Wifi Boosters - do they actually work at typical campgrounds?

[Bogie57]

Originally Posted by sdennislee

They will boost the signal but not the bandwidth, so if bandwidth is bad you will just be improving your connection to bad bandwidth. Mine is laying on the closet floor, replaced it with a JetPack from Verizon much happier now.

It's what we use as well.

[ElvistheKing]

Originally Posted by BobJones

It's a lot easier/cheaper to obtain a real commercial grade radio such as a Ubiquiti Nano Loco or such and then use hose clamps to affix it to the TV antenna so that it goes up and own with the TV antenna. That way you can also rotate the radio from inside to align it with whatever you are trying to connect to.



I've used them extensively, they are rated at something like 20 miles, they are inexpensive (about $100) and 100% weather proof. It's usually easy to run an Ethernet cable through the roof in to the front cabinet and more/less away you go.



In my last lot in the park I was getting +/- 65 Megabits off a gas station with free WiFi access that was about half a mile away. This is enough for 4K TV. I moved locations and had trees in the way so I went back to $100 per month 85 Megabit cable. Inside the unit is another Ubiquiti access point that provides 866 Megabit speeds throughout the unit.



For me personally, I would stay away from 'rv' products and go straight to real customer premise grade equipment.

Yep I’ve used the same TP-link and Ubicuity.

I can confirm 20+ miles although that was 2 pointing at each other.

[ElvistheKing]

Originally Posted by Don A.

Free wi-fi brings many into the park and that is all it is designed to do. All you have to do is realize that at home if you have kids you likely had to go for a higher tiered service and if you compare by doing a speedtest at the campsite in the middle of the night or with no one there you'll see they wouldn't even spring the extra cash to do the upgrade you were forced to do at home. So it is failure by design. (Who could really afford the bandwidth to support a hundred campers streaming videos and downloading movies.) When they park and get attached to a "free service" it's basically "time to catch up" trying to satisfy all the bandwidth hunger they've been holding back from under their cell plans so it's no wonder it fails when the gate springs open.

Also cell boosters, just stand on the roof and do your business or tether your device in a waterproof box on the roof and keep the 600 bucks. The exclamations of "it gave me 2 more bars!!!!", well that's the same stronger version of a too noisy signal your cell phone couldn't decipher without the booster beforehand, only now there's more of it for the phone not to understand.

Use a cell booster on a tower next to your home, but unless your vehicle shell is all metal serving as your own built in Faraday cage, that's a lot of money to get the same level of service you could obtain if you just stuck the phone out the window.

So good luck with all of it and as I said much of it is failure by design.

I agree that for the most part cell “boosters” are a waste of money, BUT a proper “home 4G router” with a decent external antenna is a lot more sensitive to receive and a lot more powerful to send than a phone (or even a MiFi) could ever be: case in point I can easily turn a crappy Edge signal on my phone to a decent 4G with this setup.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by docj

Weak signals can lead to dropped packets which result in retransmission and reduced throughput speed but much of the time your connection strength is probably strong enough for this not to be an issue. My point was simply that in most cases you're not likely to see a significant difference in performance between an antenna on the roof and one, for example, 10 feet higher in the air.

I think I understand your point but isn't WiFi reception better if you can get it to not have other vehicles between it and the campground antenna?



I decided that attaching my Camp-Pro antenna which is about 30" long, to the current TV antenna support would accomplish a couple things. One it allows me to have a vertical antenna high enough (about 5 feet above my roof) on my Class-C to get above ground clutter.


The TV support arm articulates so that when traveling the antenna only sticks about 3" above my roof top so I have minimal exposure to branches etc.


I wasn't suggesting to put a 30' poll up. With my set-up I have no extra parts to put up and I don't have to get out in the rain to set-up or take down.

[rschad]

What is the procedure (using a booster and router, I have camp pro 2)to use for connecting when you have to go to a website to log in like tengo?

I. Haven't used my booster yet in a park so if you can tell me how this is done it likely will save lots of frustration.

Thanks.

[rschad]

I located a manual which explains how to insert an IP address so hopefully that will work.

[ElvistheKing]

Originally Posted by rschad

What is the procedure (using a booster and router, I have camp pro 2)to use for connecting when you have to go to a website to log in like tengo?

I. Haven't used my booster yet in a park so if you can tell me how this is done it likely will save lots of frustration.

Thanks.

Normal the first device to connect you fill in the details and it then works for all devices.

[evofxdwg]

Originally Posted by BobJones

It's a lot easier/cheaper to obtain a real commercial grade radio such as a Ubiquiti Nano Loco or such and then use hose clamps to affix it to the TV antenna so that it goes up and own with the TV antenna. That way you can also rotate the radio from inside to align it with whatever you are trying to connect to.

I've used them extensively, they are rated at something like 20 miles, they are inexpensive (about $100) and 100% weather proof. It's usually easy to run an Ethernet cable through the roof in to the front cabinet and more/less away you go.

