Here's what we recommend you get:
1. A Yagi antenna. You'll need the extra signal strength because of your weak signal area.
2. A high-quality main cable. This connects the antenna to the lightning arrestor. Get an LMR400 cable so you don't lose any signal strength from the antenna.
3. A good lightning arrestor. This isn't required, but I recommend because it will help protect the MOFI and your home in case of a lightning strike.
4. A high-quality pigtail cable. This connects the lightning arrestor to the MOFI. Again, get an LMR400 cable so you don't lose any signal strength.
In general, you want to keep the total cable run from the antenna to MOFI as short and direct as possible because the longer the cabling is, the more cable loss you have to your antenna's signal.
Below are links to each of these items:
This is a Yagi antenna, which means it is very directional. So when you go to mount it, you'll need to spend some time:
a. check the signal strength and download speed,
b. turning it a little, checking the signal strength and download speed,
c. repeat steps a & b until you find the strongest signal location
You can mount the antenna on any 1.5" - 2" diameter pole. Wilson Electronics sells a nice mounting kit if you only need a short pole.
2. LMR400 main cable
You should measure from where the antenna will be to where the lightning arrestor is mounted and buy a pre-made cable of that length. We recommend MPD Digital cables because they are of known high-quality and made in the USA. Here's a link to a 20' cable, but you can get them in any length. The connectors should be N-male to N-male.
3. Lightning arrestor
We recommend the Terrawave model because of its 90V clamping voltage. This should be mounted where the cable goes into the home and grounded to a solid earth ground.
4. LMR400 pigtail cable
link to a 1' cable, but you can get them in different lengths. The connectors should be N-male to SMA-male. The MOFI end of the cable attaches to the "Primary 3G/4G/LTE" antenna port on the MOFI. Additionally, an SMA female to SMA male extension may make connecting and disconnecting the device simpler.
Note:
- You'll want to get no more cable length than necessary. Above is the link to the 20' cable, but if you only need 10' or 15', MPD Digital has those as well.
- Note: make sure you are getting MPD Digital cable and not a fake import manufacturer's version. The MPD Digital cable is labeled by both connectors and is made in the US. Many imports manufacturers use inferior coax cable which is NOT LMR400. Double check who the seller is when buying on Amazon. The cable is really important in an antenna setup because any gain the antenna provides can be lost in the signal loss of the cable. The LMR400 has a very low signal loss, so it is worth the money to keep that antenna gain!
- If you mount the Yagi in a protected place (e.g. an attic) you don't need the lightning arrestor. In that case, skip items 2 & 3 from the above list and get a long enough pigtail cable (item 4) to go from the antenna to the MOFI. The specified cable ends (N-male to SMA-male) are still correct.
Total Standard Setup = $100 - $170 approximately, depending on the cable run length.