Aerial for T-mobile GPRS/3G card

[Kristian]

Can anyone reccommend a aerial for the T-mobile internet laptop card? It should be one that can go outside!

The T-mobile card is the best value if anyone is thinking of getting one of these and works a treat! But as soon as you try it in a NB it does slow down a bit! That why i need the outside aerial.

Thanks Kristan.

[Yoda]

Can anyone reccommend a aerial for the T-mobile internet laptop card? It should be one that can go outside!

The T-mobile card is the best value if anyone is thinking of getting one of these and works a treat! But as soon as you try it in a NB it does slow down a bit! That why i need the outside aerial.

Thanks Kristan.

 

Kristian, you cannot fit an aerial thats larger than the one you have already. You will overdrive the power amplifier if you don't match the impedenceand it will burn out in less than a second.

 

You have to buy the correct equipment to do what you are trying to achive. Some will tell you different and it will cost you.

[DHutch]

Kristian, you cannot fit an aerial thats larger than the one you have already. You will overdrive the power amplifier if you don't match the impedenceand it will burn out in less than a second.

 

You have to buy the correct equipment to do what you are trying to achive. Some will tell you different and it will cost you.

- I think he was just asking where you could buy an external aerial from!

 

I dont know specificaly about the T-mobile card, however there are external aerials avalable for some of the older vodafone cards. (although i beleave the later cards lack this)

- Hopefully someone else who has one of these cards can advise you on weather there avalable. Otherwise i would try and contact Tmobile, or take it into a phone shop or somthing.

 

EDIT:

I found a post on another forum asking the same question, with reference to a socket, but no answer.

"Is an external antenna available for this card? There is a little

socket at the end of the card. I spend a lot of time in an area with

very poor 3G signal and I'd like to boost it."

 

Ive also found out the 'Three' 3G card has an external aerial...

 

Someone must know....

 

 

 

Daniel

Edited August 11, 2006 by dhutch

[Breals]

Boatersphone.com can supply an antenna and adapter for the Vodafone 3G/GPRS data card.

 

The costs are:

 

£35 for a 3G Mini Mag antenna with 4m cable.

£25 for the adapter to connect to the card.

£3.60 P&P.

 

£63.60

 

Another option is to go to T-Mobile and ask to swap for a handset with bluetooth and get a bluetooth adapter for your laptop. The tariff is ten quid more but you get a phone contract included.

[Ernie]

Kristan,

 

I also had a T-mobile 3g card and contacted T-mobile about an external aerial for it for use on my boat. They refered me to the card manufacturers.

 

Extract from T-mobile response:

We do not sell an external aerial ourselves, however you can buy one at http://eshop.option.com/product.asp?product=OI-ANT-EX-3G for around 40 Euros. The only issue with this is that the lead for the aerial may not be long enough for your needs.

 

Also, from Option (sales@option.com):

Dear sir,

You can purchase an external antenna through the e-shop on our website. You will get the best results with the 3G variant.

Kind regards

Tom

 

Also, see my post on thread:

http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5217

 

Hope this helps.

Regards

Ernie

Edited August 11, 2006 by Ernie

[speejo]

Interestingly T-Mobile's terms and conditions say

 

[i]Web 'n' walk price plans provide unlimited internet surfing on mobile handsets in the UK. To ensure a high quality of service for all our customers, they are not to be used for other activities such as (but not limited to): modem access for computers, internet based video/audio streaming services, peer to peer file sharing, internet based video download and internet based telephony.[/i]

 

So in theory you can't use a 3G handset (or GPRS for that matter) to connect your laptop. Slightly strange because I have seen in a few places people say T-mobile themselves have recommended that approach.

 

They also "officially" don't allow use of Messenging services but I contacted them and the reply was

 

I can conform that, in accordance to the terms and conditions, use of Voice over Internet Protocol and Messaging over Internet Protocol is prohibited by T-Mobile.

 

However, since clarifying this with our technical department, MSN messenger can be used in accordance to our fair use policy. If you abuse this policy and usage is not reduced, notice may be given, after which network protection controls may be applied

 

So in other words I don't think they really care what you do as long as you don't download 100 full length movies each night.

 

As for aerials I have the Mini Mag aerial mentioned above for my Vodafone card (soon to be swopped to T-mobile to save £25 a month) however I have struggled to get any improvement in reception, in fact it often makes it worse. I beleive there were some problems with the sockets on the vodafone cards actually not being connected. I am yet to test with someone elses card.

