You should be ok i think. The antenna on the modem is fairly directional, but no where near as directional as the parabolic dish antennas that other people are using. A little bit of swaying should have no impact at all.

I think you had a faulty end on your 150' cable, as you should be able to run a 300' cable and have data communication across it no problem.

Stevey, thanks for the tips.
I'll test it out for a week or so and hopefully I'll get some varying weather conditions.

I concur with your statement about the ends probably being faulty on my 150' cat5, I got it from Canada computer for about $20, which was way cheaper than radio shack or future shop who basically charge 1$/foot.. It was clearly made in house and they probably did a half-arsed job putting the ends on.. I know you can have a 300' length of cat5e without losing signal quality, but in this case maybe because the cat5 is also supplying power to the antenna it is limited in its length to 150', just a hypothesis..

Today I got 50 foot length of 1/8" aircraft cable with some clips i can make a loop and attach that end to the bolts holding the antenna onto the pole. My problem is on the anchor end, I dont know how to tension the cable down, i was thinking of maybe a turnbuckle, but that doesnt seem like its the best solution..
:confused:

Hey guys - great info here.. I have been reading all I can in a desperate attempt to avoid satellite broadband :)

A couple of questions:
- How long, from calling Rogers (or Bell, I suppose), until the modem (I am heading out later to try the indoor modem via Futureshop) is activated?
-I 'm 10km away from a tower, with line of sight but a lot of trees/forest between me and that freedom signal. Do I have a hope in hell of gaining access with this service? We're showing on the map as out of the coverage area... but, dang - I really want this to work.

Thanks all,
Jenn

Hey Jenniqua,

Be warned, if your not in the coverage area, you will get no IT support from bell. Not too sure about rogers, but i suspect it's similar, so be sure your ok with your connection quality before you get to the end of your 30 days buyers remorse time window. I've seen it work from 10k. I've seen it fail miserably. Your best bet? Get your modem up as high as you can above those trees, and pray for the best.

Jenniqua,

Go here to see which direction the tower near you is pointing:
http://inukshukjv.mapanswer.com/Rogers/main/index.do

login: rogers password: rogers make sure you click ANTENNA so you can see exactly where they are and what direction they are pointing.

From what I hear you can be up to 15 kms away from the tower if there is a transmitter pointed towards you, while some people cant get a signal 2 km away from the tower if there is no transmitter pointing towards their general direction.

Keep in mind, line of sight is very important for these modems to work. 2.5ghz is a very tight wavelength, so you'll need a fairly good line of sight at the tower, although it CAN go through a few trees or small hills. If possible, put it up on a tv tower or some other sort of pole. The higher you go, the better with these things..

hi all

just wanted to post some problems i have recently started having with my rogers outdoor modem.

as mentioned before, i had a tough time keeping a signal, but have more or less resolved that.

now it seems i am not getting very good speeds. my dl rate is 256 and the upload is around the same! i called rogers but i really dont think they have a clue. i live near lake muskoka and its a busy weekend up here - - possibly it is due to so many users maxing out the service? i have no idea...

what i have tried: ensure i dont have a virus or spyware (nope, and verified speeds on two computers)

tried multiple speed tests on the net

and, tried to repoint my antenna yet again. score of 14 out of 25. was always good enough until now.

please tell me score (or lights for those with that) has nothing to do with speed!? i was under the impression that if i got a signal i would get highspeed!

are they (rogers) being shady about too many using the tech?

the dude

Hey Dude,

So long as your connection is good, I imagine your fine. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say your internet will be fine again in a few days when half of Canada comes back to Toronto. The infrastructure just isn't there i'd bet.

-Steve

cdogg, nice map man!

I thought you guys would like to hear an update.

As of right now i am using my new antenna to post this. It's mounted to a pole on the side of my house temporarily, to see how it would do. A few things? I now have five lights on the modem, which is probably a good sign. Also, my connection has stabalized to a huge degree. RIght now i'm torrenting a copy of linux for work at home here, and and it's sitting at about 180 kb/s. Despite doing all this my ping is remaining between 200 - 300 ms, whereas before, my idle latency could vary up to 3000-4000. This is definately much better. And i think it's only going to get better when I mount this bad boy to a pole on my roof! :)

If anyone has any questions about doing this let me know. If your on the verge of getting a good connection, i highly reccomend doing it.

-Steve

Stevey, just out curiousity what is in between you and the tower in terms of obstacles and distance? I noticed you said you were getting 4 lights with flakey reception and high pings. Im getting 3 lights the majority of the time and according to speedtest.net my pings are usaully around 60-150 ms, with 1700 kbps download on average.

I think it is to be expected with this portable internet that you are never going to have a 100% constant connection like with cable or dsl no matter how good your signal is. When I'm running a speedtest the speedometer is sometimes "jumping" and pausing occasionally indicating an interuption in the connection even on a clear day with no wnd. On average, I can download torrents at about 180-200 kbs which is pretty damn good. The slight pauses in connection are basically unnoticable when browsing, watching youtube videos, or downloading torrents (eg. when downloading a torrent the AVERAGE speed is about 180 kbs download, even tho I may be having momentary lapses of connection). All in all I am very happy now considering how much faster it is than dialup and satellite.

Cdogg,

The tower is about 6 km's from my house. There is a slight hill in front of my house, that i think is obstructing the line of sight of the tower. I rigged up a pole to my house which is about 20ft, and put the antenna up there, however it reduced my available bandwidth to about 200kbs in benchtests. Torrents come down at around 30 kbs. My average ping is about 260 ms, and my ping dropout rate is 15%. which i believe means that roughly 15% of the packets i transmit, never reach home. This is marginally better for browsing, but worse for downloading, then when it was on the just straight up bolted to the side of my house. The next level? Elevate the antenna above the height of the hill somehow.

