Avtex AMR985 alternative router

[terryr]

We have just bought a 2016 Autosleeper Warwick XL. The previous owner has remover the Avtex AMR985 modem but left the aerial etc. I can't appear to be able to buy just the modem any suggestions to an alternative unit which will plug into the aerials and preferably into the holder which was also left.

 

[Gellyneck]

Yeh that’s what I’m going to do cheers

Rather than coiling it would it be better to have as a loose "S" shape?
I've no idea but .................!

 

[tinkertaylor]

A mimo ariel is completely different to a ham radio which is very old, Ancient analogue tech. Flagship phones have 4 mimos built-in, your m5001 has 2 and can be modified to have 4 for £200

https://router-mods.co.uk/product/zte-mu5001-5g-mobile-mifi-router-modification-services/

You pays your money your makes your choices, I'm not gonna debate it anymore, your obviously emotionally attached to your external aerial.

 

[Gellyneck]

A mimo ariel is completely different to a ham radio which is very old, Ancient analogue tech. Flagship phones have 4 mimos built-in, your m5001 has 2 and can be modified to have 4 for £200

https://router-mods.co.uk/product/zte-mu5001-5g-mobile-mifi-router-modification-services/

You pays your money your makes your choices, I'm not gonna debate it anymore, your obviously emotionally attached to your external aerial.

Mmmmmmmmh, would it not have to be an emotional threesome? Ooooo errrr.

poster + aerial + router.

 

[weemalkie]

Hi Guys, Me again! After much deliberation and not a little trepidation I finally cut the hole in the roof for my Poynting 17 aerial. now fully installed and power supply live. Only problem I'm not getting any signal!! WIFI signal is available. The unit was tested in the house and in the motorhomeusing 240V supply and also using my selected 12V supply. In all cases I had 2 -3 bars 4G signal. Now when its fixed to the roof - no bars. The unit is fitted in the centre of the Mohome away from all obstructions and well away from TV aerial.
The only thing I haven't done is mount the unit on a 400 x 400 mm metal plate as advised. Im under the impression that this is only required for absolute perfect reception. As we are leaving on Tuesday for France I would appreciate your input and advice once again.
At the moment all I have is a very expensive ornament on the roof.

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[starquake]

The metal plate is for a ground plane, most antenna DO need these to work effectively if your van is not a metal roof.

But even then 0 signal shouldn't happen. Only other thing is if you have joined the antenna tails correctly to the unit, and got a solid connection. It does sound to me like you have a fault of some kind.

Diagnostics I would personally try on top is check resistance at the tails, or find someone locally (a ham) with a signal meter to connect to the tails, 5 mins on a signal scope would indicate if the antenna working or not.

ie, check connections, check resistance, see if either obviously wrong. Find local radio club, and a ham with a signal meter (liek a graphic equaliser you pluginto an antenna, and dianosis should be possible.

I would look for a metal plate too, as I'm aware without a ground plane you'll get little performance, but it shouldn't be nil, indicating something else goign on.

Seeing you in scotland, find the local radio club (around where I live ther are 2, and the local guys helped me with my own antenna testing for free! ... most are helpful people.

 

[weemalkie]

The metal plate is for a ground plane, most antenna DO need these to work effectively if your van is not a metal roof.

But even then 0 signal shouldn't happen. Only other thing is if you have joined the antenna tails correctly to the unit, and got a solid connection. It does sound to me like you have a fault of some kind.

Diagnostics I would personally try on top is check resistance at the tails, or find someone locally (a ham) with a signal meter to connect to the tails, 5 mins on a signal scope would indicate if the antenna working or not.

ie, check connections, check resistance, see if either obviously wrong. Find local radio club, and a ham with a signal meter (liek a graphic equaliser you pluginto an antenna, and dianosis should be possible.

I would look for a metal plate too, as I'm aware without a ground plane you'll get little performance, but it shouldn't be nil, indicating something else goign on.

