F.A.Q.

Heita! I want a 8ta 3G booster. The new cell phone from Telkom's signal is weak. 

What is an indication of signal at different dBs?

-90dBm is good comms (in cities and built up areas where there are many users on the towers)

-85 dBm to -90 dBm is very good

-85 dBm and better is excellent

You will not get better than -51 dBm .

What is the benefit of moving an antenna to outside the house/building/car?

I have a quick question about your antennas. Lets take the High Gain directional Antenna on your website, it says the antenna "has a gain of 11 dBi". Am I to understand that as meaning that if currently on my 3g if I am getting -91 dBm (Are you measuring the signals from an indoor environment?) (measured in the MDMA application) then when using that antenna I would get an improvement of 11dBm (under ideal conditions) and not a dBi more? i.e the best my dBm can become when using the antenna would then be 80dBm?

If the answer to the question above (red letters) is yes, then the following is applicable.

The antenna offers the opportunity to receive the signal from an outdoor environment which is not prone to the multipath fading experienced in an indoor environment. There is a 10-20 dB advantage when receiving the signal in an outdoor open space environment as compared to a cluttered indoors.

This together with the antenna gain provides anything between 20-30 dB gain when using an external antenna even if the antenna gain is only 11 dBi.

So the received signal will be better than -80dBm.

I'm using the internet service provider Cell C's new 4Gs service. I want to increase my signal strength to boost my speed. What antenna should I use and how will it connect to my modem? And can I install it myself?

We suggest that you use the broadband antenna kit (COMB-044). It is the highest gain antenna available and will significantly boost your signal.
The antenna kit includes U-Bolts, a 7m cable and the universal USB modem-to-antenna adaptor cable ADPT-026.
You will need to connect with your modem. This adaptor cable does not plug into the modem, it slides over the modem, and connects to the modem's internal antenna through induction.

It's a D.I.Y installation. Mount the antenna outside. Point this directional antenna in the direction of the tower and it will communicate with that tower. Test you signal speed on your PC with the Nerve tool, mentioned below, to determine in what direction you will get the best signal strength.

Please note that the PANL-0038 does NOT work with Cell C Data or voice.

Advice on installing a NEOTEL Antenna (received from one of our clients):

Neotel Phone: Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) without the antenna was 80 and after antenna installation it is a sweet 53 in a fair coverage zone. The lower your RSSI the better your signal strength.

To check this type *#2368*#07# on your Neotel phone, page down to RSSI and press select to see the RSSI value and then press back. It is important to determine where your signal is coming from by checking Neotels coverage https://salesportal.neotel.co.za/web/guest/home in most cases it will be the base station closest to you but does not have to be the case. Zoom out till you see 3 dark orange sections closest to your current location, it looks like a 3 leave clover, this is the base station.

Try and position your antenna to face in that direction of the base station first by moving it 10 degrees as a time, move away from the antenna so to not interfere with the signal, wait a 1 minute (no less), then check your RSSI on the Neotel phone as mentioned above, repeat this process till you find the sweet spot with the lowest RSSI.  Record the RSSI value and the direction of the antenna on a piece of paper to make it easier to place the antenna in this position if it is the lowest RSSI.

Once you tested the entire angles, place the antenna in the position that gave you the lowest RSSI. Do one final RSSI test on the phone to ensure you are still getting the lowest RSSI value as you might have moved the antenna while tightening the bolts. It will be beneficial to place the antenna where you have a full 360 degree range to determine the best possible angle and RSSI value.
 
After a few hours of testing your new RSSI, you can fine tune the antenna even further by turning the antenna 1 or 2 degrees at a time and by facing the antenna slightly vertically or horizontally to find an even better RSSI value. This process does take sometime but is very well worth the effort.
 
This antenna is excellent for Neotel phones as you can see from my results and the fact that I am in a Neotel fair coverage zone.

