G4AR Gateway external antenna use

I’m almost certain the support person was wrong.

The best resource for this is Nater Tater on YouTube.

This may or may not help you, but here is the connection guide from Waveform…

T-Mobile 5G Internet Gateway (Arcadyan TMO-G4AR) External Antenna Guide (waveform.com)

@bmorgan99 NC1037 is correct, you received some inaccurate information. 

I've seen his videos.  He would lose a lot of antenna sales commission :)

I've placed my 3rd request for support to get an official response as I can't find it on their site.  I really want it to work because I'm paying more than twice as much for what I have now,

Agreed.  On my last attempt, the tech started with the same notion, until I led her to the add-on 4x4 mimo they sell for it.   My goal was to know which bands were associated with which ports, but was immediately shut down as she had no further knowledge.  I thought I had tried all possible permutations but will go another round.

Gracias

Yeah, the antenna doesn't really help much. You did switch to external antenna on the Gateway? For the $100.00 I didn't get much improvement, but did get a little more stability. Oh, by the way, I'm less than 3 miles from three cell towers.

The Gateway is for WiFi, not cell. While they say the Tmobile Gateway and Tmobile CELL SPOT (for boosted cell) are not compatible, it works for me. 

Installed a 4x4 yagi mimo setup and tried a second G4AR from T-Mobile:

Good News: wi-fi reception in my yard is much better

Bad News:  the modem couldn’t see my tower at all.

Now to figure out why so many YouTubers are convinced otherwise.

Not this is helpful to anyone, but I always thought...perhaps...the reason the original gateways didn't offer antenna ports was because the internal antennas where already Spec'd to the FCC maximum permissible transmission power for the band.  Adding an external antenna , which you can do but really isn't "approved", would put you over the FCC limits.  Just a speculation, but maybe the "legal" ports on the new model are power-restricted to keep you within limits and don't really offer an advantage (maybe other than better positioning).  Just a theory anyway to think about over coffee.

My attennas are totally passive as I expect most are, so I don’t think that’s the issue.

Yes the antennas are "passive", but they have efficiency ratings, and bigger external antennas are more efficient...which is why you want them in the first place. The problem then becomes, for a given input power, the radiated output power will be higher...and possibly over the FCC limit.