Seeing you in scotland, find the local radio club (around where I live ther are 2, and the local guys helped me with my own antenna testing for free! ... most are helpful people.

Could it be the router by any chance?
Struggling for time to do anything really. I’ll have a look at the tails though I did swap them around. I’ll also fit the small antennas which came with the router to see if that makes any difference.

 

[starquake]

Could it be the router by any chance?
Struggling for time to do anything really. I’ll have a look at the tails though I did swap them around. I’ll also fit the small antennas which came with the router to see if that makes any difference.

Yeah, worth trying the ones that came with it, see if it's the router or the antenna. Could also be configuration, the Teltonica do I recall need all the things like APN configured before they work properly.

 

[weemalkie]

Hi Guys, Me again! After much deliberation and not a little trepidation I finally cut the hole in the roof for my Poynting 17 aerial. now fully installed and power supply live. Only problem I'm not getting any signal!! WIFI signal is available. The unit was tested in the house and in the motorhomeusing 240V supply and also using my selected 12V supply. In all cases I had 2 -3 bars 4G signal. Now when its fixed to the roof - no bars. The unit is fitted in the centre of the Mohome away from all obstructions and well away from TV aerial.
The only thing I haven't done is mount the unit on a 400 x 400 mm metal plate as advised. Im under the impression that this is only required for absolute perfect reception. As we are leaving on Tuesday for France I would appreciate your input and advice once again.
At the moment all I have is a very expensive ornament on the roof.

Panic over. I checked all the connections and that must have been the problem. Now getting two bars on 4G which is normal for my Lebara sim.

 

[weemalkie]

Yeah, worth trying the ones that came with it, see if it's the router or the antenna. Could also be configuration, the Teltonica do I recall need all the things like APN configured before they work properly.

The system worked with the router antenna so I disconnected everything and reconnected making sure everything was nice and tight.. hey presto up and running and me much relieved. Can go on holiday stress free. Thanks once more.

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[starquake]

The system worked with the router antenna so I disconnected everything and reconnected making sure everything was nice and tight.. hey presto up and running and me much relieved. Can go on holiday stress free. Thanks once more.

No probs. Worth checking (run a speedtest whilst doing this) in the diagnostics that it's joining 2 bands minimum when you have a download going on (shoudl be somewhere in the Teltonica diags). You want to see what bands it's using and if it's got CA active is the usual term (this just checks it's using 2, 3 or 4 antenna in parallel) Wierd thing with routers is they will not bond until demand dictates they need do in many cases, so you MUST do a download/put netflix on the tv whilst testing, as without demand they'll assume you need a standard level of performance. During the speedtest you may see the rates increase as the bonding kicks in (usually about halfway).

If you do that ^ you'll probably be grand wherever you go. Also do a speedtest versus your phone on same network, with 2 bar it shouldn't be WORSE than the phone, however you may be using a further away "less congested" cell tower at times. The key to these roof as I've responded above is when you in places with 0 bar on the phone, as we've not failed yet to have enough to stream TV in such circumstances.

And yes, the antenna connections are easy to have disconnected without realising, we tend to check ours every month or so, as the vibration from the van is known to sometimes loosen one or both of ours.

 

[weemalkie]

No probs. Worth checking (run a speedtest whilst doing this) in the diagnostics that it's joining 2 bands minimum when you have a download going on (shoudl be somewhere in the Teltonica diags). You want to see what bands it's using and if it's got CA active is the usual term (this just checks it's using 2, 3 or 4 antenna in parallel) Wierd thing with routers is they will not bond until demand dictates they need do in many cases, so you MUST do a download/put netflix on the tv whilst testing, as without demand they'll assume you need a standard level of performance. During the speedtest you may see the rates increase as the bonding kicks in (usually about halfway).

If you do that ^ you'll probably be grand wherever you go. Also do a speedtest versus your phone on same network, with 2 bar it shouldn't be WORSE than the phone, however you may be using a further away "less congested" cell tower at times. The key to these roof as I've responded above is when you in places with 0 bar on the phone, as we've not failed yet to have enough to stream TV in such circumstances.

