Improve the Signal Reception of your Mobile Broadband unit

In this small tutorial, I will show how and where to attach an external antenna for your Huawei Broadband unit. The images and techniques here refer to the Huawei E153u-2 unit which Globe Tattoo and Smart Bro uses.

First, you need the following:

- T6 Screwdriver ( the six spike star shaped screwdriver, this is the standard for phone screws.)

- Soldering Pen, Soldering Lead and Paste

- Magnetic wire

- Improvised antenna

- Small flat screwdriver

The first thing to do is to open your broadband unit. Remove the two screws and be Careful. Snap off the casing using the flat screw driver. It may be hard so be careful not to crack the plastic. Once you have opened the unit, look for the dot like copper interface shown in the figure at the right.

Solder the end of your magnetic wire and be careful not to solder other parts of the unit. This is what you will use to connect to an antenna. You can connect it to loops of magnetic wire which you can mount outside your house. You can also use old cell phone antennas for this. Just ask cell phone technicians for some, they’ll probably have some lying around.

What I used was an old TV antenna and magnetic wire looped around its end. I just used the TV antenna as a stick so I can stick out the coil I made.

Note: Tech support does not advice opening broadband units. Smart Tech support was kind enough not to tell me where inside the unit the antenna was so I had to do some research.

Also, Smart Bro and Globe Tattoo use the same Huawei E153u-2 units so this tutorial works for both. As for the speed limit, the mobile broadband unit is programmed to limit the bandwidth. In other words, you pay differently for the same mobile broadband unit programmed with different limitations.

You can also use a dish similar to a satellite dish. Mount your broadband between the dish shell and the focus of the semicircle. Use a metal dish. This will concentrate signal to the unit.