T-Mobile Home Internet has hidden MHF4 connectors for external antennas?

[gscheb]

Which one, the 5G version or 4G version

Believe moving forward everyone now gets the Nokia 5g and LTE version combo. Round grey silver looking thing.

[Osensnolf]

The 5G version is very easy to take apart even without a reference. The antennas disconnect very easily and the new ones (for me) required some pressure to snap into place.

[gscheb]

The 5G version is very easy to take apart even without a reference. The antennas disconnect very easily and the new ones (for me) required some pressure to snap into place.

That is good to know. How many antennas did you hook to it? See conflicting info whether it is a 4x4 or 2x2 mimo.

[gscheb]

Hello again,

Now have the new T-Mobile Home Internet 5G silver can. I am located 4.7 miles from the tower. Had been using T-Mobile phone sim in router for years. Kept getting slower and slower after Sprint merger. Seems they had taken allot of the power and gave it to other bands I didn't have access too.
So this new device is way faster then the phone sim for sure.
Currently have one parabolic antenna on the house hooked to it. One of the ones that get up too 22 dbi. That was always my best option with T-Mobile phone sim since Band 2 was my best available band.
Know from calling T-Mobile they told me that the bands the tower has are 2, 12, 71 and N71.
So here is my question. Would I be better off to get a Antenna that has lower frequencies to get a better band 71 and band N71 signal strength? Because If i do that will loos about 10 dBi signal strength on band 2. Since those parabolic types are geared toward high frequencies only.

This picture below show my signal stats. The primary signal is band 2. The secondary signal is band N71. Amazed that it is picking up that lower frequency at all!!!!
But you can see how terrible the signal strength and quality is of Band N71. This info is about all this device will tell you. Don't have any clue what combo carrier aggregation bands it is doing or nothing.

T-Mobile Home Internet Signal.PNG

Also as a side note we use this to work from home so upload speed is important to us. Have no idea if this thing uses the only the primary signal for upload? That is what it is acting like. The upload is similiar to phone sim speed had before this device when only connecting to band 2 and 12.. Also don't know if band 71 is good for uploads if I improve that?
Here at this tower.
Band 2 is 15 mhz and Band 71 10 mhz.
Thanks for any guidance with this. This device is all new to me. Never thought I would see 5G where I live of any kind even if it is low band T-Mobile!

[gscheb]

This is an update to what is posted above.
Done some more experiments with antennas with this device. At first when I seen that the this link for instructions showed to connect to antenna 3 and 4 figured that was wrong for the primary. But it seems they are the primary from what I tested. If I disconnect antenna 1 & 2 and hook up up antenna 3 & 4 it will connect and work. But is I connect up antenna 1 & 2 and disconnect antenna 3 & 4 won't connect to the internet.
The other thing that have test is connecting two parabolic high frequencies to this thing. What happened is get NO 5G signal at all. When this happens my speeds are comparable to the what I had with the T-Mobile phone sim in a Quectel EP06. This could be the lack of lower bands like band 71 as well but hard to tell doesn't show allot of info on this Gateway Device.
The next thing tried was I mismatched the antenna ports. So for example antenna 1 & 3 are going to outside parabolic antenna. Then antenna 2 & 4 are going to some proxicast black plastic rubber duck antenna types. Know this is usually something that is a not preferred but it actually gave me the best signal strength combo and speeds so far.
Here below are the new stats can see this increased the 5G N71 signal strength and quality. This change gave it quite a boost.

T-Mobile Home Internet Signal Try 2.PNG

Reason why I did this mismatched thing is don't have the correct antennas for this set up. All I have is the black plastic omni antennas and the parabolic ones.
So question does anyone know what kind of antenna I should try? Should I try all Wideband antennas? Or just attach one in combo with this parabolic grid antenna?

[Didneywhorl]

Hard to say. I'm not a fan of mixing antenna types when the unit uses 4. The widebands set to all 4 ports seem to work simplest.

I've got the 4x4 MIMO panel from The Wireless Haven on mine right now.

[gscheb]

not a fan of mixing antenna types when the unit uses 4. The widebands set to all 4 ports seem to work simplest. I've got the 4x4 MIMO panel from The Wireless Haven on mine right now.

Does anyone have any experience with 4x4 MIMO panel from The Wireless Haven on T-Mobile band 71 and N71?
Know this isn't perfectly tuned for that band. But should get bleed over from it. So Maybe it is ok?
Hate to loose my high gain on Band 2!!!! Guess you can't have it all. Got to meet in the middle somewhere on this set up. The available bands are such wide range apart.

