Wilson sleek

rwbradley wrote:

scrubjaysnest wrote:
We have the Sleek 4G. Use an external RV antenna at the house, magnetic on the road. Listed for single phone, Verizon, but works with sprint and tracphone. Will also work with both the phone and hotspot at the same time. Gotta put the phone on speaker for this last.

I am curious, when you say "both at the same time" do you mean both hotspot and phone stacked together in the same cradle?

Hotspot in the cradle and phone along side, don't move it or pick it up and use speaker.

But db is still probably a better way to determine if the Amp is doing its job. Also remember db is not linear it is logarithmic so an increase in 1db is not a 1% increase, it can actually be a big improvement.

yes it is

3db on the meter is a doubling of the signal level, aka a 100% increase over the previous signal

so if the antenna signal was (1) MicroVolt of induced signal
3db increase would be (2) Microvolt of induced signal

if the signal increased by 6 db it would be (4) Microvolt of induced signal

the most important 'ACTION' of Any amplifier is not the receive function
its the increased output transmit function, the stronger signal being sent to the tower

you can show a one bar signal on the phone and not make a call, why ?
because the 'tower' can't detect your phone, even though the phone can detect the tower, the phone signal is not strong enough to 'alert' the tower, which has stronger signal traffic coming in and may be a busy tower

Most phones and some hotspots have something called "Field Test" mode. How to access it varies depending on the device, but this is an advanced troubleshooting menu. Google it to find out how to access it on your device. It allows you to do a lot of things including turn on/off different bands or 3G, 4G etc.
If you decide to look at it I cannot stress enough... PROCEED WITH CAUTION, you can seriously mess up your device.
You are right, though some bands perform better in some cases ie some carry thru walls, trees etc better, some get better distance and some are not used as much simply because there are not a lot of phones on that tower using that band and in a lot of cases each band is on a separate strand of fiber so if there are a lot of phones using Band4 they can saturate the back end link for the Band4 transmitters, but the other bands may have less devices on their link, thus better performance. I was just trying to simplify it a little...

So is there a way to force band 4 connections?

I would suggest that ping and jitter be looked at and not just speedtest.

jcpainter wrote:
We are stationery for the winter, using Verizon. The Jetpack will sometimes connect to band 4 and sometimes it will connect to band 13. I can tell when it changes by the performance on my PC. When it connects to band 13, the db rating will be less than 100 but the download speed ranges from 3mbps to 7mpbs. When it connects to band 4, the db will deteriorate to -110, but the performance is greatly enhanced with download speeds being above 30mbps.

rwbradley wrote:

Unfortunately the db number is the only accurate way to determine signal quality. If your phone/device will tell you Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) that is a much better number to use. The Speedtest trick does work but I would not trust it as entirely accurate as it also does not tell the whole picture. First their numbers are notoriously inaccurate and carriers and internet providers purposely prioritize traffic to Speedtest to make your speed look better than it actually is. Also there really are 2 reasons why you cell/data service is poor. First is signal quality between you and the tower. This can only be measured in db or SNR. However the bigger problem is that due to growth in LTE cell service the towers are congested. Most cellular backbone networks are fiber optic and many are still connected to the carriers network at 1GB. With 2G this was not a problem, you could have many hundreds of people at 2G (dialup) speeds on one tower without congesting the tower. Now that LTE speeds are reaching over 100mbps 10 cell phones under heavy use could congest this link. Unfortunately the investment in the transmitters is outpacing the investment in the backbone (because the user cannot see it and do not understand it and nothing you do will fix that issue).

Speedtest can tell you a story... sort of... but make sure you do Speedtests in the evening when everyone is surfing and watching Netflix and again in the dead of night when everyone is sleeping and make sure you do it multiple times. The middle of the night will tell you how much your Amp is actually helping and if you need a more powerful amp or antenna. The evening numbers will tell you how many other people are using the tower and what kind of real world speeds to expect at that location.
But db is still probably a better way to determine if the Amp is doing its job. Also remember db is not linear it is logarithmic so an increase in 1db is not a 1% increase, it can actually be a big improvement.

