Without sufficient cellular reception, the router may behave as though there are no antennas attached. The following describe how reception may be impacted:
A paddle (direct attach) antenna is attached to a router inside of a metal box (for example, kiosk) with no cellular reception.
A long coax cable with insufficient shielding/rating is run too far from the router.
Higher frequencies are more susceptible to signal loss when using longer cables.
Each coax cable fitting will add some signal loss.
Actual dBm loss values are provided by the fitting manufacturer.
The antenna does not support the frequency to which the device is trying to connect.
Most antennas made before 2H 2019 or 2020 do not provide adequate gain for LTE bands 71 (600Mhz), 48/CBRS (3.5GHz) and/or 46/LAA (5GHz).
Note
All the antennas in the Cradlepoint Antenna Program are required to support all the frequencies of all Cradlepoint modems.
An antenna does not have proper separation from other radiation sources.
For example, antennas from 2 radios that are simultaneously transmitting and receiving are positioned too close to each other and are de-sensing.
Direct attach paddle antennas are not positioned for optimal reception.
For example, the antennas are laying on top of each other or not properly spaced.
An antenna has an insufficient ground plane to function properly.
For example, mobile antennas are meant to be mounted on top of a metal roof with a sufficient ground plane to function properly. If mounted on a non-metallic surface or on a metal surface that is too small, they may provide insufficient gain.
Note
Antenna spec sheets will call out if a ground plane is included or if needed and the minimum size.
Refer to Modem Signal Strength and Signal Quality to determine if the signal strength is sufficient.
Note
Antenna types may be mixed and matched so long as they all have sufficient reception and do not exceed FCC regulations (for example, remote/wired-out antennas for two LTE antenna ports on main/aux0 and GPS on the 1200M-B modem, and direct attached paddle antennas on main/aux1of the 1200M-B modem and the Wi-Fi RP-SMA ports of an AER2200).