[gscheb]

This is another update to what is posted above.

This is mismatched antenna ports. So for example antenna 1 & 3 are going to outside parabolic antenna. Then antenna 2 & 4 are going to a Mimo Proxicast wide band antenna. Know this is usually something that is a not preferred but it actually gave me the best signal strength combo and speeds so far.

Below is the new signal stats. The primary is band 2 and the secondary is band N71.

New Signals.png

These two antennas are pointed the same way. Not turned in anyway they are both vertical and horizontal position. The proxicast is about 3 to 4 feet below the parabolic. The primary signal will jump up to -117 at times. Think there might be interference between these antennas this is isn't done right.

Had to try for long time switching wires over and over to get the best upload. Some combinations would give upload of like .86 was just terrible.

Wouldn't recommend this set up honestly it is a rigged mess. But works good enough for me until someone comes out with a 4X4 mimo antenna that is manufactured to support band 71 & N71.

[Didneywhorl]

I've pulled in B71 with it. The gain charts on the The Wireless Haven product listing page show the gain level for 600-700 Mhz. It's still in there at about 5-6dBi. Its on the Datasheet

https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... onnectors/

[MudMan54]

I purchased an 11 dBi Yagi Antenna for TV White Space (470-862 MHz). I'm still testing the configuration, but it made a significant difference in the dB gain. Had to send the first one back because of the poor packaging, but it's a high-quality antenna. I'll post my results in a couple of weeks.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TY ... UTF8&psc=1

[Didneywhorl]

I purchased an 11 dBi Yagi Antenna for TV White Space (470-862 MHz). I'm still testing the configuration, but it made a significant difference in the dB gain. Had to send the first one back because of the poor packaging, but it's a high-quality antenna. I'll post my results in a couple of weeks.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TY ... UTF8&psc=1

You could've gotten a 600-3800MHz LPDA Radome 9dBi-11dBi Cellular Directional Antenna for half that price: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... l-antenna/

I'm guessing your using a pair of them?

[MudMan54]

Thanks for the tip, but I already had a couple of the The Wireless Haven 1700-2700MHz WiFi 4G LTE 15dBi Directional MIMO Antennas and wanted the maximum gain possible for the 600MHz band n71. With my location from the tower, I need all the gain I can achieve. I have a 30-foot antenna mast using 20ft of LMR400 cabling, my average T-Mobile signal is -115dBi to -120dBi on bands 2,4, and 66 after they updated the cell tower a couple of weeks ago. I've mapped out the cell tower and been to the cell site. From my location, I'm at one of the points of the cell tower antenna triangle, with no antennas directly beaming in my direction. I've tried AT&T and Verizon but the signals are not as good as T-Mobile's service. I have lots of foliage and trees with no direct line of sight unless I go up to 60ft.
One thing I have discovered about antennas you just never know what will work best for your location and price is not always an indicator. I'm currently waiting on my WG1608 and a Quectel RM502-AE to arrive and hopefully have decent bandwidth using n71.

[gscheb]

This is another update to what is posted above.

This is mismatched antenna ports. So for example antenna 1 & 3 are going to outside parabolic antenna. Then antenna 2 & 4 are going to a Mimo Proxicast wide band antenna. Know this is usually something that is a not preferred but it actually gave me the best signal strength combo and speeds so far.

Below is the new signal stats. The primary is band 2 and the secondary is band N71.
New Signals.png

These two antennas are pointed the same way. Not turned in anyway they are both vertical and horizontal position. The proxicast is about 3 to 4 feet below the parabolic. The primary signal will jump up to -117 at times. Think there might be interference between these antennas this is isn't done right.

Had to try for long time switching wires over and over to get the best upload. Some combinations would give upload of like .86 was just terrible.

Wouldn't recommend this set up honestly it is a rigged mess. But works good enough for me until someone comes out with a 4X4 mimo antenna that is manufactured to support band 71 & N71.

Another update looked into this again today.

After working thru the connections have learned that connection L4 is the primary connection.
It will connect to LTE with this only connected.
No other connections will do that.

What I am not sure if what connection pairs with it?
For example is it L4 & L3 go together?
Or is it is L4 & L2 go together?

Would think it would be L4 & L3 go together but also would have thought that L1 would have been the Primary antenna.

[gscheb]

Another update looked into this again today.

After working thru the connections have learned that connection L4 is the primary connection.
It will connect to LTE with this only connected.
No other connections will do that.

