Mast location query

[BigYinUk]

Hi.

My router says its connecting to Cell ID 1357598

I can't find this cell on any of the cell finder databases.  

It looks from the way I have to position my 4G antenna (and where I stand with my phone) as if its south of me but again nothing shows up on any of the cell finder tools.

Can anyone help?

Regards

[Alex]

@BigYinUk I've checked our system and that site number comes back with no results. 

We'd be happy to check the site you connect to and provide the postcode it's located in. 

So we're able to do this, please let us know your full postcode. If you'd prefer not to post this publicly, please add it to your profile here. 

[BigYinUk]

Thanks Alex - I will add it to my profile .

[Alex]

Thanks for that @BigYinUk 🙂

You connect to Site 8176 for 2G, 3G & 4G services and this mast is located in EX21 5ST. 

[BigYinUk]

Thank you Alex.

That's very interesting.....

If there were hills, buildings etc in the way, is there another nearest site that the equipment would connect to instead? - 124304 in Hatherleigh for example?

I ask because I've also fitted a 4G router for my neighbour and she sees significantly lower signal strength to me and that doesn't really make sense if our routers were connecting to the site at EX215ST (actually in Buckland Filleigh about 2 miles as the crow flies).

I'll be fitting external antennae for both installations so knowing 100pc where the signal is coming from would enable me to put the antennae in the best place.  (PS even though I bought omni-directional antennae).

Regard and thanks again.

[Tash]

You're welcome @BigYinUk 

When searching your postcode on our coverage map I can see that depending on the material your neighbour's house is made from and its position in the area, the 4G coverage may differ from yours as these factors may affect its reliability.

Looking at your area, I can see that you're in a more rural location - any surrounding buildings or trees as you've mentioned do have the ability to affect coverage speeds. 

I've searched the site you've mentioned but unfortunately again this isn't bringing up any results for us As your site (8176) is for 2G, 3G and 4G, if you were to change your settings to connect to each service you'd connect to the same site as it provides all three. Therefore, when close to any factors that may be affecting coverage (such as buildings) the device would still connect to its dedicated site.

Therefore you and your neighbour should both be connecting to the same site.

I hope that makes sense but if you do have any further queries, please don't hesitate to let us know 

[BigYinUk]

Thanks for the reply Natasha.

I went out and looked at that site 8176 and I'm not at all sure either of us will be able to connect to it.  I can't see either house from the site, even though its only a couple of km away.  There's quite dense woodland in the way.

I played around with different positions with the antenna this afternoon and was able to connect to 3 different site ID's, which suggests to me that there may be 3 cell sites that I'm able to receive signals from (?).

Data transfer rated did differ depending on which site the router connected to, although sgnal strengths were braoadly similar.

I guess my best bet is to try my neighbours antenna in several different positions and just see which gives the best SINR and fastest transfer rates.

As you say, we are in a *very* rural location.

Many thanks to you and Alex fro your help with this.

[PedroC1999]

What app are you using to get the ID-some of them report it in a weird format?

Furthermore, the IDs Vodafone will have for sites are their internal SITE IDs, not the IDs that apps report.

As someone who has used an external antenna for 4G reception, the best advice I can give for finding out serving site is thus:

Install the Cellmapper app (Android device only) and walk/drive around your area ensuring it's logging.

Upload the data to Cellmapper site from menu in the app. 

Wait a few hours, maybe 24hours max and then signal trails and pins should appear on the map.

Let me know and I will place the pins to their actual locations.

Then, the map function in the app will show which site you're connected to using a line. 

If you have any questions, let me know. 

[BigYinUk]

Thanks for the suggestion, sounds like a great app but we've only got iPhones here, no Android devices with GSM connectivity

[BigYinUk]

UPDATE:

Well this is all very interesting and rather weird...

Today I tried the antenna (Fullband Mimorad) in 3 or 4 different places across the front of my neighbour's house.  Dependiing on where I put the antenna, I was seeing 4 different Cell IDs and SNR/SINR varying from -89dB/-0.7dB to -63dB/+12dB.  Upload speeds varied from 4mbps to 30mbps download / 2mbps to 25mbps upload.

So, I think we have ascertained the best position for her antenna.  Knowing which cell/transmitter we *should* be connecting to didn't really help much in the end.  So much for science

For info the router is a Teltonika RUT950 (latest version).

Thanks to everyone who tried to help.

Regards

Jon