Question

Good evening - hoping the experts here can help me with some advice on antenna choice for an RUTx11.

Here's my situation - I'm setting up a local internet capability on a cruiser boat being used in the Great Lakes, Canada. Our goal (my wife and daughter's goal) is connectivity in areas where cell coverage is weak, less focused on high speed / Netflix streaming. For those who are familiar - we'll be making another trip through the North Channel - north of Manitoulan Island - this summer.

On the RUTX11, I've got 2 Wifi and 2 LTE (CAT 6) antenna ports. Here's my dilemma for LTE: 1 port connected to a long range / high gain SISO antenna like a Poynting OMNI-400 and the other port to a much smaller puck style antenna (ex: Pointing Puck-5)... or am I better to connect both ports of LTE to a slightly lower gain but MIMO antenna (ex: Poynting OMNI-402) to get the extended range? Best solution would clearly be 2 high-gain SISO, but I don't have the room! 

I'm less focused on the Wifi as WAN, but do intend to take advantage of the capability with an OMNI-496 (the only other space I have for antenna) and the other port connected to the same puck style antenna... And, of course, GPS and redundancy from the puck style antenna.

I appreciate all opinions - thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hello,

  

Thank you for reaching out!

In your case, the better option might be to go with OMNI-400, as it seems to be oriented more toward the lower-frequency bands, which you'll mainly be using when further from the shore. The advertised gain mostly applies to higher frequency bands, and when the cellular towers are far away, you'll most likely be using lower bands in the 600-900MHz range. 

Here is the gain chart for the OMNI-400:

And here is for OMNI-402:

Notice the dip in the OMNI-402 chart, if you decide to go with this option, make sure, that this dip in the low frequencies does not overlap with your carrier frequencies. Antennas for low-band operation can be identified by "Band 71" markings on the Poynting descriptions, and only OMNI-400 supports this range.

I'd also consider going with OMNI-902, as it supports both low-band frequencies and sub-6GHz 5G signals, which could be useful for future-proofing. It also supports 2x2 MIMO, which aids greatly in the areas with poorer coverage.

  

Hopefully, this helped! Have a nice holiday!

Best regards,
DaumantasG

Comments

Thanks very much Daumantas. Seeing the gain graphs next to each other really shows the low-band advantage of the OMNI-400.

I appreciate it's a judgement call, but I feel like having a good SISO connection is better than a marginal MIMO connection - I think I'll go with the OMNI-400.

Thanks again,

andrew