What I am not sure if what connection pairs with it?
For example is it L4 & L3 go together?
Or is it is L4 & L2 go together?

Would think it would be L4 & L3 go together but also would have thought that L1 would have been the Primary antenna.

Learned something else about this L4 primary antenna. Today when I connected it and it only to a wide band external antenna got LTE and 5G connection.
Once was thinking there was probably a LTE primary and 5G primary. But seems L4 is both. So maybe the other three are just diversity antennas?

[gscheb]

Hello,

Getting confused about signals and how this thing works. If I hook L3 & L4 only to a parabolic grid which isn't tuned for band 71 or N71 it will connect to 5G. Now when it does that L1 & L2 are connected to nothing. And it connects to LTE & 5G N71.

But when I connect all 4 of them to the parabolic grids will not get 5G. It connects to LTE only and runs slower!

So my question is can it be getting band N71 from just the wires them selves? Is this how it is connecting to 5G with nothing connected to L1 & L2? Like basically the old clock radio got radio signals from a wire.

So for now still have mixed matched antennas. Done it two different ways.
One with L3 & L4 to parabolic and L1 & L2 to proxicast mimo antenna.
The second time with L3 & L4 to parabolic and L1 & L2 to stick antennas like you would connect to the router.

With these Mixmatched set ups I am getting connected to Band 2 and band N71.

This is in learning and experimental mode so please don't judge these photos.

IMG_20210514_125621.jpg

IMG_20210515_181128.jpg

My goal is to get more upload speed for working from home.
So will need to buy different antennas to try again.

[gscheb]

I purchased an 11 dBi Yagi Antenna for TV White Space (470-862 MHz). I'm still testing the configuration, but it made a significant difference in the dB gain. Had to send the first one back because of the poor packaging, but it's a high-quality antenna. I'll post my results in a couple of weeks.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TY ... UTF8&psc=1

Hello
Was wondering if you had anything to report back about this now? Was interested if these antennas helped ping or upload speeds?

[mtl26637]

Have a couple of these also. These are good for Tmob's lower 600mhz band. Quality is good and they are actually bigger than I had expected compared to similar 'LTE' yagi's. I would say if you are looking to get more out of specifically Tmob's lower band 5G signal then yes they do a great job.

[gscheb]

Have a couple of these also. These are good for Tmob's lower 600mhz band. Quality is good and they are actually bigger than I had expected compared to similar 'LTE' yagi's. I would say if you are looking to get more out of specifically Tmob's lower band 5G signal then yes they do a great job.

Thanks, Do you think it helped your upload speed?

[mtl26637]

I can't seem to get the speeds I 'should' have out of my setup so I'm not a good source for speedtests with my Tmo setup, however, I can say I have test many antennas and these are the best I have found for that lower 600mhz band. My system is down at the moment so I can't test but if I remember correctly my Tmo setup was the one that gave me the most upload out of several setups I have. Once i'm back up and running I will check uploads for you.

[Dr-BroadBand]

You are assuming the antenna is your problem.
Would remove the antenna and cabling from the equation and bring the modem to the tower for testing

[mtl26637]

Been there, done that along with probably 100+ hours of troubleshooting at this point. You are correct though, antenna no longer the problem, using 4 of those particular yagi's and signals are as good as they can get minus using dish/grid, but I think these yagi's even out perform those too. Pretty sure my particular issue is being outside of the tower's sector antenna reach (right smack dab in the middle of where 2 of the 120 degree sectors meet). I can pick up and lock on to either of the 2 sectors 'PCI' so pretty sure that is what is keeping my SINR numbers down too. Need to have some1 climb the tower and spin the providers sector antenna arangement about 10 degrees in either direction, lol.

[Dr-BroadBand]

Cool thanks for sharing.

I only had my TM Home Internet modem for a week.

I have a TM tower 1-mile away that just got n41 installed but have only connected to Band 66 4G so far.

Have been on a road tip Texas to Arkansas all day and the Mini van had WiFi the complete trip. But only 4G no 5G

Wife did a one hour Zoom call with no problem.

Got to the airbnb connected Apple TV to TM and streaming TV no problem

31Mbps/24Mbps

FYI there is new firmware on the way
https://youtu.be/TcmxbikxGeg

[ralowiczlive]

In light of recent doubts about whether or not the MHF-SW23 is the correct connector, I thought I would share some close up pictures of the connector found inside my TM-RTL0102. I don't know anything about connectors, I just thought I would share some better pictures in an attempt to help.

