Internet on BLM and USFS land!!!

[SLOweather]

Originally Posted by traveller333

My question is, what MIMO antennas would you recommend for my system?

Thank you for your help.

I installed 2 XHD 8dBi Cradlepoint Router Magnetic Mount Antenna w/12ft Coax Cable - SMA Male on the roof of our Sunstar. They are mag mounts, so I stuck down a pair of 4x4 junction box covers to stick them to and give some ground plane.


They are currently out of stock at Amazon.



This Wilson one is similar:
https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/12-...ma-male-311125

[zebbie]

I stream YouTube vids all day long using my T-Mobile hot spot off of my cell phone. I was in Dallas and barely got 3 Mbps. While in Graham, Texas (rural town), I was getting around 50 Mbps, which was GREAT! Then, I was in Memphis, Texas (very rural town), I was barely getting 1 Mbps...and the cell tower was literally 500 yards away, I could see it! I don't get it. There's gotta be a way to be able to get a non-powered antenna, mount it magnetically and just plug it into your cell phone just like a CB antenna does. I remember car phones in the 90's that have a small antenna shaped like a spring that plug into the cell phone for greater reception. I would see these mounted in the back window of a car. Does anything like this exist?

[docj]

Originally Posted by zebbie

I stream YouTube vids all day long using my T-Mobile hot spot off of my cell phone. I was in Dallas and barely got 3 Mbps. While in Graham, Texas (rural town), I was getting around 50 Mbps, which was GREAT! Then, I was in Memphis, Texas (very rural town), I was barely getting 1 Mbps...and the cell tower was literally 500 yards away, I could see it! I don't get it. There's gotta be a way to be able to get a non-powered antenna, mount it magnetically and just plug it into your cell phone just like a CB antenna does. I remember car phones in the 90's that have a small antenna shaped like a spring that plug into the cell phone for greater reception. I would see these mounted in the back window of a car. Does anything like this exist?

Your making the fundamental mistake of comparing what you remember of analog broadcasting to today's digital signal landscape. Having a strong signal is really rather unimportant these days whereas with analog reception it was always--"the stronger the better!"

Putting an antenna on your phone won't change the speeds you are experiencing as long as the basic signal strength is adequate. And the phone can function over a ~50 dB range which is like a factor of 100,000 in signal strength.

The fact that you can see the tower is totally irrelevant. Your speed is based on the tower's usage by all customers and where your cell plan ranks in the network's prioritization scheme. And just because it's a rural tower doesn't matter since the tower's usage is evaluated against its design parameters, not relative to how many people are actually using it. So a rural tower might slow down some traffic even though the absolute number of people on that tower may be far fewer than on one in an urban cell.

Joel (AKA docj)

[Chuck&Pam]

Originally Posted by b1blazin

If you ppl want to spend hundreds of dollars on having multiple carriers have at it.

uh...I have unlimited on multiple carriers for $80/mo. that's total. Works great.

[Havasu Bart]

You need a cellular BDA (bi-directional amplifier) to get an affordable one, it will need to be carrier specific. Contact your carrier, they will be able to assist you with venders.

[RosieL]

Originally Posted by b1blazin

I look for a forum on this topic but could not find one.

I currently own a surecall 2.0 signal booster which works great for signal strength however I'm looking for technology that increase is my megabytes a second download speed and upload speeds.

I was just at a spot where I got great internet I was at 30 megabytes a second I went 300 yards away to a better spot and now I get one megabyte a second and can barely stream.

I've been in contact with numerous companies and no one seems to be able to point me in the right direction.

so I created this form account to ask all the experience rvers how they get great internet speeds on BLM and US Forest service land.

I have sprint service with a hotspot.

I looked at the winegard connect 2.0 however they only work with Verizon and AT&T.

I also read some on a device called Wi-Fi on steroids. a representative emailed me and told me he thought it would work for me but I'm skeptical.

I was talking to a company called ubiquiti.
They use a device the has something to do with access points. it was a lot to take in and I'm not really sure if it would benefit my situation. Also I have to contact certain distributors that I've never heard of in order to obtain one and again I'm skeptical if it would benefit my situation.

I also heard about a device called the Wi-Fi ranger

Any advice or help or point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
Help me achieve awesome internet speeds thank you.

And greetings to the community.

Ck “outside our bubble” blog. David is WiFi wiz and covers the Ubi you mentioned... how to purchase, set up etc with a video

[Michael.G]

Try WeBoost. They have multi products for wifi and cell phone signal boosting, including some specifically for RV’s.

[HopsBrewster]

I just got back from a weekend boondocking trip on BLM land in Utah. I've been doing this for years, and this was the first time that I got better than 2 bars of 1X signal at this spot, which is barely enough signal to send texts. This year, I 'sometimes' got up to 3 bars 4G at one end of camp, 1X at the other end. The closest cell tower is over 14 miles away across a flat desert valley.
My point is, cell service on BLM and USFS land is catch as catch can. Boosting an unreliable signal will result in possibly a stronger, but still unreliable signal.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by HopsBrewster

My point is, cell service on BLM and USFS land is catch as catch can. Boosting an unreliable signal will result in possibly a stronger, but still unreliable signal.

That's why I opted for a satellite Internet solution.