I would like to have a repeater or system that transmits, that I do not have to be connected to a cable when talking on my cellphone?

Unfortunately it is illegal to transmit on the cellular frequencies, the Cellular Network Providers are the only ones that can transmit on these frequencies. Therefor we cannot sell systems that radiates the signal. Our solution requires that you connect the cellphone to an external antenna with a 10m cable that and an Universal Adapter. Only one cellphone can be linked to the antenna at a time. 
http://www.poyntingdirect.co.za/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=K-YAGI-A0016

Unfortunately it is illegal for anyone but the Cellular Network Providers to transmit on the cellular frequencies; or that radiate the signal.  MTN and Vodacom have a license with ICASA to transmit on the frequency range. That is exactly what these ‘extenders’ do.  Therefore to buy these systems over the internet (from other countries) and installing it here in South Africa (by you) is illegal. 
The problems with these repeaters are that they are expensive and, if they are not installed properly, they will influence the network negatively. If MTN, Vodacom, Cell C or ICASA ‘find’ these repeaters they will remove it and you might be liaible for a fine.

Why should I use a Poynting antenna with my Poynting adapter:

It is extremely important to consider that you are buying the best coupler in the world which links the modem/phone at all frequencies. If you combine this to an antenna with frequency limitations then the following may happen:

-May work fine today (because the base station is talking to you at 900 MHz) but tomorrow it may assign a 1800 frequency because the network is more congested and you will get erratic performance.

-Even if a frequency limited antenna works fine and consistent at the moment it will fail the moment the network gets upgraded and start using some other frequency bands.

Just to elaborate:

a) Tranditional GSM voice uses from 890-960 MHz. Many yagi antennas you buy for “900 MHz” does not cover all the frequencies in this range. While you speak on a cell phone the device “hops” from frequency to frequency in this band at 200 times per second (this is the buzz you hear on the radio when a cellphone operates close to it). If the antenna is not well designed it will work erratically with this “hopping”

b) When the spectrum got congested cellphone companies started getting spectrum in 1850MHz-1990MHz or 1720MHz-1880MHz bands. Here the phones also “hop between frequencies” but more so, some base stations will pass you from the 900 MHz band to the 1800 band and back. If your antenna cannot do this when this happens then suddenly you will have very bad results and may think the coupler has broken.

c) When 3G arrives the frequency band shifts to 1990MHz-2150MHz. If your antenna cannot do this you will not get good 3G. This could mean you still sit with slow data while much faster is available.

Poynting “All band antennas”: that you can use with this adapter is:
K-LPDA-A0021; K-LPDA-A0020; K-LPDA-A0044; OMNI-A0039 and OMNI- A0069 covers all these bands. 

What does a high gain 3G Antenna do?

Provided that you are within the 3G/HSDPA signal range a higher gain antenna will provide you with higher data rates as your signal to noise ratio is increased, thus a better transfer rate can be achieved.

A high gain antenna mounted outside in a fixed position will also result in a more stable signal.

Please bear in mind that the 3G/HSDPA data rate will also be affected by the number of subscribers on line at a particular time, so you may have great throughput in the mornings and late evenings and during the day this may drop.

How can I test whether the antenna improves the signal?

Please download one of the tools we use to determine signal strength  (mdma.exe) from www.nerve.org.za/mdma
Without the antenna connected to the E270, plug the E270 into your laptop. Do not start the connection application.
Run the (downloaded ) mdma.exe
You will see a window as below showing you the signal strength that you are getting, be 3G, EDGE or GPRS

Make sure that the connection Type from the application is set at 3G Only
Connect the adapter to the E270, reset the device or close and start the program again. Check if you do get an improved signal. Check on the reading on RSSI as well as the green bars
Ensure that the antenna is pointed to the direction where there is a 3G base station, rotate the antenna few degrees until you get the best signal improvement.
Each time you move the antenna, wait few seconds until the antenna has picked up signal, reset the application or close the application and start again.