2021-01-07-142346.jpg
2021-01-07-142215.jpg
2021-01-07-142539.jpg

Seems everyone is upgrading to the Trashcan. I tried it and couldn't justify keeping it since the minor 5G spot is in the middle of the road. That said, I want to try an external antenna with my Askey TM-RTL0102. Instead of "prying open" the T-Mobile "loaner", I purchased a TM-RTL0102. This way if I brick it, I am out a few dollars. You seem to be saying the unit that T-Mobile sent you has MHF4 connectors. Or did you solder those yourself? I will be great to hear from you even though this post is over 8 months old. Thank you for any update.

[Dr-BroadBand]

No Soldering, just need the correct pigtails to snap in.

See link For how it’s done for the trashcan
https://youtu.be/wXSpbP8NuWw

The main reason I got T-Mobile trashcan was to try it out on a road trip. It’s been doing very well.

Next thing to do, see if I can get the Sim to work in other modems

[ralowiczlive]

Did The Wireless Haven ever stock the SWG pigtails for the T-Mobile 4G?

Did anyone here ever get external antennas working?

T-Mobile is shipping the 5G units except:
- there is at least a 1-2 month lead time on them
- if they deem you are not in a 5G area (and they do this via address, not their coverage map) you are stuck with the 4G.

So AFAIK myself (and possibly others) will be stuck with the T-Mobile 4G unit for the foreseeable future and may need to get an external antenna hooked up to it.

I have been searching through the forum for an answer to your/my question. Maybe the answer if 3 pages further on. However, I guess I will reach out to see if I can get a direct answer since the 5G gateway may not be in my near future(I got 1 and returned it). I am presently boosting my 4G gateway using a Cel-Fi Go system. Before the Cel-Fi Go 4mbps was my crazy fast. Last night I clocked 40mbps DL with 1.37UL. A few minutes ago I check my speed at 9.66mbps UL. I am still willing to mess with my TM-RTL0102.

[ralowiczlive]

I can confirm that this does not work very well. I even used a cel-fi go x with the internal antenna a good 75ft from outdoor antenna facing away from each other. I even resorted to putting the t-mobile router and the internal booster antenna in a faraday bag directly facing each other. While I would get a much stronger signal on a single channel, eventually the router would try to roam and get stuck on a channel that I was not boosting. Even with the faraday bag it refused to just stay pinned to the boosted channel. I imagine that is by design so that folks don't force use of channels in the same way they don't let you configure the channel on the router itself.

They really don't want you to be able to configure these things for our individual situations. It makes sense cause they know once you have a few "power" users getting great signals in very rural areas that they will have to upgrade their backhauls to these remote towers. There is definitely some dissonance in the sale of this service as a solution for "RURAL" internet. By rural they clearly mean "far from cable and fiber providers, but still line of sight to cell towers without any obstructions"

My Cel-Fi Go booster is allowing me to use the internet while 2 others are streaming. My antenna on my roof is about 30ft off the ground. This is a million times better than I had before. However, I am still searching for a way to connect an antenna directly to the TM-RTL0102.

[gscheb]

There places online show you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobileisp/com ... e_tmobile/

https://www.wavefarm.com/a/b/guides/hot ... et-gateway

[razblack]

...However, I am still searching for a way to connect an antenna directly to the TM-RTL0102.

You can do external antennas on the RTL0102 without having to solder pigtails.

https://imgur.com/5Zy2QP8

concept: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 566&type=3
result: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 877&type=3

i can't find any pictures of how i put the contact traces together my own pigtails... i still have them laying around somewhere, if you really want to see what they look like, i'll try to dig them out. I sent the RTL modem back in February, and dismantled the project. But it worked great.

You can also see in that first picture that I extended the WIFI out this way too

[manowell]

No Soldering, just need the correct pigtails to snap in.

See link For how it’s done for the trashcan


The main reason I got T-Mobile trashcan was to try it out on a road trip. It’s been doing very well.

Next thing to do, see if I can get the Sim to work in other modems

Since it has a GPS (I assume it does, since there's a GPS antenna wire) I was also assuming that the Home Internet device was "nailed down" to the service address. If you're using it as a mobile solution, ... is it not nailed down?

[gscheb]

Been allot of reports of people being mobile with this unit and it still works. People order it for one address and use it at another on a different tower. Seen other claims people using it in RV's driving place to place. So it suppose to be nailed down but not currently being enforced.

[gscheb]

Hello all,
Haven't heard anyone update lately of what Antenna set ups they are using with T-Mobile home internet.
Anyone have any new ideas on setups?