And yes, the antenna connections are easy to have disconnected without realising, we tend to check ours every month or so, as the vibration from the van is known to sometimes loosen one or both of ours.

Hi guys, a quick update on how my system is working. Some great and some not so great. After arriving in France I bought a Free 100GB path sim €19.9. Retailer said it wouldn’t work in the router but as I had previously spoken to a Brit living in France and who used Free I decided to go ahead. As a fall back also went to orange who also said it wouldn’t work but provided all the settings for the router. The free didn’t work but orange did and was giving 150Mbps downloads. Couldn’t believe it and that’s on 4G. However the sim holder in this router can only be described as diabolical. Had to remove face plate twice. Once when sim fell inside the unit and again when sim refused to eject. I changed the password and on the second occasion I entered the settings the unit refused to recognise the sim and the WiFi LEDs wouldn’t light up. Reset and factory reset made no difference. Left it a couple of days and did a quick reset and it started up again. Had to change the password again and getting 150Mbps. Now don’t want to touch it as quite frankly I don’t understand all the info in the settings. I would however like to know how much data I have used and how to renew the monthly payment. Apologies for the long post and again any input appreciated. Cheers.

 

[starquake]

All I can suggest (having dealt with various wifi routers over years is) that I typically use some sellotape (thin) attached to the non chip side of a sim to allow easy removal without losing it inside units. This works for most but sometimes not all sim holders. Some sim holders in some devices need a small press "in" to unlock to allow you then to pull out using the sellotape, but it's common across all devices annoyingly. To press in the sim when it requires the push in, we use a old "broken" sim we have as it's the right diameter to allow enough pressure to unclick on my Mikrotik's which is a pain, or for one device a cocktail stick as there isn't enough clearance for a second sim in that case. It really does depend on the deivce, and yes, sims are a pain to handle until you get used to it. I have spent many hours tryingt o find a sim that popped out with the eject mechanism throwing a sim onto grass one one of my permanent installs.

You shouldnt remove a sim when a device is powered typically either.

Thats my only tips, we keep spare sims taped to wall with a different piece of cellotape by the router.

Ref settings, only thing you need per provider is APN name, username and password. Any I use I keep a A4 sheet with them written down on in case (printed by text, not handwritted) I need to switch to another sim, so I know the settings as without interner finding them is a pain.

 

[DaveS]

Jumping in on this thread as I have a related issue. AMR985 (fitted new last year) with external antenna with two wires coming out.
Performance can be quite poor.
An example today I’ve just done a speed test on my mobile and using the AMR, with the mobile (iPhone 13) being faster, 25 Mbps, compared to 13 Mbps on the Avtex, both EE SIM cards.
I’d also like to benefit from 5g when it’s available so from what I’m reading switching to a RUTX50 would be a straight swap and allow me to use the existing antenna and might improve things?

 

[starquake]

Jumping in on this thread as I have a related issue. AMR985 (fitted new last year) with external antenna with two wires coming out.
Performance can be quite poor.
An example today I’ve just done a speed test on my mobile and using the AMR, with the mobile (iPhone 13) being faster, 25 Mbps, compared to 13 Mbps on the Avtex, both EE SIM cards.
I’d also like to benefit from 5g when it’s available so from what I’m reading switching to a RUTX50 would be a straight swap and allow me to use the existing antenna and might improve things?

Yes, ^ but as reccomended elsewhere (or maybe here) use ant1 and 4 port (may be labbelled 0 and 3) - first and last effectively... , and make sure the ones you not using on roof antenna DO have a stubby antenna attached to protect the radio.. The issue with the AM985 is the fact it's cat4, so a single stream of download/upload in use at once, where a cat12 or higher can combine 3 or more streams of download/upload at once, so is 3-4x faster as it gets 3x the slots on the same cell towers.

