Re: Aircard yagi antenna help needed

szilagyic wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Recently we purchased a cellular yagi dual band antenna to help our
> signal strength on a Sierra 860 AirCard with Cingular/AT&T, in hopes
> of improving the speed of the card at our home. We are having
> horrible results and cannot get it to work correctly. The antenna is
> a CCM brand 24 dB dual band yagi (824-896Mhz & 1870-1950Mhz); it was
> purchased from here: ( http://www.easystreetelectronics.com...PROD&ProdID=71
> ). It is attached to a 30 ft RG58U coax cable that runs back to a
> TNC-
> to-FME adapter, then to the Sierra card. We tried the antenna at a
> test location where we know where the tower is at, about 2 miles away,
> and can get 90% signal strength with the stock antenna there. When we
> attached the yagi and moved it in small increments to each side until
> we honed in on the exact spot, the highest signal strength we can get
> is about 50-60%. I was assuming we should be able to get 100% signal
> strength easily since the stock antenna already gets 90%.
>
> We tried the yagi at another location where we only get about 30%
> signal strength with the stock antenna. We do not know where the
> tower is at so we started in one spot and went in 5 degree increments
> in a complete circle, noting the signal strength at each stop. The
> highest we were able to get is about 20%.
>
> We must be missing something here, as I don't see why the yagi has
> less signal strength than the stock antenna. I have not tested the 30
> ft cable or ends yet, but it was factory made and appears to be fine
> (no kinks, etc). The yagi is mounted on a PVC pole, and the elements
> of the antenna are vertically oriented, and it the main beam of the
> antenna is parallel
> with the ground.
>
> Can anybody help us or provide some tips??? Are we using the right
> antenna? Right now we are completely stumped, and would really like
> to get this figured out.
>
> Thank you very much for all feedback and help on this matter...

I'm guessing something about the setup is causing the diversity antenna
system in the card to not select the yagi antenna. Bad coax, bad
antenna, picky card... who knows.