Nighthawk LTE hotspot + external antennas

[nhantenna]

I am in the United States.  I purchased the Nighthawk LTE hotspot directly from AT&T.  I have several technical questions about the two external antenna ports on this hotspot.

1) Do the external antenna ports support MIMO?  In other words does adding a second antenna significantly improve download/upload speeds when using AT&T LTE enabled cell towers?

2) What is the impedance (ohms) of the external antenna ports?  50 ohm?  75 ohm?  other?

3) What is the maximum power output by EACH external antenna port in watts?

4) This hotspot has 4 internal antennas (4x4 MIMO and 4x carrier aggregation).  What happens to the 4 internal antennas when the first external antenna is connected?  when the second external antenna is connected?  are the internal antennas disabled?  is hotspot MIMO disabled entirely?  if the external antennas ports support MIMO, does that mean when two external antennas are connected the hotspot operates in 2x2 MIMO mode?

[nhantenna]

Netgear must disclose in writing how the internal/external antennas work on this Nighthawk LTE hotspot. External LTE antennas are offered with different impedance (ohms), different maximum watt input, dual-polarized/slant-polarized MIMO (ie two antennas) in a single antenna housing, standalone non-MIMO antennas, etc. Connecting the wrong spec'ed antenna to the Nighthawk LTE hotspot may cause performance problems or may prevent the Nighthawk LTE hotspot from working at all. For example, if the Nighthawk LTE hotspot does not support external MIMO antennas, connecting a slant-polarized MIMO antenna in a single antenna housing may prevent the Nighthawk LTE hotspot from working at all.

[cclendenen]

I was wondering if you knew of somewhere I could purchase the antennas for this router? I’m having difficulty finding them. Thank you!

[nhantenna]

@cclendenenas of today November 16, 2017, Netgear has not disclosed the supported external antenna specs for the Nighthawk LTE hotspot.  MIMO (often described as dual-polarized, cross-polarized, or slant-polarized) vs standalone non-MIMO antennas, ohms, watts, etc.  There is no way to recommend an antenna for the Nighthawk LTE hotspot without this information.  Further Netgear has not disclosed what happens to Nighthawk LTE hotspot performance when using external antennas.  For example, the Nighthawk LTE hotspot may be limited to 250 megabit throughput (not the advertised 1000 megabit throughput) when using external antennas.  We are waiting for Netgear to disclose all of the above information.

[andyfor]

Any idea when Netgear will release the information needed to know what antennas to buy for the NR1100 Nighthawk?

[TeeJay74]

I'm sorry to note that most people here are almost completely lost with LTE antenna speculations. Netgear cannot know the environment you are using your MR1100. The external antennas are selected based on the radio conditions. Internal 4x4 Mimo antennas are good but if the distance to tower is longer then it may be good to use external mimo antennas. When you connect 2x2 Mimo antennas to MR1100 then internal 4x4 Mimo antennas are disabled. I have reached 600 Mbps download with both internal 4x4 Mimo and external 2x2 Mimo so both antenna solutions can give equally good performance. If you are using MR1100 in urban/city area then it is absolutely worth to try two external omni directional mimo antennas in 90 degrees angle because omni mimo can utilize signal reflections better than internal 4x4 mimo antennas.

[tobys]

Hey TeeJay.
Thanks for the very useful info.
I'm in the UK and have a signal issue inside but have found with the M1100 outside and at about 3m high I get good throughput.
Can you advise what 2x2 external omnis you are using please? I'm familiar with 2.4G & 5GHz antennae but not LTE.
Thanks again!
Toby

[TeeJay74]

Hi,

When I use outdoor 2x2 Omnis this is my choice: REN 66008X ODN (CSG Networks), 2 units required when using MIMO.

[UK-based]

I'm also in the UK with EE as my carrier. I'm using this external antenna from Poynting, which is actually a dual-polarised omni-directional antenna in one housing (price in the UK around £77.50), with 2 cables and SMA connectors (requiring 2 pigtail SMA to TS-9 adapters for connection to the M1). Prior to installing this antenna I had 2-3 signal strength bars on the M1, which increased to 5 bars after installation. The best download speed on a wired connection has been 90Mbps. I'm in a rural location about 3.5km from the mast.

