Community Forums

spierce617 · 01-30-2023, 09:22 PM

I am looking for information on these two products. I am looking to add a better antenna for the internet and saw this advertised. I currently have a Nighthawk M1000 router and a AT&T sim with the Connected Car program. I can take the sim out of the unit I have and swap it out into the gateway to get internet service.

Looking to see if anybody has the 360+ and the gateway already?

If you have this how is the reception for the over the air antenna and the internet?

My rig is currently in storage and will be come out around the end of April :(. I have some time to get this figured out if it is a good choice. I do not want to spend almost 500 just to find out that it is no better that what I have already.

If you have input please let me know.

Julia2005 · 02-05-2023, 06:53 PM

I looked into Winegard products to try to improve cell and park wifi service. After 18 months on the road I think wanted is better than having. What I found was even if you had a better connection to park wifi, it would not do you much good because their connection could not handle the load anyway. Remember that old saying you get what you pay for. Free wifi is just that, free. If it works, bonus. If not, it didn't cost you anything. There were only a few times when we stayed in a park that had no cell or wifi service. It was a nice break.

JDT · 02-06-2023, 06:00 AM

The Winegard 360+ and Gateway came with our Pinnacle. As a tv antenna it works okay, maybe not as good as a batwing, but it works. As for internet, as far as I can tell it works no better than the park's wifi. We just use ours for basic stuff, no streaming. The parks we mainly use don't have very good wifi service, especially during peak hours, so sometimes we give up on the Gateway and use our phone hot spots. In parks that have decent service it works well and with it password protected I think it is secure.

I have been thinking about replacing the Gateway with the WiFiRanger Osprey which I understand has more capability. That might be a better combo with the 360+. I'm far from being an expert on these things so maybe you will get some better responses.

spierce617 · 02-06-2023, 07:01 PM

I am not interested in the WIFI from the park. I have a sim card from AT&T and would use that. Right now the unit way hare does not get very good reception from inside the motorhome.

I was hoping the antenna on the roof would increase the reception of the cell signal. Right now we usually get 1 or 2 bars of reception on the unit we have.

I have read mixed reviews on the antenna part for the over the air tv signals. Just do not want to spend 500 on these two units to have no batter service than what I have now.

Thank you for your replies.

JDT · 02-06-2023, 07:40 PM

Sorry, I guess I misread your question. I don't think the 360+ will do anything for enhancing cell reception. I looked at the specs on it and nothing is mentioned about it doing that. Since we don't have a sim card for it all I know is how it works getting the park wifi.

docj · 02-06-2023, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spierce617

I was hoping the antenna on the roof would increase the reception of the cell signal. Right now we usually get 1 or 2 bars of reception on the unit we have.

Are you aware that the "bars" on a cell phone are simply a coarse, relative measurement of the cell signal strength. Modern cell phone operate well over a signal range of 50 dB which is a factor of 100,000. There's no way that any simple bar graph can represent such a huge range of signals. Furthermore, there is no correlation of the bars on one phone with those of another phone.

It should be noted that signal strength has very little to do with the speed of your connection unless your connection is extremely weak. With digital signals, such as cellular, once a signal is "strong enough" further increases have little effect.

docj · 02-07-2023, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDT

I have been thinking about replacing the Gateway with the WiFiRanger Osprey which I understand has more capability. That might be a better combo with the 360+. I'm far from being an expert on these things so maybe you will get some better responses.

The WiFiRanger Osprey is designed to be a more advanced alternative for the Gateway. It has both 2 and 5 GHz WiFi and can support a Category 12 modem, compared to the Category 4 modem in the Gateway. WiFiRanger is owned by Winegard.

Both the Gateway and the Osprey utilize WiFi and cellular antennas that are built into in the Air 360+.

gremlin · 02-09-2023, 09:50 AM

So I have a winegard air 360 with their 4g gateway it came installed on my new rig. I'm working on getting things setup now, and have it connected to my house wifi which I'm sitting outside. I did this so I could setup all the smart TVs and other things in the rig to the rig's wifi and then it would connect to whatever when we're on the road.

What I've found however is the speed through the winegard is disappointing. My laptop will get nearly twice the throughput sitting inside my rig connected to the same WiFi that the winegard is connected to then it gets connected to the winegard. I have had other repeater systems that don't see this sort of speed reduction.

docj · 02-09-2023, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gremlin

So I have a winegard air 360 with their 4g gateway it came installed on my new rig. I'm working on getting things setup now, and have it connected to my house wifi which I'm sitting outside. I did this so I could setup all the smart TVs and other things in the rig to the rig's wifi and then it would connect to whatever when we're on the road.

