NETGEAR Omnidirectional MIMO Antenna (6000451) - Enhances Performance of Internal Antennas, Compatible with M5 (MR5200) & M6 (MR6150 & MR6550) Hotspot Routers, Includes 2 TS-9 and 2 SMA Connectors

I rarely rate or review products, but I felt this one deserved it. I purchased this antenna to see whether it'd improve the performance of my Netgear Nighthawk M6 Pro MR6500. It did—substantially. It's important to understand what an antenna like this will and won't do, because there's much more to it than simply "getting more bars." Here's what to look for. Buried in the Nighthawk's settings menu is a "Diagnostics" section containing measurements for RSRP (Received Power), RSRQ (Signal Quality), and RS-SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio). Here's the important part: received power alone is almost inconsequential. The most important metrics are Signal Quality and Signal-to-Noise Ratio—especially the latter. I tested the modem's internal antennas versus this external antenna. With the internal antennas I measured averages of: RSRP: -106.0 RSRQ: -12.4 RS-SNR: 8.6 With the external antenna attached, the averages improved to: RSRP: -104.4 RSRQ: -10.6 RS-SNR: 13.2 The most important takeaway was the nearly 5 dB improvement in Signal-to-Noise Ratio—the metric that matters most in digital radio systems. Subsequent speed tests comparing the internal versus external antennas yielded average download/upload speeds of approximately 89/6 Mbps versus 114/4 Mbps: roughly a 28% improvement in download throughput. Was it a night-and-day difference? No. But there was clear, measurable improvement across all metrics. (Except upload speed. I believe that an anomaly.) As a long-time RF guy, it's been my experience that one rarely realizes such clear-cut performance improvement with so little investment. (And often not even with substantially greater investment. RF is often fickle.) With that, I can't help but give it a rare — for me — 5-star review.

Greatly increased signal strength on my hotspot. Use the suction cups to secure to rv window

Antenna doesn't render significant improvement in signal strength. I didn't even get one additional bar. You could get this level of performance out of something far less expensive. In short.......it's another NetGear rip off. So, after I get everything hooked up and going, I am hit with another surprise: the NetGear NightHawk M1 is a personal information collector and snoop --- as it requires a mandatory persistent cookie be kept on your browser, at all times, before NetGear will allow its device to supply you internet. After many attempts at avoiding this, I have found: the device shuts off your data, after clearly supplying it for a short period of time, if the cookie has been removed. Obviously, what you are doing online is of serious interest to NetGear. Anyone can reasonably conclude: your online activity is being collected, for probably.........sell. On another less important note: strangely, this antenna is not physically compatible with the NetGear NightHawk M1 --- despite having what are described as SMA connectors included in the box. SMA (female) connectors are what fit on the NightHawk M1's TS9 (male) antenna leads --- but, these SMA connectors were too small, for some reason, and did not fit the M1. I had to purchase a larger SMA (female) adapter cable to attach this antenna to the M1 --- ofcourse, more money and hassle ---- the NetGear experience as a whole; I am finding.

At first I thought that it was not working properly, since this antenna has the same number of bars as the antennas that came with my modem and I was about to return it. However a speedtest showed that the download speed increased from 18mps with external coil wire antennas to 24 mbps with the netgear. I will probably keep using the coil antennas when we are out camping and cellular reception is poor to none exsitent and keep the netgear around the house when I use the 4g as failover solution.

Very sensitive to weak signals. Get many clear 4k channels locally.

Excelente

Pros: • Can connect to existing wifi (i.e.: starlink, campground wifi, starbucks wifi, etc, a.k.a. data offloading), to re-distribute internet to your personally created wifi network or LAN • Has an ethernet port for LAN • Has split 5Ghz/2.4Ghz wifi broadcasts (some devices don't like when they're combined) • Allows VPN tunnelling • Access to text messages sent to SIM card/phone number, which is useful for 2FA, carrier messages, etc. • Allows IP Passthrough (the router acts as a modem solely) • Allows enable/disable of DHCP service from router • Has 2 radio antenna extender ports Cons: • Display is nice, but tough to use. Better off using the web page. • DNS settings would NEVER work for me. It has a section where you can set a DNS IP, but no devices would ever get these IPs. I know some routers set themselves as the DNS provider, then forward all requests to the IP you set, but not this router. I could not access my pihole or other LAN devices via FQDN, only IPs. That kind of sucks. • Every single change requires a reboot. EVERY. LITTLE. CHANGE. • Every reboot, the system would NEVER turn back on. Its almost as if "reboot" = "shutdown". Keep the device within reach if you plan on making any changes. • Drops packets every 45 seconds or so. I ran a continuous ping to google.com and it resolved the IP no problem, ran the pings no problem at around 30ms each, but then it'll just jump up to 250ms, then "Request timed out" once, then back to normal. 45secs later, it'll jump to 250ms, then "Request timed out", and so on. Seems like it can't handle a normal workload. For comparison, I connected to my Starlink router in the same location, ran a ping to google.com and never had any dropped packets or "Request timed out" replies. This is a secondary form of internet for me now as it's performance is hardly reliable. I can't set DNS to be my pihole, and I really don't feel like setting DNS individually for all my wifi devices. I can't have consistent internet if the router is underpowered and dropping packets. Too bad I'm outside my return window now, otherwise I would have returned this.

Have a Netgear M6 in my RV and often don't need this antenna. But it's a must if you go way out into the boonies, which we do. I can't say it doubles the cell reception, but it dramatically increases it, and it's noticeable. The M6 is quite good on its own so most of the time you want to let it's build in antenna do the job, and attach this only when you need the extra help.

Se nota una buena mejoría en la señal del módem. Buena compra.

Works well and increases coverage as described, highly recommended with nighthawk router in rural areas.

L'antenne fonctionne parfaitement mais il faut savoir qu'elle n'améliora pas la réception +++ , cette antenne pourra servir dans le cas où le modem est installé à un endroit où le signal n'est pas optimal, elle servira donc en tant qu' "antenne déportée" permettant une meilleure réception du fait de son emplacement mais limitée toutefois par la longueur de la liaison (prévoir rallonge x2 sma).

Ich habe mir die Netgear 6000451 Externe 5G Antenne gekauft, um meinen WLAN-Empfang zu verbessern. Ich muss sagen, dass ich positiv überrascht bin, wie viel Unterschied diese Antenne tatsächlich macht. Vor allem in Bereichen mit schlechtem Empfang hat sie mir geholfen, eine stabilere Verbindung herzustellen. Natürlich sollte man keine Wunder erwarten, aber für meine Bedürfnisse hat die Antenne definitiv einen spürbaren Unterschied gemacht. Die Installation war auch sehr einfach und unkompliziert. Einige andere Nutzer haben in ihren Rezensionen erwähnt, dass die Antenne gut verarbeitet ist und eine solide Leistung bietet. Sie loben ebenfalls die einfache Installation und die Verbesserung des WLAN-Empfangs in schwierigen Umgebungen. Einige haben jedoch angemerkt, dass die Reichweite nicht so weit ist, wie sie es sich erhofft hatten. Insgesamt bin ich mit meinem Kauf zufrieden und kann die Netgear 6000451 Externe 5G Antenne empfehlen, wenn man nach einer kostengünstigen Möglichkeit sucht, um den WLAN-Empfang zu verbessern.

External Antenna for Nighthawk M6 Pro. very functional and greatly increases reception