 LTE antennas, or if one is enough.

They will be used to transmit a single video signal in rural areas a long way from the tower, so I suspect MIMO/multipath propagation isn't likely to be of much benefit. Beamforming to create the strongest signal seems far more likely to help, as far as I can tell. Is anything like this supported, and would dual antennas help achieve it?

Thanks

[MicW · Accepted solution]

The M1 does support MIMO on the external antenna and also carrier aggregation in these combinations if the tower supports it

(1800+700, 1800+2600, 2600+700, 2600+2600, 700+1800+2600,1800+2600+2600, 700+2600+2600 MHz). I have experimented with single and two antenna combinations. The local towers around here don't support carrier aggregation so that has no impact. With the single external antenna it seems to cap out at 30 mb/s upload, with a second antenna in MIMO configuration the best I have seen is 33 mb/s on the upload.

[antinode]

> [...] Beamforming to create the strongest signal seems far more likely
> to help, as far as I can tell. Is anything like this supported, and
> would dual antennas help achieve it?

   I know nothing, but I don't see how a single antenna could possibly
do anything like "Beamforming".  As the Wikipedia article says:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamforming

      [...] this is achieved by combining elements in an antenna array

      [...]

I'd expect an "antenna array" with one element to be pretty much doomed
to be isotropic.

[FloodlightMedia]

I think you may have misread my post. The device supports multiple antennas. I just have no idea if it supports beamforming, or a similarly advantageous technology such as carrier aggregation (I've done more reading since), which would justify us having two antennas installed for the above scenario. Our testing has returned ambiguous results so far.

[MicW · Accepted solution]

The M1 does support MIMO on the external antenna and also carrier aggregation in these combinations if the tower supports it

(1800+700, 1800+2600, 2600+700, 2600+2600, 700+1800+2600,1800+2600+2600, 700+2600+2600 MHz). I have experimented with single and two antenna combinations. The local towers around here don't support carrier aggregation so that has no impact. With the single external antenna it seems to cap out at 30 mb/s upload, with a second antenna in MIMO configuration the best I have seen is 33 mb/s on the upload.

[MicW]

If you have reasonable line of sight then 2 yagis will give you a focused connection on a particular tower