What is IP addresses and subnets?

In a network of computers and routers and modems etc, each device has a unique IP address to allow communication to happen between devices. Think of the IP address as a name. Any device can be setup to have a permanant (AKA Static) IP address, or it can be setup to obtain an IP address from the network when you plug it into the network or try to connect wirelessly to the network. Check out the IP settings in Windows and you'll see an example of one of these.

For a network to be able to give a new connecting device an IP address when it joins the network, there must be a something called a DHCP server running on the network. The DHCP server's job is to dish out IP addresses to any device connecting that needs and IP address (i.e. has not been assigned a static one).

A DHCP server can be run from any number of devices, such as your Netgear router, or the ADSL modem on the remote side of your network, or even from a PC. BUT VERY IMPORTANT. Only one DHCP server should be running on a network as otherwise you can imagine the chaos when a new connecting device gets given two different names by separate DHCP servers.

For this reason, where possible, we always advise that you disable ALL DHCP servers (check the Netgear router and the remote ADSL modem) and rather use STATIC IP Addresses on all connecting devices to maintain sanity. However, if you really would like to be able to easily connect new devices to your Netgear router, and you are sure there is no DHCP server running on the ADSL modem, then we can setup the Netgear router to dish out IP addresses to any connecting wireless device. I'll offer both options. If the remote ADSL router is not yours or you have no control over it, I strongly suggest that you find out from that network administrator what free IP addresses you are allowed to use so you can properly configure you network and do not use a DHCP server on your local Netgear router.

OK. So what is a subnet? Well, at our offices, we work on the 10.16.0.XXX subnet, which means that all devices on the network must be in the IP address range 10.16.0.XXX or they can't join the network. So if someone tries to connect a PC with a Statically defined IP address of, say, 10.16.20.20, the PC will not be able to communicate with the network because its IP address is not in the right range (10.16.0.20 would have worked, but 10.16.20.20 won't). Why? Well, all devices on the network have been given a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. That means that they will only communicate with other devices with an IP address whose first three numbers are the same as their own (in this example, 10.16.0). Making sure your entire network (including the remote part of it) all work on the same subnet and that they all have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 is good practice.

What is a gateway? A gateway is the device that is responsible for connecting your network to the internet. So in this case, your gateway's IP address is the IP address of the ADSL modem (10.0.0.5). When you enter a website on your browser or an IP address that falls outside your subnet then the computer will immediately ask the Gateway device to connect you to the internet.

Our Cellular antennas and your health?
Antennas do transmit and receive electromagnetic waves, they do not amplify the signal they merely focus the signal. Using an antenna which is mounted outside actually moves the radiation away from where people reside and thus minimise any possible effects radiation could have. A Cellphone used during a normal call, when placed against ones ear, exposes you to far more radiation than an antenna a few meters away from you

What is the frequency bands that the cellular operators are currently using?
A "//" indicates that the bands are paired; usually the lower part is used for the uplink and the higher part for the downlink):
 
Vodacom: 
890.1 - 901.1 MHz // 935.1 - 946.1 MHz (GSM900 channels 1 - 55)
1760.3 - 1772.3 MHz // 1855.3 - 1867.3 MHz (GSM1800 channels 763 - 822)
1920 - 1935 MHz // 2110 - 2125 MHz (UMTS channels 1 - 3)
 
MTN:  
901.5 - 903.9 MHz // 946.5 - 948.9 MHz (GSM900 channels 58 - 69)
906.1 - 914.7 MHz // 951.1 - 959.7 MHz (GSM900 channels 81 - 123)
1722.7 - 1734.7 MHz // 1817.7 - 1829.7 MHz (GSM1800 channels 575 - 634)
1950 - 1960 MHz // 2140 - 2150 MHz (UMTS channels 7 - 8)
 