I wouldn't worry too much about 5g at moment though, although the X50 can do it. We still have only seen it at 2 campsites to date. The better thing is the additional frequencie(s) a higher category device can offer -> which is similar to your phone, but with a higher gain antenna. Thats my opinion anyhow from actual experience in places where the iphone doesn't work but the roof antenna does on a cat12.

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[starquake]

Yes, ^ but as reccomended elsewhere (or maybe here) use ant1 and 4 port (may be labbelled 0 and 3) - first and last effectively... , and make sure the ones you not using on roof antenna DO have a stubby antenna attached to protect the radio.. The issue with the AM985 is the fact it's cat4, so a single stream of download/upload in use at once, where a cat12 or higher can combine 3 or more streams of download/upload at once, so is 3-4x faster as it gets 3x the slots on the same cell towers.

I wouldn't worry too much about 5g at moment though, although the X50 can do it. We still have only seen it at 2 campsites to date. The better thing is the additional frequencie(s) a higher category device can offer -> which is similar to your phone, but with a higher gain antenna. Thats my opinion anyhow from actual experience in places where the iphone doesn't work but the roof antenna does on a cat12.

Should add nothing will help you either if you in an area with genuinely zero coverage due to hills or other geographic issues. We were in Yorkshire (North yorkshire moors) this weekend, and it was notable near Flyingdales not many of us had signal in the valleys around there (due to lack of population).

 

[Markman]

Jumping in on this thread as I have a related issue. AMR985 (fitted new last year) with external antenna with two wires coming out.
Performance can be quite poor.
An example today I’ve just done a speed test on my mobile and using the AMR, with the mobile (iPhone 13) being faster, 25 Mbps, compared to 13 Mbps on the Avtex, both EE SIM cards.
I’d also like to benefit from 5g when it’s available so from what I’m reading switching to a RUTX50 would be a straight swap and allow me to use the existing antenna and might improve things?

Vaguely related, my experience:

Had a 3 year old MotorWiFi aerial/antenna ("5g compatible"; 2x2 MiMo) and the small Huawei router (and a nice magnetic box to hold it). Took the Huawei with us to USA, visiting family, and it was useless, although worked great on short excursion in to Canada!. Researched, including on ExplorevanUK's YouTube videos - see below. I ended up buying a GL-X3000 Spitz AX router from Amazon that he recommended (about £350 with voucher). It worked great on subsequent, recent trip in USA (they use different bands to UK and this router covers them all), in a PVC just using the routers own stubby 8" long plastic antennas: 8 in total, 4 for the 4x4 MiMo LTE, 2 for repeating, i.e. connecting to an existing WiFi signal (e.g. in a campsite) and 2 to be the WiFi to your phone, etc. (except when we got deep in to some mountains where no-one was getting signals).

Back home in Chester in the house using the router's stubby antennas it was OK (~20mB down/5 up using SpeedTest). When fitted in our PVC and the signal strength using the router's antennas was rubbish, almost zero down/uploads using Speedtest and on EE network (as was my phone when in the van; outside the van my phone was less than 5, some strange quirk of Three's signal in my area). Plugging just the 2 antenna aerials in to the router and MAGIC! 60-80 MB down, 15 up, about the same as we get on the phoneline in to the house.

My conclusions:
1. ExploreVanUK has useful videos explaining all of teh jargon (I have no affiliation with him at all)
2. very happy with the GL-X3000 and worth the expense and
3. I can postpone my planned upgrade of the antenna (from 2x2 MiMo to a 4x4 MiMo Poynting puck antenna) for the time being.

 

[Orion]

The only thing I haven't done is mount the unit on a 400 x 400 mm metal plate as advised. Im under the impression that this is only required for absolute perfect reception.