 

Expansys also stock aerials and connectors (when in stock)

 

See Cable

Indoor Aerial

External Aerial

 

Not sure if these fit the T-Mobile card - best thing to do before buying anything is to email their support and check exactly what works. Let me know

 

John

NB Mugwump

[Ernie]

John,

 

You are correct, T-mobile state that you can NOT use the Web-n-Walk (£7 ish per month) package on a mobile phone for modem access to the internet. You have to buy the Web-n-Walk Professional package at £10 per month.

[speejo]

John,

 

You are correct, T-mobile state that you can NOT use the Web-n-Walk (£7 ish per month) package on a mobile phone for modem access to the internet. You have to buy the Web-n-Walk Professional package at £10 per month.

 

Thanks for the clarification. The confusion comes because you don't seem able to select Web-n-Walk Professional as a phone add on online (on the T-mobile website) it seems to only allow this as a seperate data card. Or I am looking in the wrong place.

 

I guess I need to visit the shop to sort out.

 

John

NB Mugwump

[Ernie]

Hi John,

 

I have never seen an advert on the T-mobile web site for Web-n-Walk prof (although I have never really looked very hard) add on to a mobile phone but it definitely exists (I have it). If you go into a T-mobile shop (or phone one), they can give you all of the details. I have Flext-20 with Web-n-Walk pro on a Nokia N70, this setup was recommended to me by the T-mobile technical support team and it works well for me. The only drawback that I can think of is that the phone is 3g only, it does not support the new protocol that enables the laptop card to work at up to 1.8M bit.

Regards

Ernie

[Abe]

You are missing the point the, guy is asking about 3G Data Card,, NOT MOBILE PHONES please read the Question>> He is paying £20 for Pro Web+ Walk

Any Constructive answers insted of Chit Chat would be helpfull to this to this fellow Boater I think??

This not a Chat room for Idle banter

Abe East

[Breals]

You are missing the point the, guy is asking about 3G Data Card,, NOT MOBILE PHONES please read the Question>> He is paying £20 for Pro Web+ Walk

Any Constructive answers insted of Chit Chat would be helpfull to this to this fellow Boater I think??

This not a Chat room for Idle banter

Abe East

 

 

If you read the thread properly you will see that the suggestion of using a phone which can connect to a wireless via bluetooth is very relevant to his problem of poor reception inside the boat, and may work out cheaper. And by the way if you don't use such aggressive hectoring language, it will look less embarrassing for you when you get it wrong!

Edited August 11, 2006 by Breals

[DHutch]

Yeah, however, Ernie has supplyed all the information requested in post #5

- The fact that an aerial is avalable, although not though T-mobile themselfs.

- He has then supplyed a link to where the item is sold, and some back ground information as well.

 

 

With that done, i think its perfectly acceptable to use the thread to disscuss highly relevent sub-topics around the origanal question.

- If the OP has any further questions, he can ask them, and im sure people with answer them.

- In the mean time, the later posts are doing little harm, and may also be of use or interest to the OP.

 

 

However, thats jst my feelings. At the end of the day, its upto the moderators if they are unhappy and feel the thread should be split, or posts removed.

- I cant do this. Neather can you.

 

 

Welcome to the forum BTW, i see this is you first post.

 

 

 

 

Daniel

[Ernie]

Hi Abe,

 

I apologies if my prattling on offended/upset/p*ss*d you off.

 

I have learnt a great deal from this forum over the past 6 months or so that I have been a member, and have found the other members to be very helpful and friendly towards me.

 

On the rare occasion that a subject comes up that I think I may be able to help others with and ‘give something back’ to the forum, I try to.

 

I will admit that sometimes I tend to go on perhaps a bit too much but I guess that is because I tend to find that more information is generally more helpful than less.

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Regards

Ernie

[speejo]

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

 

Indeed

 

What is always intersting in these posts is to get some feedback as to whether any of the posts actually helped - has Kristian found an external aerial from the links supplied and did it improve reception.

 

John

NB Mugwump

Edited August 16, 2006 by speejo

[Ernie]

John,

 

I will keep this short !!

 

I just came across an email I received from T-mobile technical support re Web-n-Walk and using a phone as a modem that may be of interest to you. Extract below.

 

Incident.Managment [incident.management@cs.t-mobile.co.uk]

RE: Product and Services Enquiry - Product and Services [#341322]

Thu 29/06/2006 12:30

 

Hello Ernie,

 

Thank you for getting back to us about our Web'N'Walk service.

