Any suggestions how to measure mobile mast output on the village hall?

GruB

GruB

Senior Member
VIP Member
T6 Guru
My Co-Driver is quite a socialite within the confines on the village and during one event, I have been nominated to look into whether the mast on the village hall is actually doing anything.
Most villages cannot get a signal indoors and generally the outdoor service is patchy.
I don't really want to rely on the provider to tell me how good they are (trust issues) and wonder if there is another way?
I will contact Ofcom and ask the same question - but thought there may be a telecoms type guru within our midst as well?
 
Also be aware that a quirk of radio transmitters that not many are aware of is that the signal very close to them has lots of strong and null areas, the signal is only a predictable level a distance away.

Generally if you can look up and see the mast you're close enough it might not actually be being used, this is more noticeable in fringe areas where there isn't an alternative mast in decent range.

This is why ideally masts are out in the country a bit or on higher land overlooking where the phones are likely to be.
 
I find Cell mapper's site better for detail on bands & output etc. The site takes a bit of getting used to as you have to set provider, the band & frequency in the side menus having clicked on a tower on the map. It will then give you the coverage that individual antenna (on a specific mast) has on the map
Zoom in from here ( I set the provider to Vodafone & 4G LTE to get you started)

Cellular Tower and Signal Map

CellMapper is a crowd-sourced cellular tower and coverage mapping service.
www.cellmapper.net www.cellmapper.net
 
Thank you chaps.
I looked at Mastdata.com yesterday but I was on my phone and I didn't navigate the site correctly.
Today via the desktop it was a vastly improved experience. I managed to find a big blank where I expected it - sadly.

Roadtripper - yes - I had read about being near to a mast was not a guarantee of good signal, and can confirm that in the village hall we get nowt, even though threre is supposedly a device on the roof. It is certainly plugged into power in the main hall.

BikerPa - thank you. Worryingly I can't find the device that is on the village hall via the cellular tower site you mentioned - but I did confirm the same results for no signal in the village as per Mastdata.com
 
"BikerPa - thank you. Worryingly I can't find the device that is on the village hall via the cellular tower site you mentioned"

Do you know which provider installed/owns the mast?
As the map is provider & service specific (3G, 4G, 5G etc) if that is not selected properly on the site it won't show FYI
 
Also how recent is the installation?
It takes a while for the mapping to be updated
 
The signal booster is Vodafone and was installed over 3 years ago. I thought it was a 'rural mast' but now realise it is a booster.
I don't think it is working to be honest.
 
As with 'Three' & EE they are actively turning their 3G masts off to impliment 5G.
Maybe this is what is happening with this one
:rolleyes:
 
Do you know exactly what it is you have?

Because initially I thought you meant a true local mast - likely where the village hall gets some rental for hosting it.

However it sounds now more like a private picocell - which are very short range single devices to improve cell coverage in dead spots. Those are more like a traditional WiFi access point; roughly the same range and use the local internet connection as backhaul to the network. They've somewhat fallen out of fashion as more and more phones can use general WiFi to do the same thing more directly.

If it is that sort of device it often will only work for a specific set of devices - otherwise it would just be disrupted and swamped by everyone's device in range or passing trying to use it as a public mast.

I think Vodafone branded theirs as "Sure Signal", and if so it's been shut down (because most things can use WiFi directly now)

www.vodafone.co.uk

We’ve shut down Sure Signal | Vodafone UK

We’ve retired the Sure Signal network. You should be able to connect without it, as we’ve made major improvements across our network.
www.vodafone.co.uk

There is another possibility that it's some sort of active re-radiator - these will have a set of antenna on the outside of the building and some inside and all they do is they amplify and rebroadcast any signal received on one set to the other set. Again sometimes used to help dead spots on larger buildings but can be tricky to use as the amplified rebroadcasted signal needs to stay within power limits and not disrupt things.
 
tempImageFHSJW8.jpg

Using OpenSignal I have just been around the village and measured the signal of the Vodafone 4G. Outside the home of the Parish Secretary - it dropped to kilobytes !!!
I used to have SureSignal and was aware they had discontinued them - so from looking at that image - what do you suggest?
Inside the hall it connects to this:

tempImageSYZxBU.png
 
My other option is turn off that switch and see whom complains?
We do have a defibrillator on the wall outside the hall, but not sure that is in anyway connected.
 
Are there any internal antenna in the building?

Or any evidence of network cabling to the hall broadband connection (assuming you have one)

It's very unlikely the defib is on the same circuit as that looks like it can be remotely switched on and off.
 
It's one of these, probably so it can be remotely rebooted in case of issues.


I look after the technical side of the local hall and we considered the same sort of device at one point for the router as it was always locking up but the new router seems much more stable.
 
tempImageqznqmr.jpg

No phone or broadband in the hall. That phone line appears to be for them to access the box remotely?
 
If I went down with a flathead screwdriver I could open that box :)
 
Village Hall Meeting with tea, biscuits and minutes taken should to the bottom of it.
Then print of a few hundred copies of the minutes and post them out to the villagers, somebody will have the answer.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: CAB
The mystery deepens...

That power socket device is dead simple, you ring the phone number of the line it is plugged into and then dial the code you set and can turn the plug off or on.

That's a general purpose enclosure so I suspect if you were to open it you would find a number of devices and maybe a power strip in there. I'd expect those plastic bolts to actually be ball heads - if you loosen off the top or bottom so they come out about 1 cm and take the other side out the lid can open like a door (you can see the slots in the lid to let it do it)

I suspect inside is likely a very basic GSM type device that presents a normal BT or a RJ11 phone socket to the power device and then whatever is powering the item on the end wall. It might be simply a remote power supply, or it might be the full system and the thing on the building is just antenna. My money is on the electronics being up in the antenna though as the losses on passive antenna cable tend to limit them to about 4m or 5m.

Be aware that in normal cell sites opening any enclosure tends to send an alarm to the network.

The next interesting thing is the black wire and where does that go. I assume to the device on the roof and that it's probably coaxial cable like a traditional TV antenna or SKY type cable?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top