Understanding antenna options and connections for the gl xe300?

[nktech1135]

Hi.
I’m working on setting up external 4g antennas on an xe300 with an ec25axd modem. For this varient, does the 4gd ufl connector on the board do anything? I was assuming it would set it up in a 2x2 mimo option, but when i connect my antennas the rsrq value drops significantly as compared to using the internal antennas.
I’m using this for antennas.

Standard Antenna | Wireless ATM Store

I’m using this ufl to sma adapter

Amazon.com: TUOLNK IPX to SMA Cable SMA Female to U.FL IPX IPEX RG178 Coax Cable...

I’m hooking 2 antennas to the router, one to 4gm and the other to 4gd.
Am i using the wrong antennas? and if so, what should i use instead?

[windowwasher]

Gl-inet,
Is there an update on using external antennas on xe300 to increase range? I want to use external WiFi antennas but when antennas connected to ufl sockets it makes no difference

[alzhao]

I am not sure which antenna you use.

But we do have some recommendation of X3000 GL-X3000 / Spitz AX - GL.iNet

Not sure if they work for XE300.

[nktech1135]

I’ve never used external wifi antennas. not sure that there are connectors on the board for wifi or not.
On 4g antennas i’m using the following with the xe300.

2x2 MiMo 3G/4G/LTE/5G Magnetic Mount Cellular Antenna for Kiosks, ATM &...

This works well. If i need a higher gain directional antenna i’ll use waveform’s antennas. You need UFL to SMA adapters as well, amazon has those.

[windowwasher]

I tried attaching to wlan uFL ports. Unsure if they are for WLAN

[nktech1135]

I don’t know, if the built in wifi isn’t good enough i’ll usually turn it off and get wifi access points to fit my needs. From reading the forum the last several months i kind of think the wlan ports are not used. I don’t know of a way to use external wifi antennas. What i posted above was for the cell modem, not wifi.

[gurbina93]

So the instructions here are clear for installing external antennas in the Puli XE300

Adding External Antenna to XE300

Here are what you should do Find two 4G antenna which comes with a short uFL to SMA wire and antenna stick. Open the case the connec the uFL to the 4G module. Mount the the SMA to the case. You will find two holes on the side of the case. You need to take the two small fans aways from the holes and fix the SMA connect there. Finally connect antenna stick.

The holes in the side are a perfect size match for any SMA connector.

Now I don't know much about antennas, frequencies and so on. I got a similar antenna to these:

With these specs:

1. Frequency (MHz): 698-960MHz & 1710-2690 MHz
2. Gain: 2/5 dBi
3. Connector:SMA- Male
4. Impedance (Ω) :50
5. VSWR: < 2.0

There's a cell tower on top of my apartment building, I can't say for sure I gained any speed even while on the same band, but the speeds and connection is more stable. I tried an stubby antenna I had (seen in the pics) but it only supports 900/1800 and it was mostly garbage speed wise.

I compared the connection status and this is the results.

	External	Internal
Band	40	40
RSRP	-80	-89
RSSI	-48	-56
RSRQ	-9	-13
SINRl	15	12

This was from the stubby antenna

Stubby	Stubby
Band	40
RSRP	-79
RSSI	-45
RSRQ	-14
SINRl	12

Speeds
Internal 22Mbps/3Mbps
Large Antenna 25Mbps/4Mbps
Stubby Antenna (900/1800) 12Mbps/0.5Mbps

I will try to get a proper 4G antenna, these are all cheapo junk-market antennas that costed me 5USD for the large ones and 3USD for the stubby ones.

1. Unplugged the red connectors
2. Connected the IPEX1 to SMA Female cable and passed the SMA through the hole, then tightened it up with the included hex nut.