Cell Phone Booster

[BobinPA]

Has anyone installed a cell phone booster? We stayed in so many spots this year where we just had one bar, I am considering purchasing one so I don't have to go to park offices to do online reports. I use a an iPad with cellular.
Main questions are how did you route the cable inside from the outside and is it worth the $$.
WeBoost devices are around $500.
Thanks for your replies.

[Campfamily]

We have the WeBoost Drive. We've found it works very well. Main issues we have are that the range of the internal repeater isn't very good (you need to be within about 20 feet of the repeater in order to see any real improvement), and the poor quality of the connectors between the various components. One of the smaller RF connectors has a habit of coming disconnected, which causes the system to stop working. This may be because we didn't do a permanent installation, so the connectors are used every time we set up and tear down.

As far as installation, I put the pole mount bracket on the top of my ladder. When we want the WeBoost, I climb up the ladder and mount the antenna, then run the cable down the side of the coach and into the passenger side slide on the bottom. I have a shelf in the bedroom that I can place the power supply, which then has cables out to the repeater. The repeater sits on the kitchen counter when we are using it in the front of the coach, or on the nightstand when we use it in the bedroom.

I likely will sell the WeBoost when I upgrade to Starlink (when we start spending more time in the coach).

Keith

[hamm2018]

Originally Posted by BobinPA

Has anyone installed a cell phone booster? We stayed in so many spots this year where we just had one bar, I am considering purchasing one so I don't have to go to park offices to do online reports. I use a an iPad with cellular.
Main questions are how did you route the cable inside from the outside and is it worth the $$.
WeBoost devices are around $500.
Thanks for your replies.

We have a WeBoost for about 5-years now. It does work well. but keep in mind, it will not create a signal where there isn't one.
We were in Big Cypress National Preserve November 30 to December 4th, during the evening we would get 2-3 bars. But during the day it would drop to 1 bar. The tower was 7-miles down the road, but the high number of people in the area increased and jammed up the tower, at least that is what I think.

We use the Flagpole Buddy for the mounting on the ladder and run the cable in thru the slide-out seal.

Worth the money, yes if you will be where there is a signal. But if you are in Yellowstone NP, it will not help in the middle of the park.

[groveln]

Originally Posted by BobinPA

Has anyone installed a cell phone booster? We stayed in so many spots this year where we just had one bar, I am considering purchasing one so I don't have to go to park offices to do online reports. I use a an iPad with cellular.
Main questions are how did you route the cable inside from the outside and is it worth the $$.
WeBoost devices are around $500.
Thanks for your replies.

I found the same problem at a couple campgrounds I visit & bought a We Boost Destination RV cell phone booster. Went from an iffy 1 bar to 3 bars. I bought it off Marketplace for $300.00 & not the $650.00 We Boost retail price...it used literally used once & all in the factory box. There's plenty out there for sale & no need to pay full retail of any brand.

[jacwjames]

I mounted a WeBoost on my roof. There was an antenna already mounted that I removed and just routed the wire the same way but it wasn't easy. There was already a penetration near the satellite dish for the old wire. The old wire was pulled through the cavity above the duct work toward the front. My first try was using the old wire to pull it but that didn't work, the end pulled off. So had to do a deep dive into it but finally got it to the front behind the TV.



I used the WeBoost to improve reception for both my phone and a Visible phone that I hook to a travel router (many posts on this) for internet and TV streaming. I went on a 5 week trip out west and had a decent signal +90% of the time, poor signal 5%, and no signal 5%.

I just redid my TV cabinet to make it more convenient. Installed a 43" TV by modifiying the original cabinete, used a swing arm.
Mounted the WeBoost amplifer in the TV cabinet. On the outside of the cabinet a made and installed a small shelf large enough to hold a small power strip with USB ports, the WeBoost repeater, and the router and phone. All pretty much hidden by the TV. With the power strip on the outside I can shut everything off to conserve power when boondocking.

[Passin Thru2]

I explained how I ran our weBoost in this post

https://www.irv2.com/forums/f282/cab...ow-582400.html

[Spdracr39]

If you are using it for phone calls it can help occasionally but if you are using it for internet connectivity don't bother. As stated you must be close to the internal antenna with your device. The weaker the signal the closer you must be, like inches sometimes. Anytime I had enough phone signal to get any internet it was still faster than boosted internet. As stated above, if there is no signal there is nothing to boost. If I had to do it again I wouldn't bother.

