Regarding USB modems

[HughDoc]

Recently got a Huawei E160 modem. Problem with signal due to distance from antenna so I found two pieces of copper wire about 70cm long - inserted one directly into aerial socket, second piece wound round small former and placed over ground area of aerial - pointed in opposite directions. Now my signal is five bars with no noise and no disconnects.
May not help but its cheap and easy to test.

Incidentally, if the signal is too strong, modem disconnects.
Regards,
HughDoc

 

[Tedster]

you just made yourself a die-pole antenna. Congrats. There are many stories here on TS about signal amplifiers and antennas. The best one i have seen is the CAN-tenna - a wifi antenna made out of a pringles can. It's a directional high gain antenna.

 

[HughDoc]

USB modem

Hi Tedster,
Nice to know someone looked!
I also made one of those corner antenna which worked almost as well. Trouble is, even here in the UK I'm still only in a 2G area so antenna are fairly useless!
Just another thought - watching some mails, people appear to have problems with APN names, etc. The E160 has some built-in profiles so I called in the Vodafone setup using Import, changed the APN to dynamic and now I can lockon without delays.
Thought it might be useful to someone else with problems.
All the best!
HughDoc