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I have recently bought a 4g Sim Card Router (TP-Link mr6400) and a 4g exterior LTE Antenna. With testing I have now doubled my connection speed. To go one step further, I am looking at the possibility of getting the aerial even higher up my house to chimney level (I'm going to test beforehand). Is there a specific cable other than LTE /4G Antennen-extension cable (i.e. what I'm Googling). What do I need to be looking out for exactly? Also, will there be a loss in signal through a cable of roughly 10 meters, and would it be even noticeable if I were to possibly double my speed again?

If I take the aerial up higher I should get a stronger signal? I may also look into a Yagi antenna in the future with more research.

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  • $\begingroup$ What type of coax cable are you asking about? The loss depends on the type. $\endgroup$
    – Mike Waters
    Jun 23, 2018 at 19:39
  • $\begingroup$ thanks for the reply, this was the cable is seen online, very quick search, like I said Im just nearly getting into 4g Antenna's and bands/frequencies etc, but Im finding it very interesting amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01L7OMRI0/… $\endgroup$
    – Killian Ganly
    Jun 23, 2018 at 21:00

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If you elevate the antenna, you will absolutely increase your range, provided that the feedline loss is low enough.

The coax should be mostly vertical, or the coax loss could offset the height gain. To minimize loss, it should be as short as possible.

That 30m cable is 3mm diameter, according to that Amazon listing; it is likely RG-174. RG-58 coax would have lower losses.

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    $\begingroup$ Agreed about the coax loss 100%. RG-174 has horrible losses at UHF/Microwave, and a 10-30m run could really put a downer on your day. Check out the losses here - w4rp.com/ref/coax.html $\endgroup$
    – Scott Earle ♦
    Jun 25, 2018 at 4:21
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If your antenna is already outside on a pole, adding coax to lift it up will probably not help your Internet connection speed.

The small gain in signal strength from being higher up will be offset by the loss in the longer cable.

Say you use a length of LMR195, which is about 0.5 dB/m at 1800 MHz. By extending the cable 10 m, you'll cause a 5 dB additional loss. You may not get that much additional signal from the increase in height.

What you should do is add a second external antenna. The router has two antenna connectors and LTE uses both in a full MIMO fashion. Adding a second antenna on the mast will allow it to work as designed. It is best to mount the second antenna with the opposite polarisation to the first, but a reasonable vertical separation of 0.5 m will also work. There are also dual-pol antennas in one housing, with two connectors, which will also help.

See some test videos showing the doubling here , and an explanation here

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