[Persistent]

"... is it worth the $$."

Starlink is about $500 and provides much better connectivity. Starlink costs more per month.

A cell booster with an external directional antennae on a high pole is a good as it gets for very week signals. A 360 degree high gain antennae is second best.

For weak but usable signals, cell boosters are not so good.

Cellular WiFi systems with external MIMO antennae stream much better. However, they generally cannot use directional high gain antennae. So extremely weak signals are out of range.

Technical:
A cell booster can connect using one cell tower channel. A cellular WiFi can connect using one to four tower channels. So a cellular WiFi connecting to four weak channels can stream much better.

Cellular WiFi are less troublesome. Internal and external transmitters do not interfere with one another. WiFi connects to your iPad 50 feet away.

Cell WiFi require a sim card and cell account of their own. Any phone calls must be made using WiFi calling.

Cell Booster antennae must be set up according to technical rules. It will not work unless properly installed.

IPad must be with in 15 feet of the internal cell booster transmitter to work. With some designs the iPad must be even closer to the cell booster.

Where cell tower signal is weak but usable, the iPad may work better without the cell booster. Only use the booster for extremely weak signals.

Cell phone signal strength indicator (bars)

The bars display on the iPad indicate connectivity. One bar may indicate a weak signal. It may indicate all the cell tower channels are busy servicing other users. There are other technical factors calculated in to make the bars display.

When using a cell booster, the signal strength part of the bars display indicates the strength of the connection to the cell booster, not to the cell tower. When using a cell booster you can not see the strength of the cell tower connection.

[Cumminsfan]

I have an AnyCall cell booster. It will generally add 2 bars to my signal. As Spdrcr39 said it probably won't take you from 1 bar into enough bars to search the net at a decent speed. I have also found that if it takes my 2 bars to 4 bars that the actual download time doesn't double as if I had 4 bars without the booster. I still couldn't stream a movie.
Maybe it's my booster. It was cheaper than Weboost so I went that route. I don't need one for work, just play.
As far as routing it goes, I stick the antennae on the roof with a pole I made then route the cord through the slide and set the interior antennae near me. It's not something I need very often so I wasn't going to drop $ into some fancy setup.

[jacwjames]

My cell phone is tethered to my travel router. The cell phone sits next to the repeater. All this sits on a small shelf above driver seat. Picture is upside down.

If I get close enough with my regular phone I can get better reception but it has to be pretty close.

[Bobby F]

I have a SureCall, which is basically the same thing.

I tether my laptop to my cell phone and get internet access through Verizon.

Sometimes when streaming a movie or video with a poor signal, I get lots of buffering stops.

I then turn on the SureCall, and it usually helps enough to stop the buffering pauses.

I need to have the phone within a foot or so of the inside antenna for it to have any effect.

[Cumminsfan]

Originally Posted by Bobby F

I have a SureCall, which is basically the same thing.

I tether my laptop to my cell phone and get internet access through Verizon.

Sometimes when streaming a movie or video with a poor signal, I get lots of buffering stops.

I then turn on the SureCall, and it usually helps enough to stop the buffering pauses.

I need to have the phone within a foot or so of the inside antenna for it to have any effect.

Thats about the same with me. My inside antennae has a round base and 4" or so post that sticks up. I can lean my phone on the post while using the phone as a hot spot. 2-3' away and the signal drops.

[Persistent]

Originally Posted by Cumminsfan

I have an AnyCall cell booster. It will generally add 2 bars to my signal. As Spdrcr39 said it probably won't take you from 1 bar into enough bars to search the net at a decent speed. I have also found that if it takes my 2 bars to 4 bars that the actual download time doesn't double as if I had 4 bars without the booster. I still couldn't stream a movie.
Maybe it's my booster. It was cheaper than Weboost so I went that route. I don't need one for work, just play.
As far as routing it goes, I stick the antennae on the roof with a pole I made then route the cord through the slide and set the interior antennae near me. It's not something I need very often so I wasn't going to drop $ into some fancy setup.

The signal strength (bars) display on a cell phone displays connectivity to the cell booster. It does not display connectivity to the cell tower.

[Buckmountain]

Hey Bob, it's important to note that more bars do not necessarily improve internet speed. Check out this video from the Mobile Internet Resource Center for a full explanation.

https://youtu.be/14tWiAsqfJk?si=8Gk7pRrE27b6Jadr

Mike