M1 antenna setup

Hi Sixtsixmike,

Thanks for updating us on this! Also, I'm glad that you are seeing improvements. :]

We will wait for your update!

- Jason N

"will try a solo antenna and see what's, what."

If your rural LTE is anything like my rural LTE you're going to see sizeable speedtest fluctuations from test to test.  My recommendations:

1) Log results from ten speedtests with one antenna.

2) Log results from ten speedtests with two antennas.

3) Log results from ten speedtests with one antenna.

If there is a performance story to be told about adding a second antenna to your Nighthawk LTE hotspot at your specific location, it should be apparent from the above speedtest results.

Anyone else have speedtest results with one and two external antennas connected to your Nighthawk LTE hotspot?

 1) Log results from ten speedtests with one antenna.

2) Log results from ten speedtests with two antennas.

3) Log results from ten speedtests with one antenna.

Hi nhantenna,

Thank you for your feedback on this. 

We are still waiting on Six's results. :]

- Jason N

Also need information on antenna orientation in single and dual antenna configurations.

Hi jpr78,

We are waiting for six's update and see if their setup works. From there we can update you with the single and dual antenna configurations.

Please be patient. :]

- Jason N

just to help set expectations on six's results.  results for single vs dual external antennas are scarce (performance, orientation comparisons ,etc).  i have been looking since last year and haven't found anything useful yet.  the bottomline line is:

1) it depends on your carrier

2) it depends on the cell tower you are connected to

there is nothing univeral here.  what works in one US state may not work in another.  what works in one US town may not work in another.  what works on AT&T may not work on another carrier.  so to answer the questions "should i get one or two antennas?" and "should both be vertical or +/- 45 degrees" i don't see us getting enough data to make these decisions any time soon.

the antennas/cabling/roof mount install is a big expense.  i have one yagi, mounted vertical, and it works well.  since adding a second antenna might do NOTHING for my performance or stability in my rural location i have not pursued getting a second antenna.

I think you may be able to determine whether multiple antenna's will work by doing this. Take your nighthawk close to the tower. Connect the nighthawk to a pc via the USB C cable. Telnet to the router IP on port 5510. Type ""AT!GSTATUS?" without the quotes. This will show you all the bands the router is currently connected to. If you see more than one, I think multiple antennas could be beneficial. The two ports could each connect to the different bands increasing overall speeds. I've corresponded with someone who is actually using a wide band yagi on one antenna port and a parabolic grid on the other with very good results. In that case, you have to know for sure which bands the tower has in order to use the grid because it's a specific band unlike the wide band yagi. I actually just started testing my setup two nights ago. I have dual yagi's @ +/- 45 degrees currently in "<" formation in my attic. I'm picking up band4 and band12. band12 is 700mhz and band4 is 1700/2100mhz. Initial results are promising, without the antennas, the signal is not usable. I plan on testing ">" "V" "<" and vertical for both antennas to see which yields the best results. Also, cabling is important. Currently I'm using 25' LMR400. 

jpr78"Telnet to the router IP on port 5510. Type ""AT!GSTATUS?" without the quotes. This will show you all the bands the router is currently connected to"  Does this command show the same thing the Nighthawk web console shows or something different?  If different can you attach a screenshot?

"I'm picking up band4 and band12. band12 is 700mhz and band4 is 1700/2100mhz."  I am in the same boat as you.  I have one "700MHz only" yagi mounted vertically.  My Nighthawk ping pongs between two different cell towers.  First tower is band 12.  Second tower is band 4.  Is this back and forth between band 4 and band 12 happening to you?  My band 12 has excellent signal with 5 bars.  My band 4 has poor signal with 1 bar.

"Initial results are promising, without the antennas, the signal is not usable."  Same as me.  Without my one external yagi the Nighthawk is so unreliable that it can not be used as internet solution.  My peak download speed is approx 50Mbit with one external 700MHz yagi antenna.  Let's assume that my 50Mbit is coming over 700MHz band with my 700MHz antenna.  If I add a second antenna, would a second radio in my Nighthawk get another 50Mbit, giving me a total of 100Mbit download?  Nighthawk is my only CA device.  I have no idea how AT&T handles/implements/restricts CA.  But I do know that in order for this Nighthawk to reach the advertised 1000Mbit (1Gbit) max speed the Nighthawk must use multiple radios/bands aggressively.

" Does this command show the same thing the Nighthawk web console shows or something different?  If different can you attach a screenshot?"