Stevey, are you signed up for lite or full? It sounds like your download speeds are consistent with that of the lite setup. Considering you are close to the tower, you should be getting a great signal, especially if at night you can see the flashing red light on top of the transmitting tower.

You should check to see if the tower your antenna is locked on to is pointing towards you (use the website I provided 8 posts up). Some of the Wimax towers have transmitters pointing in 4 directions, while some only have 1 transmitter with a ~90-120 degree "viewing angle". From what I have read, you cant expect reliable service if there is nothing pointing towards you..

If you do in fact have 4 lights and a good LOS to the tower, I really cant see why your not getting the full 1.5 mbps download. I would suggest pointing the antenna at different directions and doing a speedtest at each spot. Also, make sure your antenna is vertically angled just a tad above the horizon, you dont want it pointing towards outerspace.. All i can is go higher. I had to go 50 feet off the ground up a tree before I got reliable portable internet with the leaves on the trees and the humidity in the air.. I will post pictures of my rig later..

I am pointing straight at the tower, and just slightly above the horizon. I'm signed up with Bell's 3 Mbs service. I can only see the red light on the tower from the top of the hill in front of my house. I suspect i'm simply not high enough. I'm currently looking at buying a roof mounted tripod, that i'll put on my roof, and put the pole another 20' above that. That should give me about another 25'. According to the elevation maps, the tower is 100 ft higher ground then I am, which, given the 6km distance between us, isn't really much. I still have the option of putting the equipment on top of an 85' silo, however, said silo is about 1km from my house, and then i have to get that signal back to my house. I've priced out a wireless point to point kit as being about $400, and i'm just not willing to spend that yet.

EDIT: Idea. There's a big tree behind my house that is fairly easily 100'. If i get a big ladder, or apply some leet climbing skills... ? I'll have to look at that tonight

cdogg may be onto something. My brother got the Rogers lite plan last spring, and then his neighbors switched as well, one of them signing up for high speed. He checked with Rogers, his tower is not scheduled to support full speed until sometime this summer.

Maybe the problem is Bell is selling Steve a full speed service and the tower can't support it yet, and the slower speeds are a result of more users.

update: took a few days but my speeds using rogers wireless highspeed in muskoka have gone back to what i am paying for. dip in service over the canada day weekend...down to 200kbps or so....and now at 1.8. so, happy camper again.

was just about to switch to high speed lite.......

the dude

I wish to report Sucess!!!

I think i was pointing at a reflection or something. I went to turn the antenna to where i know there is another tower about 90 degrees from where i know the normal one is. As i turned it, I lost my signal, and the original 4 lights. It started scanning as i turned it, probably about 10 degrees, and it picked up another signal, this one with three lights. My latency is dropped to 80 ms under load, about 50 ms under normal browsing conditions. Benchtesting the connection brings about 1.3 Mbs bandwidth, so not perfect, but browsing with this connection now feels like broadband should. Also, wheras i was dropping 15% of packets, i'm now dropping less then .3% of packets, even under load.

What anyone else should take away from this? This antenna is HIGHLY directional, and it is very difficult to point this antenna accurately, that being said, i don't believe that without this antenna being so directional, that i would be able to see the original signal.

The total cost for my setup was $150, for an antenna and cable.

Happy Hunting for that signal!

Time will tell if this connection remains stable for me.

Stevey, glad to hear you got your speed back. Im thinking that slight hill in between you and the tower was causing your problems. I guess we can all conclude that the signal can go through light tree coverage but not through solid terrain.

Using a Storm antenna array with WiMax?

Currently using Bell WiMax "In Home" and it has killed my COD4 gaming, even though I have four lights on the modem. The service is fast, but when I first connect to COD4 on the PS3, it disconnects my internet and tells me "you must be connected to the internet". After a few tries of logging in again, I can play, but my connection always displays one red bar (occasionally two yellow). I am getting destroyed playing, and I am lagging. I am very happy with the service, but the latency on the connection makes online gaming useless.

I was a former Storm customer, and there was NO way I was going with Explornet. Storm just came to pick up their equipment, and they left me the big antenna array! It is a "2400-2500mHz" according to the sticker on it. Will this work with the Motorola radio? How do I connect it?

I am averaging 350ms ping time. I assume the lag issue is due to the high ping time. Please, if anyone has any advice, I would be very appreciative!

cdogg: After playing around with teh antenna, i've realized that i'm no longer pointing at the antenna i was working with previous, and having troubles with. Instead i'm hitting a tower, about 13 km's away in waterloo, and it is with this tower that i'm experiencing the service i am. (i consulted the above map, and i'm pointing straight at it, and it's pointing right back). This leads me to wonder if there is something wrong with that tower, or there is something between me and that tower that is causing interferance.

Jayoldschool: If the Storm antenna has any sort of filtering or any kind of modem to it at all, it will be useless for you. Be wary before you spend a lot of money on that route. Does it have a pigtail coming out?

It does have the pigtail, and an adapter from a big connection to small. I just checked, and the small adapter threads onto my D Link antenna on my router. They took the actual radio modem, they left me everything else. Oh, also: I just got off the phone with Bell WiMax, and they told me "the system is high latency. There is nothing they can do to improve it. If you were told online gaming would work, you were informed incorrectly". My Storm used to work well... hoping I can get this to as well...

Here's what I have:

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e202/jayoldschool/020.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e202/jayoldschool/022.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e202/jayoldschool/027.jpg