MR1100 LTE antenna not recognized

[Lens123]

Hi I just bought the Nighthawk M1 MR1100 and I tried to connect an external antenna but it seems not to pick up the antenna signal and just continues to use its internal antennas. Any suggestions what I can do? I tested the antenna with a huawei LTE dongle and it works perfectly. 

Thanks for your input

[Lens123]

Ok I did some testing, when I boot the hotspot with the antennas connected it seems that it picks up the signal of the antennas and I have a strong signal (4 bars). But just seconds later (10-15s) it switches back to the internal antennas an I have only two bars left.

[jpr78]

Sounds like you may be band hopping. Check the RSRQ value and band value with 4 bars vs when you have 2 bars. The nighthawk will typically jump to a band with a lower RSRQ(quality of signal) even if the RSRP is better(which is the value that reflects the bars). I get 3 to 4 bars on B12 and only 1 to 2 bars on B4, however, I stay on B4 more often becaus the RSRQ is slightly better. I get faster speeds on B4 too.

[Lens123]

Thanks for your input but it has nothing todo with band hopping. When I am outside my building at the same spot where I placed the external antenna the internal antenna gets 1800Mhz and 2600 Mhz with 4 bars. So normally when I am in the building I should get the same signal via the  external antenna as tested with a Huawei dongle. Instead it just shows me the signal from the interanl atennas and it doesn't change anything if the external atennas are connected or not. The signal and all the values are the same.

Can anybody who is using the Nighthawk M1 tell me how it behaves when you connect an external antenna? Does it recognize it immedialtely ? Or do you have to re boot your device? Does it use the external antenna by default when connected or does it need some activation. 

My feeling says that something is wrong with the device. Also the 90 days Netgear Support is not available even though I registered my device which is just bad service. I guess I just send it back to amazon and will buy a Huawei B618s or does anybody have a different suggestion for a similar netgear product which works with an external antenna for 600 mbits?

[jpr78]

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@Lens123 wrote:

Can anybody who is using the Nighthawk M1 tell me how it behaves when you connect an external antenna? Does it recognize it immedialtely ? Or do you have to re boot your device? Does it use the external antenna by default when connected or does it need some activation. 

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I have two antennas connected to mine. it recognizes the antennas within 30 seconds, no reboot required. If you are looking at the back of the nighthawk, the antenna port on the left is antenna port one which should be used for a single antenna.

Also, what type of antenna do you have and what frequency(s) does it support?

[Lens123]

Thanks,

for the info I have a dual antenna (https://www.fts-hennig.de/antennen/4g-lte/aussenantenne/breitband-lte-mimo-xpol.html) and with my other device it also improves the signal within seconds when connected. I guess something is wrong with the antenna ports, I requested a replacement from amazon and I'll let you know if that solves the issue. I also ordered the Huawei so I can compare the behaviours. 

[Lens123]

Oh for your second question the antenna supports 690 - 2700 Mhz.

[Lens123]

Ok I got a new one. The first time I connected the antenna it found it immediatly getting a strong signal. Then after a short time it lost it again. After booting the device it takes the signal from the antenna immediately and also keeps it for quite a while, but then suddendly its gone again and switches back to the internal antennas. Any suggestions? Is there a firmware bug or is there an antenna issue even though it works well with any Huaweii product full signal al time? I also tested the Huawei B618s but the speed was disapointing 70 mbs instead of the 200mbs of the netgear eventhough it perfectly recognized the antenna. 

Thanks for your help!

[nhantenna]

"I also tested the Huawei B618s but the speed was disapointing 70 mbs instead of the 200mbs of the netgear"

I am a single antenna user.  Read back through my posts for my experience.  As I have recommended before, focus on download and upload speeds and consistency.  Do NOT focus on internal modem numbers as they are near meaningless once you add in tower hopping, advanced LTE, etc.  You can NOT control any of this....carriers like AT&T control everything.  Terrible signal on one band easily out performs the best signal on another band.  It all depends on your location, multiple tower locations, carrier, etc.

1) Radio is crazy.  Experimentation is key.

2) 200Mbps is very strong.

3) If your netgear was 200Mbps BEFORE and AFTER you attached the antenna, you can return the antenna.  For me, I went from unusable to 50Mbps when attaching the antenna.

4) There is no guarantee an antenna is going to help.  In fact an antenna can hurt your performance in certain situations.

[Lens123]

Hi nhantenna,

I can only achieve the good speeds when the netgear is outside of my house. Inside the isolation is reducing the signal by 20 to 30 dbm. So I need an external antenna to get the 200 mbps when the device is inside. I do not think it is a good idea to leave it outside ;). 

I have 3 bands available. 700mhz,1800mhz and 2600mhz. All three deliver about 70 mbps. The B618s did not seem to achieve the carriere agregation but I got a very constant and good signal on all three bands with the Huawei.

RSPR: -88 to -95 dbM

RSRQ: -3 to -6

The problem is that when I use the netgear with the antenna it uses the 1800mhz band showing a strong signal but RSRQ in the netgaer shows -10dbm which is worse than the one from the internal antennas -8dbm. So after a short time the M1 switches to the 2600 Mhz band but not using the good signal from the external antenna but the bad signal from the internal antenna. I guess there is some software code which switches between the antennas depending of the signal they get. It would be great if there would be a switch to select the antenna I would like to use.

At the moment I am a bit lost...

[nhantenna]

"At the moment I am a bit lost..."

External antennas do unexpected things in the field.  But they do work.

1) Like I said before, my Nighthawk was unusable at my house WITHOUT an external antenna.  With the external antenna I get "up to" 50Mbit.