The specs. for the Poynting XPOL-A0001 antenna give gain at 790-960MHz as 1.6dBi and gain at 1710-2700MHz as 4dBi. This is quite a lot less gain than the CSG Networks 66008X ODN that you recommended, TeeJay74, which is quoted as offering 6.0dBi gain at 698-960MHz and 8.0dBi at 1710-2700MHz. After a quick search, I couldn't find a UK supplier for this antenna but here's a similar CSG antenna on Amazon with gain of 4-5dBi, costing £88.37. And here's a similar Poynting antenna with 5-6dBi gain for £109.32. In both cases it would be necessary to buy 2 of these, costing a total of between £176 and £218. So the increased gain obviously comes at a price.

TeeJay74, if the 2 separate antennas were used, how should they be oriented for the UK's EE carrier, and what would the best separation be? Would one be mounted vertically and the other horizontally? I guess the latter could end up with water ingress. What about one at 45 degrees from vertical and the other at -45 degrees from vertical? What separation in this case?

[TeeJay74]

What makes omni antennas special, is their ability to utilize signal reflections more effectively than other antenna types. If your surroundings have lot of hard material surfaces then there are lot of reflections. Using them can provide some extra speed. Then antenna oriéntation thing.

I have tested -45/+45 , horizontal/vertical and both vertical orientation setups. Theorist say for Mimo, orientation should be exactly 90° between antennas.  When signal reflects there is almost certainly some twist and bend. However, vertical/vertical setup can provide almost similar performance. So I suggest it may not be worth to put too much attention to this omni orientation thing, because vertical/horizontal vs vertical/vertical can provide almost equal performance. Some day v/h is better, other day v/v can be slightly better. When I tested MR1100 and good table omni mimo in car setup, speed differences were 10-30 Mbps when orientation changed. That was very small difference, because my download was about 500 Mbps that time. Only one thing needs more investigation and that is separation distance between outdoor omni antennas. Probably 50 cm would be good, I guess.

[UK-based]

Thanks TeeJay74 for your very informative answers

Regarding a good table omni mimo antenna, do you have any suggestions?

[TeeJay74]

Hi,

I am using this model:

https://www.satshop.fi/antennas/3g-4g-lte-gsm-antennit/proscan-3g-4g-lte-gsm-omnidirectional-whip-an...

of course equivalent models do exist.

[UK-based]

Have you ever tested a portable antenna like this one, TeeJay74? Here's a guy stripping apart something that looks similar externally. The contents of the antenna in the first link could be completely different - I certainly don't want to negatively influence its sales. But is it likely that the apparently simple design of the stripped down version would ever offer an improvement over the internal antennas in the M1?

[TeeJay74]

Hi,

I have that Panorama antenna and I am not impressed with its performance.

[UK-based]

Thanks TeeJay74 - I won't be tempted by one .

[UK-based]

This YouTube video looks like good advice for positioning 2 omni antennas. What do you think TeeJay74?

[TeeJay74]

I have not seen this video before, but that 0,5 metres seem to be very good spacing.

[dahisser]

what external antennae did you finally decide to purchase? have you had success? thx.

[dahisser]

above questions were for nhantenna re ultimate purchase decision for MR1100 in US.

interested in other feedback, findings or recommendations too. Am using with AT&T. thx

[UK-based]

Wstyle1, it seems you must be a sales person for 4gltemall dot com - you've posted nearly 300 replies, most of which contain links to that site and add very little useful information to discussions. It's a pity when people misuse community forums in this way.

[Jerbaker]

I bought my antenna after talking to one of the techs, they have a few different ones for the netgear nighthawk hotspot 12deb 24in Fiberglass antenna with 50ft of cable.

I bought it from antenna gear in Ohio.

[AndyR71]

Hi All, I just posted a question about whether you need to change any settings after connecting an external antenna to the Nighthawk M1?? I've looked around the admin settings and can't see where you would and nobody seems to mention this on other threads and youtube clips. Can someone let me know if it just auto detects or what?  - Thanks !!

[TeeJay74]

No need to change anything from webgui. It is auto detection.

[AndyR71]

Thought so but many thanks for confirming. 🙂

[KarmusDK]

@TeeJay74 When you talk about "2 units" of MIMO antennas, do you mean one MIMO antenna with two cable outputs, or do you mean physically two antennas with four cable outputs, that are combined in a split cable in each of the TS9-ports?