SureCall Booster Lights Red, Orange / Yellow and Green Explained.

What do signal booster indicator lights red, orange, and green mean?

 

SureCall Booster Lights-What Do They Mean?

Generally, there’re three unique colors on SureCall boosters that work as light indicators. These include Red, Green and Yellow or Amber. With the lights come six different set of actions that the lights usually indicate.  This lets you know what is actually happening within your booster. This can be good or the contrary as a warning that something needs to be addressed. The six different types of actions include:

1. Solid Green.

On your SureCall booster on its power LED towards the power light side, Solid Green is one of the most identifiable lights. Simply speaking, this means the booster’s power is on. On Fusion 5s and 5x, it indicates that the frequency band is in use. This is part of normal operation.

2. Flashing Green.

Indicates that the booster is functioning properly by using Automatic Gain Control (AGC) technology to stabilize the signal entering your booster from the outside antenna. This is part of normal operation.

3. Solid Red.

On the various frequency band LEDs solid red light might be indicating the band has been turned off.

4. Flashing red.

In the case of bands, LEDs flashing red means the signal entering or incoming is rather too strong. As a result, there’s overpowering of the booster occurring that may cause it to shut down. For boosters with manual gain, this can happen when the gain has been turned too low. When frequency band is off due to overpowering:

1. For kits using an OMNI outside antenna, relocate the outside antenna to a location where the signal is weaker.
2. For kits using a YAGI outside antenna, turn the antenna in short increments away from the signal source.
3. Add an inline attenuator to the cable coming into the outside port of the booster.
4. For boosters with manual gain dials or switches, though not desirable as amplification will not be optimum, lower the dB gain setting in small increments until the light turns green.

Solution Summary:

A) Add an inline attenuator to the cable coming into the booster.

B) Relocate the outdoor antenna to a location where the signal is weaker.

5. Flashing yellow.

On the band LEDs flashing yellow might be indicating. This actually shows the AGC (Automatic Gain Control) is on or operating. Note that this is a normal operation of a SureCall booster and never a cause for worry. 

This feature actually adjusts the gain automatically towards preventing the unit that you have from interfering with the nearby cell phone towers’ operation. Solid Yellow light simply means your SureCall booster isn’t detecting any type of activity on that particular band and has simply entered some kind of a sleep mode.

These are normal operations of the functionality of a booster and need to be understood as your booster operating normally as should be the case.

In Fusion 5X: This status appears on the Fusion5X booster and indicates that additional separation is recommended between the inside and outside antennas to optimize performance. Increased vertical separation is more effective than horizontal separation. If your booster kit uses two directional antennas (example: outside Yagi antenna and inside panel antenna), ensure that they are facing away from one another.

4. Solid yellow.

A solid yellow light merely indicates an inactive band. Light is off while band is active.

5. Alternating Red & Yellow Flashing Light.

In case the booster is showing alternating red and yellow lights, it is important to note both internal and external antennas are very close to one another causing high signal pressure - Thereby, creating a feedback loop or oscillation. Essentially, this should be an alert that there's something wrong with the system and cause for worry. First, try increasing the separation between the indoor and outdoor antennas. If this does not eliminate oscillation, lower the dB gain in 5dB increments.

It basically indicates that the booster is receiving too much signal which could cause the affected band to automatically turn off. When this happens:

1. For kits using an OMNI outside antenna, relocate the outside antenna to a location where the signal is weaker.
2. For kits using a YAGI outside antenna, turn the antenna in short increments away from the signal source.
3. Add an inline attenuator to the cable coming into the outside port of the booster.
4. For boosters with manual gain dials or switches, though not desirable as amplification will not be optimum, lower the dB gain setting in small increments until the light turns green.

6. No Lights.

When your SureCall booster indicates no lights whatsoever, it can mean that the booster is operating without Automatic Gain Control, not overpowering and without feedback loop or oscillation. That means the booster is working at the pinnacle of its performance power. It can also mean that there's no signal for that band in your area.

Note: Each of the bands operates in an independent fashion; it is very important to identify the band indicating a specific function as per the LED lights behaviors.

Understand the Automatic Shutdown on SureCall Boosters.

Lots of SureCall boosters come with a feature for automatic shutdown that works by preventing noise or oscillation from the booster. After detection of oscillation in the downlink or/ and uplink features of the repeater, the right warning light or lights starts flashing.

They mostly start with flashing red where the power light turns red as well. In case the problem goes unresolved, the signal band controlling the side affected usually takes 30 seconds before shutting down. After the thirty seconds have lapsed the booster turns on again, with the power light turning green.

In case oscillation happens again the same process starts once more as the lights flash as described. The cycle of 30 seconds will take place until the resolution of the issue or for 15 minutes only.

Once the 15 minutes have lapsed and yet the problem hasn’t been dealt with the unit shuts down; all the lights turn off apart from the red power light. This means resetting has to be done by unplugging and plugging the power supply right back.

Resolve oscillation by increasing the separation of the antenna.

SureCall Video Transcript:

Hello, we're starting a brand new series called ‘Two-Minute Troubleshooting’. This is actually going to be a series that is going to help us to address some of the most common calls that come into our tech support line. We're hoping to be able to help solve these problems before you actually need to call into tech support.

In this video, we're going to be addressing confusion about the lights and what they mean. So there're basically three different colors of light indicators on SureCall boosters. They are red, green and yellow. There're six different actions that the lights themselves are going to indicate and tell you what is going on inside the booster. Some of them are good. Some of them are not so good.

The first one is a solid green on the power LED on the side where the power light is. If the light is green, that means that the power is on. Solid red on the different frequency band LEDs means that the band is turned off. Flashing red on the band LEDS means that incoming signal is too strong and that the booster is overpowering. Flashing yellow on the band LEDS means that the automatic gain control or the AGC is operating.

This is a normal part of the booster’s operation and should not be a cause for concern. Alternating red and yellow lights mean that external and internal antennas are too close together and they are causing something called an oscillation or feedback loop. And that is a cause for concern in the system. And no lights at all means that the booster is working without AGC, without oscillation and it is not overpowering. It is actually working at its peak performance power.

It is important to note that each band operates independently so it is critical to identify which band is indicating which function based on the LED behaviors. Now that we have identified the behavior of these lights, we are going to go a little bit more in depth in our next one about how to adjust the system in order to either eliminate these lights or in order to be able to understand how these lights function better.

Be sure to subscribe to stay up-to-date with SureCall’s "Two-Minute Troubleshooting" series. Feel free to like and comment below. And let us know what kind of problems you would like to see us address in subsequent videos.

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SureCall Fusion5s and Fusion5x Signal Booster LED Lights Info (NEW Versions).

SureCall Signal Booster LED Lights Info For Rest of Signal Booster Models.

Notes:

» Bars are not always a reliable measure of signal. The best way to confirm signal coverage is the ability to place and hold a call.

» Only the presence of red or yellow LEDs indicate the presence of an unresolved issue.

» If your booster has manual gain dials or switches:

• They should always be at maximum level unless the control light for a specific frequency band is flashing red or flashing red-yellow. In either case, only reduce gain via dials or switches if other recommended actions do not resolve the issue.
• Avoid turning the gain dial below 40 dB or, for products that use switches, exceed 25 dB of attenuation as this could cause affected frequency band to stop amplifying.