Not required for the Poynting MIMO-3 antenna series. From the manual:

Ground plane independent: MIMO-3 is designed with an internal ground plane, making the antenna suitable for implementation on all surface types.

https://www.solwise.co.uk/downloads/files/A-MIMO-0003-V2-17-Datasheet.pdf

 

[weemalkie]

Vaguely related, my experience:

Had a 3 year old MotorWiFi aerial/antenna ("5g compatible"; 2x2 MiMo) and the small Huawei router (and a nice magnetic box to hold it). Took the Huawei with us to USA, visiting family, and it was useless, although worked great on short excursion in to Canada!. Researched, including on ExplorevanUK's YouTube videos - see below. I ended up buying a GL-X3000 Spitz AX router from Amazon that he recommended (about £350 with voucher). It worked great on subsequent, recent trip in USA (they use different bands to UK and this router covers them all), in a PVC just using the routers own stubby 8" long plastic antennas: 8 in total, 4 for the 4x4 MiMo LTE, 2 for repeating, i.e. connecting to an existing WiFi signal (e.g. in a campsite) and 2 to be the WiFi to your phone, etc. (except when we got deep in to some mountains where no-one was getting signals).

Back home in Chester in the house using the router's stubby antennas it was OK (~20mB down/5 up using SpeedTest). When fitted in our PVC and the signal strength using the router's antennas was rubbish, almost zero down/uploads using Speedtest and on EE network (as was my phone when in the van; outside the van my phone was less than 5, some strange quirk of Three's signal in my area). Plugging just the 2 antenna aerials in to the router and MAGIC! 60-80 MB down, 15 up, about the same as we get on the phoneline in to the house.

My conclusions:
1. ExploreVanUK has useful videos explaining all of teh jargon (I have no affiliation with him at all)
2. very happy with the GL-X3000 and worth the expense and
3. I can postpone my planned upgrade of the antenna (from 2x2 MiMo to a 4x4 MiMo Poynting puck antenna) for the time being.

Jumping in on this thread as I have a related issue. AMR985 (fitted new last year) with external antenna with two wires coming out.
Performance can be quite poor.
An example today I’ve just done a speed test on my mobile and using the AMR, with the mobile (iPhone 13) being faster, 25 Mbps, compared to 13 Mbps on the Avtex, both EE SIM cards.
I’d also like to benefit from 5g when it’s available so from what I’m reading switching to a RUTX50 would be a straight swap and allow me to use the existing antenna and might improve things?

I’m in the pre Alps in France. 1-2 bar signal on a French orange 4G sim. Down load speeds better than my sky broadband at home

 

[Manic]

I’ve just had an 2 month trip in France using a Reglo sim in my router which was great ecc be dry where an cheap, back to uk and can hardly get a signal on Smarty in Canterbury, very disappointing.

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[starquake]

I’ve just had an 2 month trip in France using a Reglo sim in my router which was great ecc be dry where an cheap, back to uk and can hardly get a signal on Smarty in Canterbury, very disappointing.

Presume you have more than a cat4 router, as in France thats pretty much all you need (cat4) but in UK these days especially on smarty you really benefit from a router able to use the newer Three bands (which is what Smarty runs on). A cat4 router can't use around 75% of Threes capacity on cell towers where the Band 32 and band 28 coverage is live to put that in context. (you are limited to B3/B1/B20 only, which is a total (put together) of just the band 32 on some cells). This is important as Three are upgrading their network as they are one of the busiest networks and without it, performance IS rubbish. It's why I'm replacing cat4 devices I installed in 2019 at one of my customers.

Just remembered we were at Canterbury CACC site for about a week over Christmas -> can confirm Three on a cat12 was performing at > 30 Mbit at the time for us.

 

[Manic]

Presume you have more than a cat4 router, as in France thats pretty much all you need (cat4) but in UK these days especially on smarty you really benefit from a router able to use the newer Three bands (which is what Smarty runs on). A cat4 router can't use around 75% of Threes capacity on cell towers where the Band 32 and band 28 coverage is live to put that in context. (you are limited to B3/B1/B20 only, which is a total (put together) of just the band 32 on some cells). This is important as Three are upgrading their network as they are one of the busiest networks and without it, performance IS rubbish. It's why I'm replacing cat4 devices I installed in 2019 at one of my customers.

