Hi, I have Ltap-LTE router which is powered solely by solar panel. I've noticed that, after I connected an external Poynting mimo 13 antenna the drainage of the batteries goes faster. In longer periods of absence there is no need for fast communication so antenna efficiency, both for LTE and Wifi can be reduced.
Are there options with which I could reduce the antenna power of the LTE antenna? With respect to wifi, these settings I found. I'm planning to write a script which controls the 'low power state’ by SMS.
I remember reading documentation for the LTE modems used in Mikrotik products I found power consumption specification depending on carrier aggregation. LtAP LTE has only a category 4 modem, so no aggregation, but maybe using different bands would result in different current draw?
"Antenna power" of LTE devices is limited to 200mW (23dBm) by standards. Which is not a lot. Actual Tx power is then tightly regulated by base station (cell tower) and will only reach maximum allowed if path loss between modem and base station is high. RSRP (signal strength, shown by modem ... and it's RSRP not RSSI) is only indication of path loss as MNOs operate their cells at wildly different powers (some boost base station Tx power to offer better DL speeds and "more bars" but too high base station Tx power may mean that mobile/modem has "decent signal" but can't talk to base station). And by reducing path loss (e.g. by installing high-gain directional antennas) one also helps to reduce actual Tx power (or, in case of higher path loss, enable less robust and thus "faster" modulation schemes meaning less time with high Tx power to transmit same amount of payload).
I'm not aware of any LTE device (phone or modem) which would allow user to decrease max Tx power.
However, some LTE chipsets (older more prominently) operate quite inefficiently and can draw up to a few Watts when under full load. So it would probably make sense to replace LTE modem with a newer one. Even though max power draw might be higher (as @TuxPowered noted), it would probably still operate at lower "watt per bit" ratio ... which is what trully matters.