2) Without an external antenna my nighthawk will only connect to 700MHz band.  I am rural.  With "700Mhz only" external antenna my nighthawk hops between 700Mhz band and non-700Mhz band.  Why?  It is a large antenna with enough metal on it to pick up other signals.  In my case the "poor" quality non-700Mhz band signal is faster than my "excellent" 700mhz band signal.  That is around the point when I stopped looking at modem values altogether. 

Download/upload speed tests are king.  In my families case, 50Mbit is sufficient.  If I managed to get 60 or 70Mbit speed, nobody is going to notice.  Mostly just basic web browsing.  Occasional stream.  We just don't have very demanding bandwidth requirements at this time.

[Lens123]

Hi thanks,

I am actually runnning a small business so every mbit we can get is very helpfull. Especially when between outside in front of my door and inside the house the difference is about 100-120 mbps and I have about 14 people connected. 

Any way I did some further testing. So far on both bands B3 and B7 I get a similar signal via the external antenna (-88 to -94 dbm RSRP vs 114 dBm inside), but the M1 only uses the external antenna when connected to B3. When connected to B7 it uses the internal antenna, I guess there is some code in their firmware that decides on certain values which antenna to use. As my RSRQ has a tendency to jump between -3 and -13 dbm on my external antenna while it is more constant on the internal antenna with -8 to -12 dbm it may decide based on that value to ignore my external antenna.

Unfortunatley there seems to be no way to get some Netgear support so I guess I will keep on looking for an alternative thats working. Its frustrating their non existing support or the contact form which is telling me that my serial number is invalid. It sucks....

[Lens123]

OK thanks to the following thread https://community.netgear.com/t5/Mobile-Routers-Hotspots-Modems/M1-antenna-setup/m-p/1546507/highlig... I could check the CA. So for B3 it uses the external antenna for B7 it uses the internal antenna. On the display it shows the signal strength of the B7 which is a bit confusing, I guess they should change that in their firmware and display the strongest signal availbale if the device takes several sources. Anyway tonight I could achieve 200 mbits again, so maybe the tower had too many connections the past days. 

The question I still have, why is the B7 band not using the antenna? Or would I need 4 antennas for that? As the bandwith of B7 is 20 Mhz it would be way better if the MR1100 would use the external for the B7 and the internal for the B3 or does that not make a difference?

Here the data

PCC:              

LTE band:         B7     

LTE bw:           20 MHz 

LTE Rx chan:      3350

RSSI (dBm):       -84.2

RSRP (dBm):       -111.6

RSRQ (dB):        -7.2

RSSNR (dB):       10

Tx Power (dBm):   

LTE Cell ID:      105134910

Physical Cell ID: 502

TAC:              4009

SCC1:             

LTE band:         B3     

LTE bw:           15 MHz 

LTE Rx chan:      1675

RSSI (dBm):       -72.5

RSRP (dBm):       -89.9

RSRQ (dB):        -9.7

Physical Cell ID: 502

[BobAu]

I have the same issue with you. Did you work it out?

B40 2300MHz and B7 2600MHz signal cannot be improved by external antenna

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Mobile-Routers-Hotspots-Modems/Nighthawk-M1-B40-2300MHz-and-B7-2600...

 

[Lens123]

Hi BobAu,

no there is no solutions. I have been in contact with the support. They ackknowledge the problem but they gave me no solution. After 3 month of waiting they offered me to exchange the device. But by that time I have already send it back to Amazon. So currently I use a Fritzbox 6890LTE which is performing really great. It can only do the CA with two bands but at least it works and I have very good speeds. Also it has some software tools included which help you to position your antenna. So in summary I am really disappointed by the Netgear support and would not recommend the product if you want to use it with external antennas. 

[BobAu]

Thanks for your reply and experience. Did you mean Netgear staff already knew this issue? Why did they fix it in a firmware update?

[BobAu]

After 3 month of waiting they offered me to exchange the device.

Does this mean Netgear already fixed the issue? If not, it doesn't make sense to exchange the device with same issue.

[Lens123]

No their support was inconsistent and slow. 3 month to get back to me with a "solution" + they wanted me to pay for the sending of the new device.

On the one hand they ackknowledged the problem exists on the other hand after three month of waiting for a new firmware solution another support guy wanted to do a hardware exchange eventhough it is a firmware issue. 

I had three devices (I always send them back to amazon for an exchange) and all had the same issue why should I get a fourth one?! After the third not working device I just request a refund. 

So in general it is a good device unless you want to use it with an external antenna with the goal of CA. I had the EU version so maybe the US or AU versions have different firmware or different hardware parts if it works well for others. But maybe they fixed since, I can only tell you my situation from 3 month ago.

[Lens123]

Or maybe they couldn't fixe it with the firmware and they have changed the hardware so that the newer version would work correctly. 

[BobAu]

Your expeirence is very meaningful for me. Let me know I am not alone to face same problems.

"Or maybe they couldn't fixe it with the firmware and they have changed the hardware so that the newer version would work correctly. "

Did you confirm with the tech guy the upcoming forth device will not have the issue?

I don't know about the US version. I have two MR1100 devices. One is AU version (Telstra) and the other is EU version (EE UK). Both are unlocked. Both had same issue. The AU version don't support 2300 MHz but external antenna doesn't improve the signal quality at 2600 MHz. The EU version support 2300 and 2600 MHz and external antenna doesn't improve signal quality at 2300 and 2600 MHz.

Don't the reason. It's strange that 2300 is TDD and 2600 is FDD, but cann be enhanced by external antenna. So what are the external antenna ports for?