Community Forums

RRR · 01-14-2020, 10:43 AM

What is the recommended antenna separation?

Looking at Drive X RV and the manual only states that it needs the maximum distance but doesn't really give anymore info.

I sent an email and got a reply that was such a word salad it would make a politician proud.

Some where, some place, I recall reading 12' horizontal and 3' vertical. But then I may be dreaming the distances.

ThomB · 01-14-2020, 11:03 AM

I'll be honest, mine are most of the time only separated by about 5 feet total and I've never seen much of a difference moving them further apart. We have a 12x18 steel plate on the roof for a magnetic based antenna that is above the drivers side cabinet and the internal antenna is usually inside the passenger side cabinet. Sometimes I will take it and move it to the dash or a bit further away but have never really seen a huge difference when I do.

astrocamper · 01-14-2020, 03:01 PM

I have the Weboost Dirive Reach in my truck. The horizontal distance is about 5 feet.

I use the Trucker antenna with the Drive Reach in my Artic Fox22G when we setup camping. I have the Trucker antenna mounted in the rear on the roof rack. The inside antenna is at the dinette. We probably have about 8 horizontal feet between the two.

I have been very happy with the the Drive Reach setup in both the truck and the trailer. We camp in the Great Basin and are often at the edge or beyond of cellular service. The booster does help.

creativepart · 01-14-2020, 03:18 PM

I have the Drive 4G-X and honestly I’ve never been able to position the antennas far enough apart to not get blinking oscillation lights. The last time I moved the booster and antennas into a new RV I experimented before installing everything. On a horizontal plane it was not possible to keep them from oscillating when stretched as far as possible from each other.

On a vertical plane I was able to do so, but only with the outside antenna on the roof of the RV and the inside antenna on the floor of the RV. Which is not usable. Picking up the indoor antenna even a foot off of the floor started the error lights blinking.

I gave up and have the 4” antenna on the roof about 5’ behind the front cap and the booster and indoor antenna in a cabinet above the drivers seat. The oscillating error lights are blinking as I write this. BUT we’re parked at a Harvest Host winery pretty far out from a small town and our Nighthawk MiFi is getting huge speeds (89mbps down and 30mbps up).

I tried getting help from WeBoost, but have just learned to live with it as it is. It does seem to work.

RRR · 01-16-2020, 10:56 AM

Thanks!

I guess I'll contact Weboost again and see if I can get a real answer.

Dsmullen · 01-25-2020, 09:32 PM

My outside antenna is mounted in the area of the Traveler site[didn't get one added and space was there.] Ran low loss RG11 coax to rear cap and down behind engine in rear cap and ran thru EMT conduit to the area across from the galley [ran thru engine area over radiator and thru the rear wheel well, etc to get to the Aqua hot are to get the cable up through the floor. No problem with this setup at all - never had other than a green OK light!

brandss · 01-27-2020, 05:49 PM

I just installed the Drive Reach with the trucker antenna. I have yet to permanently install the Trucker antenna on the roof for this exact reason; yet to find out the perfect placement.

In my short testing period, it seems that with the antenna maybe 5 feet from the internal hardware and antenna seems best. This is what I started with. After two weeks I moved the roof antenna approximately 15 feet away and the speeds dropped by a third. I'm going to try a couple more locations on the roof before I permanently mount it....we hit the road the last week of Feb so I will have to do it by then.

Hope others chime in to help answer the question.