Directional 5G Antennas

Why Should I Use A Directional 5G Antenna?

With cellular antennas you have two choices.  An omni-directional antenna or a directional antenna.  In many cases, where you just need to get a stronger 5G signal outside a building to a 5G router located indoors where the 5G signal is weaker, then an Omni-Directional 5G Antenna will do the trick.  However in some cases, particularly rural locations that tend to be further away from 4G and 5G masts, a directional antenna may get you that elusive 5G connection when on the fringes of coverage or improve signal strength for longer distance connections. As the name suggests, a directional antenna means it needs to be pointed in the direction of the cell tower you are attempting to connect to.

5G Routers usually have 4 external antenna connectors, especially the industrial 5G routers like the H685 and NR550 and many home and office 5G routers like the Zyxel NR5103 also have 4 external antenna connections.  Some 5G routers like the CPEPRO, whilst having 4 internal 5G antennas will only have 2 external antenna connectors, however some people will send their CPEPRO router off to be modified to get all 4 cell antennas available for the connection of a 4×4 MiMo antenna.

Because of the requirement for four cellular antennas on 5G routers, many users prefer the convenience of using a 4×4 MiMo Antenna which is a single housing containing the 4 x 5G antennas, with 4 x antenna cables that will run indoors and connect to the 4 x external antenna ports of the 5G router.

At present, most 4×4 MiMo antennas tend to be Omni-Directional with only a few directional 4×4 MiMo antennas available.

The best of these is the Panorama WMM4G-6-60 Directional MiMo Antenna with 4×4 connection.

Panorama WMM4G-6-60

WMM4G-6-60-5SP Directional 5G Antenna

The Panorama WMM4G-6-60 is a high gain directional 4×4 MiMo antenna for 4G and 5G networks. It incorporates four pairs of wideband element assemblies in a single housing and is designed to support fixed site CAT18/20 client devices. It offers 6dBi peak gain for

617- 960MHz and 9dBi peak gain for 1710-6000MHz. The weather resistant housing is designed for wall or mast mounting with the supplied hardware.

This version is the WMM4G-6-60-5SP which is supplied with 4 x 5m long low loss cables with SMA Male antenna connectors for direct connection to our 5G router range.

Single Directional 5G Antennas

In some instances, you may prefer to use individual, directional 5G antennas and there are even fewer of these available.  The Fullband FB5GD11 is one of the best directional antennas, providing a low cost 5G antenna solution with high gain and the best thing about this pole mounted, directional 5G antenna is that is comes pre-terminated with a 10m long antenna cable with SMA Male connector so for longer cable runs it is a very economical way to install 4 x 5G antennas with 10m long cables compared to a standard 4×4 MiMo antenna that would be supplied with just 5m long cables, so the cost of 4 x 5m antenna extension cables would push the price of the all-in-one directional antenna up when compared to this low cast, single, directional antenna.

Fullband FB5GD11

Fullband FB5GD11 Directional 5G Antenna

Fullband 3G / 4G / 5G Directional Antenna 11dBi Peak Gain with 10m cable with SMA Male connector – suitable for outdoor installation and connection to 4G and 5G routers.  We recommend using a minimum of two Directional antennas with your 4G or 5G router, but for optimum performance, especially if your 5G router has 4 x external antenna connections then we would advise to buy four of these antennas and mount them on a pole outdoors, pointing to your cell site.  Mount each antenna at a crossed 45 degree angle.  So for MAIN 1 and Aux 1 of your router have your first antenna at 45 degrees to the left and the other at 45 degrees to the left and repeat for MAIN 2 and AUX2 connections.

5G Antenna Connector Types

Most directional 5G antennas will come pre-terminated with SMA Male connectors.  This is because the majority of 5G routers will have SMA Female connectors to the antenna can connect directly to the router.  Sometimes, mainly with home 5G routers such as the EE 5G Router (Zyxel NR5103) the router will have TS9 connectors  and in order to connect your antenna to a router with TS9 connections you will need to buy TS9 to SMA adapters and the number of antenna ports on your 5G router will determine how many TS9 adapters you will need.
In the case of the 5GEE Router (Zyxel NR5103) you will need 4 x TS9 antenna adapters (2 x twin packs) when connecting a 4×4 MiMo Directional antenna like the Panorama WMM4G-6-60 or when using four of the FB5Gd11 antennas.