Hi,
Context:
During summer vacations, and other times of the year, I visit a remote village where there is no cell phone reception. Nearest area with cellphone service in LOS, is around 6km to 7km from where the LHGGR LTE6 antenna is.
I'm not a networking professional, and the only thing I have done ever remotely close to it was my CCNA 20 years back...
So, I've used the best of my abilities to research and determine what devices to use, how to position them, etc.
Overall, I've positioned the LHGGR antenna on a high stance, using the lateral wall of the garage, where I get a LOS with the area that has cell coverage. Antenna is mounted at around 5 meters high from ground, and current location elevation is 831m, whereas the highest elevation point of cell coverage area is about the same height.
Now... I've been having a hard time finding the actual position of the operator antenna... Did a bit of wardriving with some phone apps, but couldn't actually pinpoint the location, to get a as accurate as possible elevation of the operator's antenna, and then calculate a better positioning for my LHGGR.
Connection quality is not bad, but naturally I always wonder if there is anything else that I could improve.
I can get speeds between 5-30Mbps for DL (average of 10-15 during the day, which I guess it is related to the # of clients connected to cells) and between 20-30Mbps for UL.
Asks
What are your go to cell information services or platforms?
What are the Android/Web apps that you would recommend for finding cells location, aligning antennas (angle, height, etc.), terrain elevation plotting?
What other general guidance could you provide for attempting to increase the signal quality (e.g., band lock, different antenna, etc)?
Thank you all for your attention! Eager to get a bit more of knowledge on this
p.s. Would also like to read more about signal interference, particularly day vs night, given I have seen heavy drops in RSRP values during the night.