It shows additional info. The web console will only show me one band which I assume is what the router designates as the primary band. So the console showed me band12 but the telnet command showed both band12 and band4. I cannot attach a screenshot at the moment. I had to give my friend back the router. He has a grandfathered unlimited account and he's going to add a line for me and get me a nighthawk. I'm hoping I'll have it between 4/16 and 4/20.  Here's a thread from the forums where someone posts the output of the command. https://community.netgear.com/t5/Mobile-Routers-Hotspots-Modems/Nighthawk-m1-4g-only/m-p/1499583

"I am in the same boat as you.  I have one "700MHz only" yagi mounted vertically.  My Nighthawk ping pongs between two different cell towers.  First tower is band 12.  Second tower is band 4.  Is this back and forth between band 4 and band 12 happening to you?  My band 12 has excellent signal with 5 bars.  My band 4 has poor signal with 1 bar."
Yes, it happened to me too. Band12 was good (-87) and Band4 was marginal(-108). I went to bed on band12 and when I woke up, it had jumped over to band4. Surprisingly, with the marginal signal band4 is still fast if not faster than band12(in regards to download it's just as good, upload seems to be capped around 2meg on band4, I can get 4-6meg on band12). I read somewhere people talking about a tower having a band priority(speculation?). So a particular tower could force device to a specific band even if it's not the best signal for you. I'll have more info on band hopping once I get my router and start testing more.

"Let's assume that my 50Mbit is coming over 700MHz band with my 700MHz antenna.  If I add a second antenna, would a second radio in my Nighthawk get another 50Mbit, giving me a total of 100Mbit download?"

I don't believe so. I think each antenna will one hook to one band and that's why the nighthawk has 4 antennas but only 2 being accessible for antennas. I saw a pic of someone who had taken the nighthawk completely out of the case and in order to try to access all four antennas. And I swear there is a pic on this forum of another person showing a pic with all four antennas connected.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ATT/comments/7cs5ri/m1_nighthawk_external_antennas_from_pcb_what_size/

I suggest to use two antennas, since MIMO works best with two equal antennas. This page explains basics of MIMO.

https://www.unwiredinsight.com/2013/lte-mimo

It's vital to have two antennas to utilise MIMO features, like transmission diversity or spatial multiplexing, to archieve best service.

Of course if the BTS has only 1x1 setup, benefits from two antennas ain't so high, as far as I know.

---

"I suggest to use two antennas, since MIMO works best with two equal antennas."

MIMO is for environments where signal is bouncing around.  Like downtown city with lots of buildings.

MIMO does not help for more rural areas with little or no signal bouncing around.

Nobody knows whether Nighthawk LTE hotspot external attennas support MIMO or CA.  I have yet to see any speedtest results or web console screenshots showing signal improvements when a second external attenna is added.  Like I said before, I think the number of nighthawk owners using two antennas is very, very low.  Since it depends on physical location, carrier, cell tower configuration, we're not going to be able to make any general recommendations anytime soon.

For Nighthawk owners wondering about one external antenna, yes, one external antenna can make a massive difference.  You can jump from no service to 50Mbit download.  As for adding a second antenna, that is uncertain.  It's been six months or so since the AT&T Nighthawk came out in the United States.  I have yet to see any data that says a second antenna makes any difference at all on AT&T.

Here's the thread I was talking about where someone removed the nighthawk from the case. I see it was just commented on and bumped it to the top of the forum.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Mobile-Routers-Hotspots-Modems/LTE-4x4-MIMO-outdoor-antenna/td-p/1502588

"It's been seven months or so since the AT&T Nighthawk came out in the United States.  I have yet to see any data that says a second antenna makes any difference at all on AT&T."

Still looking for any AT&T speedtest results with one vs two external Nighthawk LTE hotspot antennas.

I finally got my own nighthawk last week. Currently have two antennas setup in an ">" formation. I plan to test different orientations and one vs two antennas in the coming week or two(i hope). For now it's acceptable until i can find time to play around with it.

jpr78 "I plan to test different orientations and one vs two antennas"

look in your nighthawk lte hotspot web gui to see which cell tower or towers you are connecting to (aka "Cell ID").  at my house, my nighthawk constantly ping pongs between two different cell towers in two different directions.  that said you might have to point your two antennas in two different directions for the best performance.

CellID's are different but very close in number. Each ID is 8 digits and the difference by substraction is only 7. Not doubting that claim but almost seems hard to believe. I will certainly try to point the antennas at different towers, although I'm only aware of one tower that's less than 10 miles from me.

jpr78 "but almost seems hard to believe"

you can lookup the cellid's on the internet....web sites will map the cellid's for you on google maps so you can see where the cell towers are physically located.  you can not control the movement between bands and between cell towers.  AT&T controls all aspects of that movement.  when you have a cell phone there is not anything you can do.  when you have a nighthawk lte hotspot with external antennas now you have to manually point to each tower.  in my case, i have one yagi.  my signal per nighthawk web gui goes from tower 1, band 12 "excellent" five bars to tower 2, band 4 "poor" one bar ping pong'ing in an endless loop.  as several have commented before the "bars" do not corellate to performance.  one bar signal can provide significantly faster downloads than five bars.  for example different frequencies, different bandwidth, etc.  speedtest is king!  as long as the performance is good, i do not care about "bars", band x vs band y, etc.