Cell C:    
882.7 - 889.5 MHz // 927.7 - 934.5 MHz (E-GSM channels 988 - 1021)
904.3 - 905.7 MHz // 949.3 - 950.7 MHz (GSM900 channels 72 - 78)
1747.9 - 1759.9 MHz // 1842.9 - 1854.9 MHz (GSM1800 channels 701 - 760)
1940 - 1950 MHz // 2130 - 2140 MHz (UMTS channels 5 - 6) - this has been set aside for them, but not sure if they are using it yet
 
Also note that GPRS and EDGE is provided on the E-GSM, GSM900 and GSM1800 frequency bands, together with the normal GSM voice service. Similarly, HSDPA is provided on the UMTS frequency bands (3G is just another name for UMTS). Most of the short-term future network upgrades will probably be in the UMTS bands, while UMTS will probably also later move into the GSM frequency bands as well. 

What lightning protection should be used?

When using the LPDA-A0021 there is a DC short built into the antenna which will help with vicinity strikes, but the pole which the antenna is mounted on must be properly grounded. This means that it must be mounted on an aluminium pole with a copper strap running down the pole into an appropriate spike (or 3 spikes) into moist soil. An additional aluminium pipe can be mounted horizontally above the antenna to take the brunt of any direct strikes.

Gas arrestors or polyphaser devices can also be fitted inline to further suppress any surges

Coupler development for E220

Sounds mad, but is not really that impossible to link to the E220. Rather then connect with a connector you "couple" using a device which you place against the modem and it couples to the internal antenna and absorbs the signal. It is in turn connected to an external antenna via a cable and there you go!

We have in fact patented a device to do so and sell it for use with normal cellphones (many which also do not have any external antenna connector nowadays). Looks like this ADPT-022-01 Coupler. The problem with this ADPT-A022 is that it was designed for the two voice bands (900 and 1800MHz) and not for UMTS band (2000-2200MHz).

We have now designed an ADPT-A024 that is desegned for the the Voice and UMTS bands and works with the HUAWEI E220 USB Modem as well as with your cellphone (should you use that as your 3G Modem).

Which antenna should I use to improve HSDPA, 3G and GPRS reception?

LPDA-A0044 is a long distance antenna that is meant to be used outdoors.(You can use it indoors but it is big - 1.2 m long). It is the highest gain antenna that we have available. It covers both the voice and data frequencies. You can use it in urban and rural areas. It is a directional antenna - you point it to a tower and it will communicate with that tower.

LPDA-A0020 is a smaller, medium distance antenna that can be used indoors and outdoors. It is smaller (about the size if an A4 book and has a radome cover - it is ideal for townhouses or security villages where a bigger antenna will not be allowed). It covers both the voice and data frequencies. You can use it in urban and rural areas.  It is a directional antenna - you point it to a tower and it will communicate with that tower.

The 2 antennas above requires a adapter cable that fits between the antenna and card. We have adapter cables for SIERRA WIRELESS, OPTION, NOVATEL and HUAWEI cards.

Pls note that no antenna can change GPRS to 3G - if you are completely outside the 3G/HSDPA coverage area no antenna will help. If you are only having signal degradation problems (due to trees/buildings/landscape) these antennas are ideal.

What is the difference between a YAGI and a LPDA?
A yagi antenna typically can only cover 1 of the 3 cellphone bands (900MHz/1800MHz or 3G, 1950-2170MHz). GPRS is transmitted on 900/1800 bands, 3G/HSDPA on the UMTS 2000MHz band. Very likely that yagi is not made for the 3G band in which case it may actually REDUCE the signal at 3G and enhance GPRS. Best to use a broadband antenna such as an LPDA (log-periodic dipole array). These antennas do all the bands and may solve the problem.

