Community discussions

MikroTik App
 
RogerWilco
Member
Member
Topic Author
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:02 am
Location: Australia

SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!  [SOLVED]

Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:58 am

To see if I could utilize a B28 tower that is 10km away, direct LOS, I've been testing one of these antennas from Sixfab. The problem as many know is the SXT and LHGs are useless for lower frequencies if it is some distance from a tower. The antenna I've been testing has 2.9dBi peak gain and flexible with 3M adhesive on one side. The leads (main, diversity, GPS) are poked around the edge of the PCB and is stuck to the inside of the bottom half of the SXT enclosure.

Sixfab antenna 2.9dBi + B28 @ 10km averages 40Mbps, peaking at 55Mbps
SXT antenna ~7.2dBi + B3 @ 26km averages 10-25Mbps, peaking at 35Mbps

Overall, I'm quite impressed with the results. US$12 to add B28 support to a SXT without any need to physically modify the enclosure/existing antenna, plus is completely removable.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
 
User avatar
doneware
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 647
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:39 pm
Location: Hungary

Re: SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!

Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:14 am

wow, pretty cool, thanks for sharing! we don't have b28 home (only a handful of counties have it in europe) yet.
extra points for the nondestructive mod :-)
 
killersoft
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Posts: 235
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:34 pm
Location: Victoria, Australia

Re: SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!

Tue Jul 28, 2020 3:49 pm

Interesting installation on a SXT.
Band 28 is hard to get right given the physically large antenna required to have a good efficiency(Q rating) for a given antenna.
I'm sending some gear up to rural NSW tomorrow for a B28 job, the other guy is a ham radio operator and is making his own B28 antenna.
 
User avatar
CyB3RMX
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Posts: 148
Joined: Thu May 26, 2011 7:08 am

Re: SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!

Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:12 am

The radio supports it? i have a WAP R with a R11e-LTE, if i change the antenna i will be able to get B28?..
 
AidanAus
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed May 08, 2019 7:35 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!

Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:04 am

The radio supports it? i have a WAP R with a R11e-LTE, if i change the antenna i will be able to get B28?..
If you take a look at the product listing for your device or for the modem installed it should tell you not only what bands it support but if it support mimo or carrier aggregation
https://mikrotik.com/product/r11e_lte

One of the cards we use *edit: for band 28* is the quectel ep-06, while this does have some compatibility issues like with devices not having the usb3 pins as well as the default configuration on the modem sets the interface up as a ppp interface requiring you to send some at commands to get it running in LTE mode on router OS7 they work quite well and supports band 28.
On router OS 7 there is more compatibility due to the use of the mbim driver 7 has installed but I would recommend testing our 7 just as you would any 'stable' release to make sure it functions as you like (I suggest always staying with long term releases unless a stable or OS7 release has a fix or added functionality you need)

for others reference we have tested these cards out in the LHGr range, wapGr range as well as the larger ltaps(only the bottom pcie slot has usb3 pins to my knowledge) and they work quite well.
There is some talk on the forums about being able to disable the usb3 pins on the ep-06 for compatibility with boards without it but I have not seen the commands listed as well as I am unable to find them in the AT commands PDF that you can download from quectel so that might just be a rumour (if someone could prove me wrong I would highly appreciate it :)

lastly if anyone is thinking of trying out the ep-06 take a look at this post by killersoft as he has put some effort into detailing his testing with the modules and the little caveats he found. viewtopic.php?t=150368
 
User avatar
sxtlhglte
just joined
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:42 pm

Re: SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!

Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:14 pm

nice!!

But yes waiting for Low-frequency (620-960mhz ) from b71/n71 till b8 LTE integrated antenna from Mikrotik.

Would be the killer product for total remote places.
 
RogerWilco
Member
Member
Topic Author
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:02 am
Location: Australia

Re: SXT LTE antenna mod for B28 - it's working!

Wed Aug 10, 2022 3:37 am

I’ve since switched to two Revie Flex (EFF6060A3S-15MHF1) antennas with Quectel EP06. Much better signal than the other one.

It would be terrific if MikroTik make a SXT with a better antenna.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: pe1chl, Thasaidon and 18 guests