In my last lot in the park I was getting +/- 65 Megabits off a gas station with free WiFi access that was about half a mile away. This is enough for 4K TV. I moved locations and had trees in the way so I went back to $100 per month 85 Megabit cable. Inside the unit is another Ubiquiti access point that provides 866 Megabit speeds throughout the unit.

For me personally, I would stay away from 'rv' products and go straight to real customer premise grade equipment.

OK that's good advice, especially considering the $$$ for products labeled with 'RV' compared to residential. So I've started to research this.

The Ubiquiti CPE products, for the most part, are single band (either 2.4 or 5 GHz). Don't I need to go with a dual band product anticipating that campgrounds will upgrade to include dual-band if not already?

The only Ubiquiti dual-band product I see is the Bullet AC, which requires a separately purchased antenna. I could rig up a pole to mount to my ladder with appropriate home-built PVC waterproof housing (or buy the IP67 Bullet and seal the antenna connector). Im not 100% sure the Ubiquiti Bullet AC fully functions as a dual band receiver - does it auto-select the optimum band/channel? Does it include all the software needed to properly set it up and align the antenna if it is narrow beam (e.g. power level display? transmit power selection?).

Then I went searching for a dual band directional (at least a little bit) antenna. Note there aren't that many dual band directionals with single input connector. Since I dont trust chinesium antennas on Ebay or Amazon, further narrow to some brand I might be able to trust the performance specs, the system price goes up: Budget (including shipping/taxes) $100 for the Ubiquiti, and $100 for a decent antenna and cable (like this: antenna.)

What other dual band products are out there to solve the dual band problem? Am I too worried about it and should just stick to 2.4?

Is there an effective solution using a low dollar USB wifi dongle with one or two quality directional antenna(s) (USB can be run 5 meters with a standard cable)? Is there a solution to turn USB into an RV-internal wifi signal or at least Ethernet? (The USB dongle could easily be housed in a homemade waterproof housing)

Do we need a separate thread to develop a "recipe" (e.g. parts list) for one or more DIY system integration options?

[dexters]

Also look at Alfa Ubdo

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by ElvistheKing

I agree that for the most part cell “boosters” are a waste of money, BUT a proper “home 4G router” with a decent external antenna is a lot more sensitive to receive and a lot more powerful to send than a phone (or even a MiFi) could ever be: case in point I can easily turn a crappy Edge signal on my phone to a decent 4G with this setup.

The Camp-Pro I bought and use is a Wifi booster not a cell phone booster. Would only work or help if you phone connects to WiFi signal as my Republic Wireless phone does.

[Don A.]

Don't forget, a published map to upgrade everyone's equipment just means more contention for the same under performing campground wifi and that you'll have to buy an antenna then twice a large as the one you suggested here in order to gain any advantage over the escalated contention for a limited resource.

In other news, the Bullet routers do start leaking in the rain over time. I forgot where I read that but you can google it. I recall seeing some blog post of someone who built a boot for it to cut down that possibility

Now how much is a 1000' roll of CAT5 and a plastic hose reel? Maybe around 75 bucks? Oops only 4 slots in the router so you'll have to talk fast :-)

[timjet]

Originally Posted by ElvistheKing

I agree that for the most part cell “boosters” are a waste of money, BUT a proper “home 4G router” with a decent external antenna is a lot more sensitive to receive and a lot more powerful to send than a phone (or even a MiFi) could ever be: case in point I can easily turn a crappy Edge signal on my phone to a decent 4G with this setup.

I take issue with your first statement. Our WeBoost Cellular Booster saved the day many times out west. The outdoor antenna sits about 3' above the coach roof line, and I of course must remove and install it each time we move the coach.

For an RV'er a home router connected to a cable provided by an internet service provider is not possible unless you don't plan on moving the rig. Perhaps I'm missing something.

[docj]

Originally Posted by Don A.

Don't forget, a published map to upgrade everyone's equipment just means more contention for the same under performing campground wifi and that you'll have to buy an antenna then twice a large as the one you suggested here in order to gain any advantage over the escalated contention for a limited resource.

With all due respect, once you have enough power and antenna height to connect to the local wifi, increasing either of those further will not produce measurable improvement in performance. The "limited resource" you refer to is the bandwidth of the wifi network and, if it is undersized for the park, no amount of improvement on your end is going to help you.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by Superslif

Tireman9


Would you think rather than attaching it to ones antenna, I came up with a portable pole or attached it to my RV trailers rear ladder. As I don't have a crank up TV antenna on my new ORV trailer.

So does the Wi-Fi booster unit just sit on your counter. I'm looking to get better Wi-Fi reception for a IPad and a IPhone when we are in areas of weak signals. Mostly for gathering travel info, weather forecasts, e-mail, Facebook.

Sorry for slow reply. A PM would have got my attention faster as I normally spend all my time trying to answer tire questions.


My Camp-Pro came with an antenna you can attach to anything like the poll some are suggesting. They have a version with Suction cups (would not leave on when driving though)
There is a router box about 6"x6"x2 (didn't go out to the RV to measure but you can see it in the advert picture) You attach that your power and I attached it near the outlet for the TV. This router has small antenna 6" that is good enough to cover your entire RV and a few feet arouund it.