Troubleshooting
This page describes issues that you may encounter with your cellular Internet connection and makes suggestions on how to address them.
Sudden loss of signal strength
The installation guide discusses the importance of waterproofing your outdoor connections. If water does make its way into your coax, then one of the likely symptoms is a sudden drop of signal strength.
To confirm that water is the issue, turn off your transmitter, then disconnect each of the connections that would have gotten water in it, and check for moister. There’s a good chance that if there is a water issue, you’ll be able to feel it.
If you find yourself in this situation, then you might be able to recover by hanging the cable out to drain and air dry for a few days.
Seasonal variation
Water is an excellent blocker of radio waves, so as a result, seasons can have an impact on signal strength.
If you live in a location that has traditional seasons, then you may find that your signal is the strongest in the winter, when the foliage is the most bear, and weakest in the summer, when there’s the most foliage.
Similarly, if there are wet and dry seasons, then you may find that you get a better signal during the dry season.
If you find that the quality of your signal degrades to an unacceptable amount for part of the year, then some potential ways to mitigate the problem are:
- Re-aim your antennas alignment. Perhaps the strongest signal is now coming from a different direction.
- If your radio supports band locking, then experiment with locking onto different bands. In general, lower frequencies are more forgiving of obstacles, like leaves than higher frequencies are.
- Upgrade to higher gain antennas or lower loss cabling.
- Try using an amplifier.