 

You are correct, the standard Web'N'Walk plans cant be used with your mobile as a modem, however our Web'N'Walk Pro plans can.

 

To add the standard Web'N'Walk onto a price plan is £7.50 per month. Web'N'Walk Pro is only slightly more expensive a £10 per month.

 

When using any 3G handset (such as the N70) the maximum speed you can achieve is 384 Kb per second.

 

I hope this answers your questions, if you have any further queries please don't hesitate to contact us again.

 

Kind regards

 

Ross

Escalation Desk

Technical Data & Multimedia Support (TDMS)

 

=T===Mobile====

 

Regards

[RatCatcher]

Interesting coincidence??

 

Ade joins the forum on 11th August.

Ade makes one and only post on the 11th August

Ade last visits the forum on 12August.

Ade states “He (Krisian) is paying £20 for Pro Web+ Walk”, Kristian didn’t state this in his post??

[nmptwentyone]

i'm by no means a computer wizz kid, but ive been thinking about your problem because its a position i plan to find myself in early next year. that is, leaving behind the nice and simple cable broardband connection of my house for a non stadard, non straight forward connection on my soon to be ordered sailaway.

 

i've been here before! i was in the navy up untill three years ago. a year before leaving i wanted to do the same thing. technology not what it is now it was even more difficult. and very very slow, 15kbps i think i was getting. but it was good enough for emails. also the ship i was on at the time was a mine hunter and made compleatly out of grp so, as long as we were close enough to land i could surf (all be it very slowly!).

 

i had a thought the other day and thought id share it. ive not got a laptop, ive got a desktop so i'm going to have to buy a pci to pcmcia adaptor (the data card is pcmcia, which desktops dont have). which is all straight forward and cheap enough. but, i though why dont i go for an external one, which i can mount anywhere (ie where the best signal is). ive done a little surfing and found one. i think its a little expensive £100 or so, but its just to show you what i mean, i'm sure a bit more surfing will bring the price down hugely. so why not put your data card in it, with a usb extension cable you could mount it anywhere. even out side if you could make up a waterproof casing for it.

 

problem solved?

 

http://www.dpie.com/pcmcia/usb_to_pcmcia.html

[Ernie]

Mmptentyone,

 

A great idea.

 

Be careful to make sure that it will work with the data card that you buy.

 

It states that it will not work with cards with built in WiFi.

I am fairly certain that the latest T-mobile card is the Globetrotter HSDPA(new high speed protocol) card with built in 802.11 support. Check your card is compatible before parting with money.

 

Extract from data sheet on web site:

Globetrotter HSDPA No

GlobeTrotter 3G EDGE (HSDPA-Ready) NZ No

GlobeTrotter FUSION+ (HSDPA-Ready)

GlobeTrotter FUSION+ HSDPA NB or NL No

GlobeTrotter GT Max GA or GW No

Please ensure that your Cardbus card is supported by looking at the list above. Note that this adaptor will only work with the 3G cards listed above. It will not work with wireless (802.11) Ethernet, wired Ethernet, serial, parallel or flash based cardbus/pcmcia cards

 

Maybe someone else makes a similar adapter that will work with the T-mobile card?

 

Regards

Ernie

Edited August 19, 2006 by Ernie

[DHutch]

Yeah, thats quite a good "out of the box" idea there nmptwentyone.

- £100 is a hell of a lot of money tho, you could almost get yourself a laptop for that!

- But if you could find a cheaper one it might well be a good alternative for tho's that cant get a external aeral, of find that is doesnt work, or isnt long enough, etc.

 

 

Daniel

Edited August 20, 2006 by dhutch

[Ricardo]

Just to add to the T-Mobile debate;

 

I have a MDA Vario on T-Mobile which wasn't pre set to access the GPRS service so had to talk to a techie to get the info, whilst talking about this he told me that I could use the Vario as a modem via my laptop despite what it said in the blurb on the website. Dunno if this was official or "just do it we don't really care" though.

 

On the subject of aerials, I tried one from the boaters phone company on my Orange handset and got no better signal than when I hung the phone near a window. My solution is to use a bluetooth adapter and leave the phone where it can get a signal. This is why I went for a phone with GPRS rather than a data card, which has the added advantage of being able to check my email, and surf the net in a limited fashion, right on the phone itself.

 

BTW, the PDA type phones can view normal websites rather than being limited to WAP type sites.

 

Ric.