What losses do I get with a splitter?
Splitter losses are made up of 2 losses namely splitting loss (the power lost splitting) and insertion loss (the transmission lines internal to the splitter). Splitting losses are 3dBi per split and insertion loss is dependent on the path length of the transmission lines in the splitter. So with this in mind:
2 Way splitter (SPLT-A0014) = 3 to 4 dB loss (2 way split + insertion loss)
4 Way Splitter (SPLT-A0013) = 7 to 8 dB loss (2 x 2 way split + insertion loss)
8 way splitter (SPLT-A0003) = 10 to 11 dBi loss (3 x 2 way split + insertion loss)

How do I know which 3G Card I have?

Look at the back of your 3G Card. The type of card (Novatel, Option, Sierra Wireless or HUAWEI) is indicated here.

I don't get 3G/HSDPA reception. Will an antenna help?
 

Please note that no antenna can change GPRS to 3G - if you are completely outside the 3G/HSDPA coverage area no antenna will help. If you are only having signal degradation problems (due to trees/buildings/landscape) these antennas are ideal.

I received a Vodafone antenna with my card. What is the difference between this one and yours?
 

Our laptop antenna has a better gain profile accross the frequency bands than the ones packaged with the Vodafone cards. We did comparative testing at the Vodacom labs to substantiate this.

I would like to have a repeater or system that transmits, that I do not have to be connected to a cable when talking on my cellphone?
 

Unfortunately it is illegal to transmit on the cellular frequencies, the Cellular Network Providers are the only ones that can transmit on these frequencies. Therefor we cannot sell systems that radiates the signal. Our solution requires that you connect the cellphone to an external antenna with a 10m cable that and an Universal Adapter. Only one cellphone can be linked to the antenna at a time.

What is the coupling loss between the cellphone antenna and adapter?
 

There is a coupling loss between the coupler and the cellphone antenna and this varies between -3dB and -6dBi (possibly even more) depending on the efficiency of the cellphone antenna. This is why we use a high gain antenna and low loss cable to overcome this loss.

Will the Poynting Antenna increase the 3G signal strength and reduce 'inactive' connection periods?
 

Regarding inactive periods the following (simplified) explanation: The base stations normally does power control. It operates on a contention basis and the better connected users will shut out those on the margin of the signal in peak periods. To reduce these inactive times a high gain antenna will definitely help, in the sense that the mast will interpret it as a better connection.

Why is our antennas (sometimes) more expensive than those of competitors?
Our Yagi is more expensive than some of the vendors that sell essentially modified TV antennas. It is clearly quite different to those, especially if you look at specifications. Even the 900 MHz band is not 900 MHz, but rather 870MHz to 960MHz. A yagi must cover all of it since cell phones jump frequencies 200 times a second. For those interested the band is actually divided in two chunks an down and up at 890MHz-915 MHz and 935-960MHz respectively. Each chunk is 25 MHz (up and dow) and originally Vodacom and MTN each had half. I remember that MTN had the "bad" half of the bottom band (902.5-915MHz). The reason it is bad is that USA has a license free band from 902-928 MHz and much illegal equipment is sold here which interferes with MTN. Originally 870-890 MHz was not used, but I think this is now also in use to increase cellphone capacity.
Poynt being: you may find some antenna seemingly working sometimes (but it may not work equally well for transmit and receive bands or for two operators). This problem is more severe if you look at broadband antennas. In some sense you have to have confidence in the integrity of the designers. Poynting has an internal motto of "Clever products designed by real engineers"). We employ at this stage about 20 "real" engineers of which 3 has Ph.D's and a number of M.Sc's. Very few companies worldwide has an equal number of antenna engineers - they are a costly bunch to maintain however and this has to be recovered somehow, hence prices are sometimes higher. Many people find that the cost of an incorrect antenna (installation/frustration) justifies having something which has been properly designed and tested. Our early Yagi's for example stopped working when wet - lately we do a "rain test", for example, on all new (and old products).

What is your banking details?

Account Name: Poynting Antennas
Bank: ABSA Centurion
Branch Number: 632005

Account Number: 406 970 6384

Please fax your proof of payment to                0865 193057