Just remembered we were at Canterbury CACC site for about a week over Christmas -> can confirm Three on a cat12 was performing at > 30 Mbit at the time for us.

I’m using aHuawei B535 which is cat 7, and hardly getting 1.5mbps if in lucky.
Maybe time to look for a higher cat router.

 

[Orion]

I’m using aHuawei B535 which is cat 7, and hardly getting 1.5mbps if in lucky.
Maybe time to look for a higher cat router.

Might be more to do with the SIM/Provider you’re using?

Just did a speed test with my iPhone connected to the Teltonika RUTX12 router (twin Cat6 modems) here in Languedoc-Roussillon and it’s showing 155mbps down and 68 up. This is using the IQGO SIM (EE Network at home and currently roaming via Orange F) but it’s going through NordVPN which is set to the U.K. and I understand that soaks up some bandwidth along the way.

 

[Gellyneck]

I’m using aHuawei B535 which is cat 7, and hardly getting 1.5mbps if in lucky.
Maybe time to look for a higher cat router.

We recently upgraded our Huawei e5577cs mifi (yes, I know it's not a router per se) and considered a B535 but we went for one of these as we wanted to retain the flexibility of a mifi unit and wasn't going to do a "fixed" instalation.

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Mr starquake will be able to tell you what CAT it is but he did tell me it was way better than CAT12 and thought it was very good value for the money albeit not a pukka router with RJ45 (which we don't use) sockets, etc, etc, etc.

The refurbished unit is about half the price of a new one and was "as new" with even the removable screen protector still on it. We have it connected to a Poynting A-MIMO-0003-V2 and, currently, an EE data sim in it. We will be changing to 3 when this data expires.

EE is pretty so so for us at home however we were getting 80-85mbps down and 35-36mbps up with just it's own dinky aerials.

Might be a heap of rubbish / not for you but thought I throw my farthings worth in!

 

[starquake]

I’m using aHuawei B535 which is cat 7, and hardly getting 1.5mbps if in lucky.
Maybe time to look for a higher cat router.

Well that one uses B1 / B3 / B7 / B8 / B20 / B28 / B32 / B38 according to spec. So you will be using the enhanced bands on a cat7 ... it's got all of the main "in use by Three 4g" ones at least. Ie, I wouldn't be blaming router entirely here, as you DO have the enhanced band support you need for Three.

I'd wager it's a local service issue -> as in try another provider.

Cat 7 will give > 300Mbit in perfect conditions ... presume you are using with external antenna ? (in Canterbury when we were there our phones had crappy signal indicating the roof antenna was doing job. Cat 12 or 20 will provide more streams so improve performance "slightly" but can't fix a lack of signal OR congestion.

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[starquake]

Mr starquake will be able to tell you what CAT it is but he did tell me it was way better than CAT12 and thought it was very good value for the money albeit not a pukka router with RJ45 (which we don't use) sockets, etc, etc, etc.

It's cat20 with 5g support.

There are issues with it, in yes, it's not as good as a Teltonica 5g unit (it won't do 4x4 mimo as well), but it's also not the ~3-4 times the cost a Teltonica costs.
Personally I think I'll end up with one in my van, and upgrade (again) as inivitably new bands come into use yet again in a few years (I think personally a 4g/5g device is only ever good for 4 years, as we are seeing with cat4 right now, the devices although they work don't work as well as they did when purchased). (and if you have an old school 3g ZTE like me, 3g is being turned off here!). The key point is in a motorhome it'll probably in most locations perform "close enough" to a Teltonica for normal users being happy.

It is in my opinon (the ZTE) at least the best priced 5g mobile unit on the market that you can buy at moment...
And this is from someone who is also buying a Teltonica (but not for his van!) for a static install. There is a reason for all classes of device, and as Gellyneck says, a static install inside the van isn't right for all (some of us want to disconnect the antenna and take it out with us in France for translations).

