Huawei B311 router antenna

Hi there i've found this site whilst researching a problem i have with my three router.

I recently moved my home broadband to three via a B311 router and wanted to up the signal strength. I fitted a 9db RP-SMA antenna to its one external port and then configured the router to 'external' in antenna settings and it kills the signal - no bars on the front. When i disconnect the external antenna and configure the antenna to 'auto' it resumes its 1- 2 bars signal strength.

What am i doing wrong and is there a specfic external antenna these routers work best on?

Cheers

Roger

If it's a cheap panel antenna they're cheap for a reason.

I personally tried three antennas from Amazon - £15, £18, £75.
The £75 one was the xpol1 which was the only one that maintained a signal. The others were just junk.

The problem with the cheaper ones is that the cable is so lossy the signal is lost before it gets to the radio.

It seems its a case of you get what you pay for with these antennas unfortunately.

The RP-SMA is the wrong connector - that has no centre pin - you need an SMA connector on the LTE Antenna

RP-SMA is generally used for WiFi

That is why you get no signal

Ahhhhh TechServ! Thanks for that info (for the OP). It explains why the antenna I took off my redundant ASUS router made no difference at all when fitted to my B311. At which I was disappointed.

I've just re-checked that antenna, and as you say both it and the B311 sockets are female.

Thanks techserv absolutely spot on! Just checked and although the brass threads are male and female the connectors inside are both the same RP-SMA.

Have ordered a couple of SMA/SMA adapters as the antennas worked great on my Netgear hardware and don't want to throw them out

Many thanks

Roger

Just wanted to say that everything works great now, full three bars on router and a decent speed too.

Cheers

Can you tell me the supplier please? The only one would trust that I see on a google search is RS-Components (online) and doesn't seem to have them.

For instance, on Amazon there is one at 88p with free delivery. Yeah - right!