What you are saying is technically correct . . . however the specific band that you are connecting to can make a HUGE difference in the performance you experience, even when the db reading suggests something different.

We are stationery for the winter, using Verizon. The Jetpack will sometimes connect to band 4 and sometimes it will connect to band 13. I can tell when it changes by the performance on my PC. When it connects to band 13, the db rating will be less than 100 but the download speed ranges from 3mbps to 7mpbs. When it connects to band 4, the db will deteriorate to -110, but the performance is greatly enhanced with download speeds being above 30mbps.

Naturally, tower congestion plays a huge part in the variance, no matter which band is being connected to.

My point to all of this is that a stronger db reading does not guarantee (by itself) better performance.

I would be one happy camper if I could discover an affordable way to lock onto band 4. The negotiations between the jetpack and the tower appear to be Voodoo controlled!

jcpainter wrote:
For those of you using the Sleek . . . we've been told for years to use the -db numbers as a measure of signal strength. With the new bands that the carriers are using, the -db does not tell the whole story. In fact, often it is deceiving.

The only way to know for sure if any booster is helping (or hurting) is to run speedtest.net (or a similar program) multiple consecutive times both with and without the booster.

It can be an eyeopener. And, the results will most likely differ as you change locations, sometimes drastically.

Unfortunately the db number is the only accurate way to determine signal quality. If your phone/device will tell you Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) that is a much better number to use. The Speedtest trick does work but I would not trust it as entirely accurate as it also does not tell the whole picture. First their numbers are notoriously inaccurate and carriers and internet providers purposely prioritize traffic to Speedtest to make your speed look better than it actually is. Also there really are 2 reasons why you cell/data service is poor. First is signal quality between you and the tower. This can only be measured in db or SNR. However the bigger problem is that due to growth in LTE cell service the towers are congested. Most cellular backbone networks are fiber optic and many are still connected to the carriers network at 1GB. With 2G this was not a problem, you could have many hundreds of people at 2G (dialup) speeds on one tower without congesting the tower. Now that LTE speeds are reaching over 100mbps 10 cell phones under heavy use could congest this link. Unfortunately the investment in the transmitters is outpacing the investment in the backbone (because the user cannot see it and do not understand it and nothing you do will fix that issue).

Speedtest can tell you a story... sort of... but make sure you do Speedtests in the evening when everyone is surfing and watching Netflix and again in the dead of night when everyone is sleeping and make sure you do it multiple times. The middle of the night will tell you how much your Amp is actually helping and if you need a more powerful amp or antenna. The evening numbers will tell you how many other people are using the tower and what kind of real world speeds to expect at that location.
But db is still probably a better way to determine if the Amp is doing its job. Also remember db is not linear it is logarithmic so an increase in 1db is not a 1% increase, it can actually be a big improvement.

For those of you using the Sleek . . . we've been told for years to use the -db numbers as a measure of signal strength. With the new bands that the carriers are using, the -db does not tell the whole story as far as data speeds. In fact, often it is deceiving.

The only way to know for sure if any booster is helping (or hurting) is to run speedtest.net (or a similar program) multiple consecutive times both with and without the booster.

It can be an eyeopener. And, the results will most likely differ as you change locations, sometimes drastically.

We have a Wilson Sleek or over 4 years now and use it with our Verizon service along with a JetPack. I also use a Wilson Trucker antenna which I can raise and raise it up when we stay at another place. Have had great signal everywhere we have been.

I also use the Sleek 4G which has been working good for me. I just bought the longer 12 inch antenna due to one campground I frequent which is kind of in a bowl but have not had the chance to use that yet. I do see a signal gain when using the Sleek.

scrubjaysnest wrote:
We have the Sleek 4G. Use an external RV antenna at the house, magnetic on the road. Listed for single phone, Verizon, but works with sprint and tracphone. Will also work with both the phone and hotspot at the same time. Gotta put the phone on speaker for this last.

I am curious, when you say "both at the same time" do you mean both hotspot and phone stacked together in the same cradle?