 

[Manic]

Yes I have an Poynting antenna but some places router works better without it, I usually try turn it to internal in settings.
Yes it congestion is the problem

 

[starquake]

Yes I have an Poynting antenna but some places router works better without it, I usually try turn it to internal in settings.
Yes it congestion is the problem

Only thing I can say from my testing is that Smarty sims seem to be lower prioritised than a 3 business sim. You may want to try one of the cheap £2 a mo 500Gb (per month) off amazon as those are 3 business sims and DO perform slightly better in congestion. Mad that you pay more for less priority, but thats how Three seem to prioritise from my testing with a smarty sim and Three sim side by side in same device on same antenna.

But congestion is also why I keep an EE and Three sim in the van, as they have the most "frequencys + bandwidth". Until you talking 5g, Three and EE have something like 70% of the spectrum of 4g (ie, in most cases O2 or Vodafone would be worse).

Only other thing to check is correct APN in use, if you using a Three APN on a smarty sim, or vice versa, as my ZTE did, it would be slower than the correct settings.

 

[DaveS]

Only other thing to check is correct APN in use, if you using a Three APN on a smarty sim, or vice versa, as my ZTE did, it would be slower than the correct settings.

Is it ok to have autoapn set, that’s what mine is set to?
I’m using an iqgo sim and I can’t enter the apn they say.

 

[DaveS]

Vaguely related, my experience:

Had a 3 year old MotorWiFi aerial/antenna ("5g compatible"; 2x2 MiMo) and the small Huawei router (and a nice magnetic box to hold it). Took the Huawei with us to USA, visiting family, and it was useless, although worked great on short excursion in to Canada!. Researched, including on ExplorevanUK's YouTube videos - see below. I ended up buying a GL-X3000 Spitz AX router from Amazon that he recommended (about £350 with voucher). It worked great on subsequent, recent trip in USA (they use different bands to UK and this router covers them all), in a PVC just using the routers own stubby 8" long plastic antennas: 8 in total, 4 for the 4x4 MiMo LTE, 2 for repeating, i.e. connecting to an existing WiFi signal (e.g. in a campsite) and 2 to be the WiFi to your phone, etc. (except when we got deep in to some mountains where no-one was getting signals).

Back home in Chester in the house using the router's stubby antennas it was OK (~20mB down/5 up using SpeedTest). When fitted in our PVC and the signal strength using the router's antennas was rubbish, almost zero down/uploads using Speedtest and on EE network (as was my phone when in the van; outside the van my phone was less than 5, some strange quirk of Three's signal in my area). Plugging just the 2 antenna aerials in to the router and MAGIC! 60-80 MB down, 15 up, about the same as we get on the phoneline in to the house.

My conclusions:
1. ExploreVanUK has useful videos explaining all of teh jargon (I have no affiliation with him at all)
2. very happy with the GL-X3000 and worth the expense and
3. I can postpone my planned upgrade of the antenna (from 2x2 MiMo to a 4x4 MiMo Poynting puck antenna) for the time being.

Yep seen the video and channel.. Very interesting.

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[Manic]

Only thing I can say from my testing is that Smarty sims seem to be lower prioritised than a 3 business sim. You may want to try one of the cheap £2 a mo 500Gb (per month) off amazon as those are 3 business sims and DO perform slightly better in congestion. Mad that you pay more for less priority, but thats how Three seem to prioritise from my testing with a smarty sim and Three sim side by side in same device on same antenna.

But congestion is also why I keep an EE and Three sim in the van, as they have the most "frequencys + bandwidth". Until you talking 5g, Three and EE have something like 70% of the spectrum of 4g (ie, in most cases O2 or Vodafone would be worse).

Only other thing to check is correct APN in use, if you using a Three APN on a smarty sim, or vice versa, as my ZTE did, it would be slower than the correct settings.

I’ve got it set on this APN for roaming
mob.asm.net

Do you think I would gain much by changing to a zte mu5001