Comments on: Sprint / Netgear 6100D 4G Antenna Installation (Video)

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 18:08:45 +0000

Hmmm.. My first thought on the UL/DL speed disparity is that the antenna on your “main” port is better tuned for the uplink frequency than the downlink. The 6100D only transmits on the main port, and the secondary port is just used for diversity. (I’m guessing you already know that and/or tried switching the antennas on the two ports, but it’s really the only thing that comes to mind).

And that’s really not a very good theory, because between the two antennas I’d think that you should be getting very good downlink signal quality on any of those bands. Then again, who knows what could be between you and the cell tower EM-wise.

By: Scott Nelson

Scott Nelson — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:01:39 +0000

As a follow-up, I spoke with someone in Sprint support who was knowledgeable. I pointed out that last month, the Coverage Map showed me in the Sprint Spark Fair region, but this month it only shows my home in the Sprint 4G LTE Fair region for a spot where my house is (all of my neighbors are still in the Spark region). She indicated that the Spark coverage is being reconfigurated. According to the rep, presently transmitters for different bands are on different towers and Sprint is in the process of reconfiguring to have all transmitters on all towers.

So at some point in the future, I should get Sprint Spark coverage on the Coverage Map again. I spent the weekend on my roof repointing my antennas. However, it doesn’t explain why my two 24dBi antennas with 5 out of 6 bars in the GUI are only seeing “Fair” reception:

2015-04-13 06:50:51:465 PST LTE Signal Info: RSSI -66 SINR 12.6,RSRP -86,RSRQ -10

I did discover that the Sprint Netgear 6100D can switch from Band 25 to Band 41 without rebooting the unit. I discovered this while connecting/disconnecting antennans and pointing them in various directions.

At least my signal is a little better than it was last week. But the best that I saw on SpeedTest was 10Mbps. Still a far cry from what Spark is supposed to provide.

So at this point, there doesn’t appear to be anything else that I can do and am just waiting on Sprint to finish reconfiguring their Spark network and restore Spark service.

By: Scott Nelson

Scott Nelson — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 16:54:06 +0000

…Also, SpeedTest.net says the following:

download speed: 4.5 Mbps
upload speed: 6.8 Mbps

I did this test multiple times to multiple servers and got similar results (consuming a couple of GB of my 60GB monthly plan).

So I am seeing faster upload speeds than download speeds.

The 6100D’s Sprint GUI says that I am on the Sprint Spark network (3-bars, Sprint, LTE, spark-icon). So these speeds seem horrible for Sprint Spark.

By: Scott Nelson

Scott Nelson — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 16:40:41 +0000

I now have two high gain antennas connected to the 6100D on the external antenna ports. One is the GiAnt yagi antenna which covers bands 25,26,41. The other is a 24dBi grid antenna left over from my Clearwire days.

Both are now connected to the 6100D and are pointed to the Sprint tower 2 miles away. However, I’m only getting 3 bars on Band 25.

The log says:
2015-04-11 09:37:40:461 PST LTE Signal Info: RSSI -69 SINR 13.8,RSRP -94,RSRQ -11

2015-04-11 09:37:40:460 PST Active Tech: LTE Band 25

These signal levels seem much too low for these high gain antennas. Any advice on what may be wrong?

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 04:05:45 +0000

Interesting. I never had to change the band priority because I was getting good speeds with the default settings. But it’s good to know for the future in case things change in my area. Thanks!

It’s been awhile since I messed around with the 6100D, but I’m not surprised that it’s not in the Netgear interface. The Sprint interface is at the very least somewhat more cell-service oriented, while the Netgear side is more router/AP oriented.

By: Scott Nelson

Scott Nelson — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:48:20 +0000

I have the 6100d also. However, I was only getting 5Mbps according to SpeedTest. My Sprint tower is only 2 miles away and I have two high-gain (23dBi) antennas connected to the 6100d’s two external antenna ports. The problem is that the 6100d supports Bands 25, 26, and 41. The GUI’s Advanced Settings screen allows setting the priority among these 3 bands. On my system, Band 25 was the highest priority and apparently had the worst signal. I changed the priority to Band 41 and after several reboots and priority changes, I got the 6100d to stay on Band 41 (it likes to sync to Band 25). To access the Sprint interface (192.168.0.1) Settings | Network | Advanced Settings screen, you need to get your 6-digit MSL code from Sprint. I was not able to find the equivalent settings on the Netgear interface (192.168.0.1/index.asp).

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:53:22 +0000

I believe the second (aux) antenna is for reception diversity. In other words, if both are connected it will compare the signals from the two antennae and use the best signal of the two.

If only one antenna is connected it will simply use the signal from that antenna. However it will only transmit on the main antenna terminal, so that’s the one that needs to be connected.

By: SkyNet WIFi

SkyNet WIFi — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:41:24 +0000

What are people using for the antenna ports on this device ? It has 2 one is main the other is aux…Does it need both of these to operate correctly ? Its a pain having to use twin antennas outside …what does the aux do ???

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 17:19:15 +0000

Hi Michael,

I’m not sure if you can have it automatically reboot — My first thought would be that it can’t. If you telnet into the device, you should be put into a BusyBox environment where theoretically you could write scripts (& etc.), but I’m pretty sure that any changes to that environment are destroyed on reboot.

I wish I had more to give you, but maybe play around in the BusyBox shell.

BTW – My device has been nagging me to update the firmware for a while. I haven’t yet, because it’s been stable and I’m afraid it will get rid of the useful back doors. But are you running the latest version? (My outdated FW is version 02.02.65 — it won’t tell me what version it’s trying to update to.)

Regards,
Scott

By: Michael Gormley

Michael Gormley — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 14:43:33 +0000

Hi Scott –

I have 4 of these devices – 4G LTE Sprint 6100D Netgear gateways – for primary connectivity for video surveillance servers in NYC. I am having some serious stability issues with the Sprint Network. The devices go offline regularly. Is there away to reboot the device automatically if it goes down?

ANy help would be greatly appreciated. You seem very knowledgable.
Michael GOrmley