[Didneywhorl]

I use this one for my father in law: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/anten ... onnectors/

Since July of last year.

[Wazzu232]

Guys… a bit late to the game but the connectors you all kept saying were ipex connectors and mhf-sw23 and u.fl and such… you are all unfortunately wrong.

How do I know? I have dealt with these EXACT same connectors before. They were on the old “signal booster” T-Mobile used to give out. Those “signal boosters” were actually nextivity cel-fi duo+ boosters.

I got one a couple years ago (T-Mobile stopped giving them out like 4-5 years ago but there is a guy on Amazon selling em marketed under the wrong product name (he used the name for T-Mobile old network cell that connected to your internet and turned it into lte while still using all your mobile data And internet data. Horrible deal. Anyways it’s def not the cell. It’s boosting/repeating unit. The cel fi duo+ that’s sold retail for $600 currently. But the guy on Amazon sells ‘em for $25

Anyways I opened one up and found five antenna on both the rx unit and tx units. One single port for each antenna. Three were Wi-Fi (for connecting both units together using a bt standard frequency) and two for the cell antennas (one for bands 2/12 and one for bands 4/66)

The booster works fantastic for boosting lte performance. But it didn’t quite get what I could get outside my window with my phone alone and wanted to try for an external antenna solution. Wasted money on tons of diff ipex and mhf connectors. Never worked. No luck. Never fit.

Finally I found a forum after searching for days that had a picture of the exact same port from a site claiming to make custom pcb connectors based off ipex standards but totally unaffiliated with ipex.

They called themselves murata. It’s 100% a murata pcb connector. Unfortunately, all murata’s are custom made. There are hundreds of diff types. Literally hundreds on their site. Look ‘em up.

Anyways I spoke to a murata rep and nextivity wouldn’t even talk to me about it (they said it’s for testing purposes only and wouldn’t have any affect of rf performance accessing the port as it didn’t access the trace which is 100% bs. If it didn’t access the trace how the heck can it be used to testing?

Anyways the murata rep told me straight up (I sent the rep a photo of the port on the pcb) that it’s def one of their connectors and it is actually used on a lot of pcb for specifically what nextivity said. Testing purposes. In fact I have since seen these exact same ports on several android phone mobo’s (like a lg v40 thinq and the cheap crappy T-Mobile trial hotspot they give out (that cheap hotspot is the definition of cheap. They pcb isn’t even pcb… it’s a plywood/cardboard like material that is fragile and brittle as crap and splinters like a wood at the slightest tension… the internal antenna on it is actually just cheap acrylic gold paint almost like a racing strip sticker that peels right off )

Anyways, the rep said chances are zero people out there are making pigtails for this connector since they are all custom made by their company and not really a normal commercial channel. He also said I could possible look into having connectors and pigtail made but it would need to be a large bulk order as they don’t do small/single orders as it wouldn’t make fiscal sense for their business model.

This is why wireless haven hit a dead end on getting the pigtails. They literally cannot unless they order like 5000+.

Alas, yes your only option currently on these connectors is solder. Sorry. Also, yes, you can totally distort the rf spectrum and performance with soldering them on. I have done it thousands of times. Never once have the performance of tracings not been altered at least slightly. Sometimes it works better. Most of the times, it doesn’t.

In fact in messed up my T-Mobile signal booster. I only tried on port. And it was an unused port (the 12 band. It was never used by my booster. Ever. Literally ever) once I gave up I cleaned it all off and inspected. Zero distortion or damage to the trace and port that I could find. The cell performance of the booster seemed to be the same as before. But now my two units constantly dropped coverage with each other. They would try to “find each other” like every five minutes or so… and every time they did that, they dropped the boost totally, rescanning the network for like 5 minutes each times before it started boosting again. This caused havoc on my network connection on my phone. Everything would be great. I’d get like 150 Mbps. Suddenly every fifteen min or so my connection would turn totally unresponsive. My speeds were only like 1-3 Mbps. I’d look up at the booster and what would you know it’s reconnecting yet again. Wonderful.

Turns out somehow messing with the b12 port screwed up
The Wi-Fi antennas that the units used to communicate with each other.

Those traces were on the entirely opposite side of the board. Go figure.

Hope that helps some of you all

[gscheb]

Recently changed my connection on my Nokia TMHI Gateway.

Posted what was done and the stats over here.
viewtopic.php?p=26680#p26680

Might help someone that recently got N41 in their area.