Best LTE antenna setup for HD2 IP67?

Hello,

I have Peplink Max HD2 IP67 with two SIM cards and I’m trying to get reliable LTE transmission.
To test possible solutions I use this kind of antenna:

with short RF cable. It is a set of 2 pcs, distance between antennas is 10-15 cm.
I connect antennas to Cellular1

Main and Cellular 1 Diversity (aux) to test first SIM card performance and respectively to Cell 2 Main and Cell 2 Diversity to test second SIM

The first SIM card :
Peplink CLI reports band LTE Band 1 (2100 MHz) and RSSI -74 dBm. Without antenna I have 10 dB less (~85 dBm).

Second SIM card - the difference between both signal strengths is similar, -86 dBm vs -80 dBm with antennas.

The Cellular modems are connected to 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz.

This is very strange for me: when I move the same (first) SIM card into my phone, application reports signal strength from range -55 to -61 dBm, it is a 20 dB better value than Peplink. Do You think that I should worry about signal levels?

Finally I want to use both SIM cards from different service providers with 4 antennas, two omnidirectional and two directional.
I plan to connect SIM1 to Cell1 main (omni) + Cell 1 diversity aux (directional). SIM 2 will be connected the same way - Cell2 and Cell 2 diversity aux.

Do You think it is a good setup?

Best regards,

Piotr M.

  1. have you done “site survey” and found the best mounting location? where cell towers are? etc?
  2. do you have the LTE or LTE-A variant of the HD2?
  3. what band was your phone connected to when you were testing its signal? was it in the same location as the peplink antenna?
  4. why would you mix omni and directional? if you know where the cell tower is and have a decent LoS to it, where you are installing is a building and won’t be moving, and there would be no secondary tower it might connect to, then directional could be the better selection.
  5. have you considered a MIMO antenna that has the correct degrees/polarization/separation? That way you could have one antenna instead of two for each cellular modem. there was a recent thread discussing separation and angling of antennas.

Hi mystery,

  1. no site survey. The deployment will be on vehicle, MAX HD2 IP67 will be on mast with short RF cables.
    That’s why I want to have one omni antenna and second directional. The omni will be static, directional will be installed with “rotor”.

  2. That is a good question, I see on the carton box MAX-HD2-M-LTEA-W-IP67, so perhaps this is LTEA.
    From CLI:
    Router Name : MAX-HD2-2
    Product Model : Pepwave MAX HD2
    Hardware Revision : 3
    Serial Number : […]
    Firmware Version : 8.0.0 build 4203

  3. Yes, location the same, the phone is on my desk near Peplink. I see that this is HSPA+ (perhaps 900 MHz?)

  4. If MIMO antenna could be good solution I can try this setup, but initial requirement was to have option for rotating one of the antennas to find best signal strength. Can I mix antenna with sim card, i.e. connect first MIMO omni antenna to Cell1 and Cell2, second MIMO directional to Cell1 aux and Cell2 aux?

Best regards,

Piotr M.

Did you ever get this solution up and running? I am thinking about a similar setup.

Hello @DCGordon & @DCGordon,
Many here have deployed the HD2 IP67 onto various forms of vehicles (land based & water based).
Shown here is a custom mount we had made for one project (this was for an HD4 IP67 system)

You are better to use Omni Directional antennas rather than directional antennas unless you are parking the vehicle and aligning the antennas every time.

The image in the original post appears to be of a directional yagi antenna with only one connection to each of the HD2 modems, each antenna in the image appears to also be aligned in the same polarity. These need to be 90 Degrees out of phase to each other. If you are going to use directional antennas, then for each modem on the HD2, source and use a high-quality XPOL antenna like these ensuring to connect both the MAIN & AUX antenna connections.

These XPOL antennas have the elements inside the antennas enclose alighted at 90 degrees opposing (+/- 45 Degrees of the vertical access).

You may like to ask your local authorised Peplink Partner for a copy of the Antenna Selection Guide available to them from the Partner section of this Forum.

Your local Certified Peplink Partner can help you with a copy of the Antenna Selection Guide for Peplink Partners , this is a detailed guide and is only available to the Peplink Partners so to ensure that you are helped in working through it to get the most suitable antenna solution to your application.

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

Drogi Piotrze,

For mobile antennas you would typically choose omnidirectional antennas. The antennas you have purchased from Dipol are directional antennas and not suitable.
Please contact Wi-Link (www.wilink.pl) in Warsaw, they can advise your regarding high performance antennas. The MIMO-3-V2-12 will be an excellent solution for your application (should this still be applicalble).

Regards,
Tjeerd

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