I've tried to find my towers but I cannot. The cellid lookup websites don't seem to have them. I just read some info that the RSRQ is a factor in the band it hooks to. It seems true for me, as the RSRQ of B4 is better than B12, even though B12 gives me more bars. The closer to 0 the RSRQ the better. My B4 is around -8 and B12 is -10. What are your RSRQ values? I'm curious if this is true for you also. For the last two nights, I've seen my router switch from B4 BACK TO B12 which is even more confusing. MOST of the time, it wants to be on B4. I actually caught a whiff of B30 last night when I rebooted the router. Again, I hope to play around with antenna setup soon.

"I've tried to find my towers but I cannot. The cellid lookup websites don't seem to have them."

new towers perhaps?  out-of-date data on cellid lookup sites?  all i can tell you for sure is the cellids you see in nighthawk hotspot gui are real.  cell towers are licensed, permitted, etc.

"I've seen my router switch from B4 BACK TO B12 which is even more confusing"

i ping pong between b4 on tower 1 and b12 on tower 2 all day every day.  at&t controls this movement.  for performance reasons, load balancing reasons, service/maintenance windows, etc.

regarding the signal measurements in the nighthawk gui.......on my nighthawk band 12 "excellent" five bar, and band 4 "poor" one bar, ping pongs back and forth all day.  my performance fluctuates between 20Mbit and 50Mbit downloads.  with radio it is not just "bars" that affect performance...it's weather outside, whether the trees have leaves (winter vs summer), congestion on the tower, etc.

i have a 700mhz only yagi.  my band 12 (700mhz) is "excellent" five bars.  my best guess is if i connect a second band 4 capable yagi and point it toward the second tower my band 4 signal will improve from "poor" one bar.  if i can get my nighthawk gui to say "excellent" signal for band 12 and band 4 that is probably the best i can do from an antenna/aiming perspective.

the question for me is will it make a noticeable performance difference to my family?  my two cell towers are not CA enabled yet.  20-50Mbit seems to be more than enough for us at the moment.  When LTE-A, CA, etc arrives in my area, i think my interest in a second external antenna will increase.

Let me ask you this, without the antenna, do you still pickup both bands, just weaker on both or do you pickup just one band?

I know for certain where one of the ATT towers is and I have both yagi's pointed towards it. It has been online for years. It was an Alltel tower then became ATT. However, to my knowledge, this is the only ATT tower within 10 miles of my house. The rest are over 12 miles. There is a US Cellular tower about 7 miles away but I don't know if ATT/USC ever share tower space and I have not tried pointing the antennas that way yet. I've taken the cellID's, all other info required and tried entering it on http://cellidfinder.com/ but it doesn't find anything :(

I think I'm wrong! Some info I just found leads me to believe it's not a USC tower but in fact ATT. I'm going to try pointing my antennas that way as soon as I can get time.

jpr78 "Let me ask you this, without the antenna, do you still pickup both bands, just weaker on both or do you pickup just one band?"

with no antenna attached to my nighthawk lte hotspot i only get band 12 that is very weak, unstable, and not usable as a normal internet connection.

i only have one 700MHz antenna.  when i connect this antenna to my nighthawk lte hotspot, band 12 jumps to excellent which exceeded my expectations.  however, the nighthawk ping pongs between band 12 and band 4 even though this antenna is band 12 only (700Mhz only).

The yagi is a big piece of metal.  My best guess is this big piece of metal is big enough to catch just a trace of "poor" signal quality band 4.  It does not matter which direction i point the yagi....north, south, east, west, or straight at the ground by my feet.....it still picks up band 4.

as discussed in this forum, don't worry too much about "poor" vs "excellent" or 1 bar vs 3 bars, versus 5 bars.  you can have a "poor" signal that easily outperforms an "excellent" signal.  it all depends on band, frequency range, etc.  the bottom line for me is speedtest.  as long as my speedtest is good, i'm happy.

regarding adding a second antenna, for me personally, it would have to:

1) stabilize my speeds, where i get 50Mbit all day, every day, consistently (versus what i have now which is 20-50Mbit which is good, but not a stable 50Mbit.)

2) CA speeds, LTE-A speeds, a sizeable increase in speedtest.....going from 50 to 90 for example.

unless that second antenna gives me great stability or a big increase in speedtest, it's hard to justify investing the time/money/effort to running a second antenna to the roof.