Question about antennas

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JoeandJane

JoeandJane

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Posts
188
Location
Tucson AZ
I have a WeBoost Drive 4g-x which I get what I would consider poor performance from.  I have been mounting the mini mag mount antenna on a 4"x4" steel plate atop an extended golf ball retriever that gets it about 5' above the roof.  Now, I also want to have a mag mount ham antenna on the roof.  So, I'm thinking about two possible improvements:

1) using dicor, attach an 18" steel panel to the roof for these to ride on so I can leave them always up.  This would maybe improve the cell booster performance with a larger ground plane?
Or:
2) mount a similar plate to the top of the retractable batwing tv antenna that we don't use to get them even higher up.  Maybe with this option I would also upgrade to the better omnidirectional Weboost receiving antenna 304421 and their better interior antenna.

Looking for opinions, and answer 1 question: does the Weboost exterior antenna need to be separated from the ham antenna any certain distance?

 
It's a crap shoot. I've used both methods without noticing much difference, but more height has generally been helpful.  A ground pane has to be adequate, but I don't think more than adequate helps much, if any.  And no-ground (with built-in ground planes) antennas work for cellular. The ground plane needed for cellular frequencies is tiny anyway.

I've not found the Drive-type antennas from Weboost to be much help for typical RV sites.  I changed over to the larger fixed site antennas and simply mount it when we set up.  Had better luck with directional instead of omni, too, but again it takes a bit more effort.

My experience with cell reception in campgrounds is that when it is poor, boosters often aren't able to help a lot. If the signal is just weak, amplification helps, but if it is intermittent or being reflected by the terrain (changing directions moment by moment), nothing much makes it very usable.  Also, the virtual circuits tend to get overloaded  when a lot of RVers get together in a campground. Everybody is making calls, using internet, etc., so you may have a usable signal strength but still see "No connection".
 
I wouldn't put the ham antenna there. At 144/440 MHz, a larger ground plane such as the plate you described will provide much better performance.
 
HappyWanderer said:
I wouldn't put the ham antenna there. At 144/440 MHz, a larger ground plane such as the plate you described will provide much better performance.
Click to expand...
As I mentioned, I was planning on putting the similar plate for ground plane on top of the bat wing getting the advantage of additional height
 
Since Cellular Frequencies are well removed from MOST ham radio bands.. THey should not bother each other much.  That said. I'd seperate by as much as possible just out of caution.

I mean.. It is kind of like the other park I'm in.. Soon as I pulled in some jerk complained to the assistant manager that My Big long wire antenna was ruining their TV reception....
The Asst manager noticed I'd not strung the long wire,, It was still in storage.

She reported it to me .. but it was a very friendly chat.  Even she was laughing at the idea.

 
Cutting the coax feed line to the length needed and as short as possible will help the most. Going to a low loss coax as short as possible is the best solution. The loss in the longer lengths provided with the antenna, negates most if not all of the gain.
 
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