In this video I show you how I mounted an external antenna for a Digi Wireless LTE system. This allows the Digi to get the best possible signal from an external antenna. I also show how I penetrated the external wall and connected the equipment at the network rack.
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Video Transcript:
So for today’s service, call, we are installing this teeny tiny little cellular antenna to make some really good sized holes in the wall. And it is cement.
All right. First step is we’re going to try to get through these seams because we’re gonna run the cable inside.
It’s kind of a silicone, latex.
I’ve already measured, so
I know that this line is right where the ceiling line is for the inside drop ceiling. So I’m gonna try to go above it so that my cables come out above the ceiling.
When I pulled my drill out, there was this insulation that came out and was wrapped all around my drill bit. So I had to get that unwrapped.
These walls are really thick, so I’m trying to use my long drill bits. And I didn’t encounter any cement at this stage.
So that’s a good sign. If I was to go in this seam. This is cement.
All right. Since I don’t have any cement, I’m going to try my wood paddle bit,
See if I get myself a decent hole.
If I go in sideways, maybe I can get past the cement.
I am in as far as I can do.
These walls are super thick, so I don’t know that my drill bit went all the way inside. So I’m going to check with my fish stick. Okay I’m not hitting any kind of obstructions, so that should get me inside. Now I can go in and look to see what I’m dealing with in the drop ceiling.
Alright, there’s my fish stick from the outside. So we should be good to go to come in. And it’s a nice big seam that we’re dealing with right there. So should bw able to get those fat connectors in without any problems.
All right, so we got this bracket. It’s going to go on the back.
This is going to attach the antenna. It’s going to go on the wall. Antenna.
It’s going to slide into place.
And that antenna is going to rest on this bracket.
Should be good.
Okay. I’m using a hammer drill on this
and a drill bit that’s especially for Tapcons.
It’s sized for the Tapcons that I bought.
Alright, we’re going to go for some air protection.
And I changed my ladder to an extension size instead of A-Frame to make sure I’ve got enough leverage.
Now we got our bracket up.
We’ll attach the opposite side of the bracket to the antenna.
To get these through the wall, I’m going to actually have to use pull string because I can’t push them all the way through this wall so thick.
and I got my fish sticks through with pull string. And so now I’m staggering each one of them so I can pull through each one individually. I already got the first two in the wall and now I’m going to go to the other side and actually pull them through.
So there’s four leads that go to the internal Digi. And so I ran them through the ceiling there kind of coming down the same cable path as all the other cabling. And then I’ve got to individually connect each one of those four to the leads coming off the antenna.
Each one of those leads is labeled A, B, C, D, which is specific to the Digi. They had to be plugged into the correct port on the Digi for it to get the right signal.
Oh, yeah.
, , ,
Jumping to . There we go. What’s our upload going to look like?
Alright, our upload a ish.
Not bad for a first one. Let’s see how we do on a second one.
Bumping over this time.
Not bad for cellular.
And what’s our upload going to be?
About the same.
Speed test
looks awesome.
Everything looks awesome. Yeah man, great. Thank you. Perfect.
Do me a favorite if you don’t mind. What’s that? If you can turn the Digi counterclockwise, just like degree so that it sits upright. Because what happens…you see how the power cable or the power supply
is hanging down? We’ve had instances where the like, people go, go, go, you know, go around the network area, they’ll hit it and it falls right out. Okay. And don’t realize it. So, then we end up switching it. Let’s do that today if we can. Just switch it, turn it like so the word Digi read’s left to right.
All right. Cool. Well I’ll get that remounted and we’ll go from there.
Whoever did this previously tied up all the cables with zip ties. So I went through as I’m adding my cables and put in Velcro and then cut all the zip ties off and, you know, did my cable management so that it looked nice and got rid of the zip ties so that it wouldn’t pinch the cables.
Hey, Mike. Hey.
All right. I just sent you the final picture.
Okay. Let me take a look.
Yeah, very nice. I like that. I appreciate the cable management too. That looks great.
We’re golden man. Thank you very much. Speed tests look better, I was glad we were actually able to get it outside. That was great.
Absolutely!
All right. Cool man, enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you much. All right. You have a good one. Bye bye. You too. Bye bye.