What I've found however is the speed through the winegard is disappointing. My laptop will get nearly twice the throughput sitting inside my rig connected to the same WiFi that the winegard is connected to then it gets connected to the winegard. I have had other repeater systems that don't see this sort of speed reduction.

Anytime you add a WiFi repeater, there will always be some throughput reduction; the amount of the reduction will be dependent on the characteristics of the device being used.

You may not be aware that the WiFiRanger Osprey router was designed to be an alternative, more advanced version of the Winegard Gateway you are currently using. WiFiRanger is a Winegard subsidiary. The Osprey has a peak WiFi throughput of ~750 Mbps and I would estimate that the Gateway is more like a ~300 Mbps device. As a result it is likely that you would see a significant improvement if the Osprey was used instead of the Gateway. (Please note that these are both maximum theoretical throughputs and actual performance will often be less.)

You can find out more about the Osprey here: https://wifiranger.com/shop/indoor-routers/osprey/

gremlin · 02-09-2023, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by docj

Anytime you add a WiFi repeater, there will always be some throughput reduction; the amount of the reduction will be dependent on the characteristics of the device being used.

You may not be aware that the WiFiRanger Osprey router was designed to be an alternative, more advanced version of the Winegard Gateway you are currently using. WiFiRanger is a Winegard subsidiary. The Osprey has a peak WiFi throughput of ~750 Mbps and I would estimate that the Gateway is more like a ~300 Mbps device. As a result it is likely that you would see a significant improvement if the Osprey was used instead of the Gateway. (Please note that these are both maximum theoretical throughputs and actual performance will often be less.)

You can find out more about the Osprey here: https://wifiranger.com/shop/indoor-routers/osprey/

As I said I've used other repeaters, I have a UniFi setup I used in my previous rig and it was much faster, just about as quick as being straight on the network, I have an asus repeater in one location at my house and it's just as fast as being on the wifi point it's connected too (They have different names so I can tell). This one is disappointingly slow

The osprey looks cool, like it would work with our existing antenna that came on the rig, but man the reviews are pretty bad, I'd stay away form it.

docj · 02-09-2023, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gremlin

The osprey looks cool, like it would work with our existing antenna that came on the rig, but man the reviews are pretty bad, I'd stay away form it.

I have no idea where you are reading those reviews. Here's a link to a significant number of positive reviews: https://www.amazon.com/WiFiRanger-Fa.../dp/B09NMRYNCD

IMHO those who are unhappy always yell loudest. In these reviews, at least one person downrated the device because the TV reception was poor--but the Osprey has nothing to do with with TV reception of the Air 360+. Another person complained because the WiFi they connected with wasn't fast enough to stream video; of course, if the park WiFi doesn't have enough bandwidth, nothing is going to change that.

gremlin · 02-09-2023, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by docj

I have no idea where you are reading those reviews. Here's a link to a significant number of positive reviews: https://www.amazon.com/WiFiRanger-Fa.../dp/B09NMRYNCD

IMHO those who are unhappy always yell loudest. In these reviews, at least one person downrated the device because the TV reception was poor--but the Osprey has nothing to do with with TV reception of the Air 360+. Another person complained because the WiFi they connected with wasn't fast enough to stream video; of course, if the park WiFi doesn't have enough bandwidth, nothing is going to change that.

The negative reviews I read were in the first link you provided. I do realize more people will post bad then good but the issues repeated, similar sentiments in the Amazon link you provided too

MevetS · 02-10-2023, 02:42 AM

We have the Osprey installed on our new coach. The 360+ antenna and Gateway came with the coach. We chose to swap in the Osprey (Cat12) for it's capabilities. In our prior coach we had the Converge Denali/Aspen combination installed when they were initially released. There were some issues with that system, some on the user end.

So far, we have not been out in more remote areas so it's difficult to say anything more than that in most urban areas it has worked well. Of course, if there is no Cell signal, you are out of luck. We have a T-Mobile SIM (installed in the Osprey) and a Verizon MiFi (USB tethered), but we've also used our T-Mobile Home Internet Gateway (Ethernet connected) ... all without issue.

CWSWine · 02-10-2023, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MevetS

We have the Osprey installed on our new coach. The 360+ antenna and Gateway came with the coach. We chose to swap in the Osprey (Cat12) for it's capabilities. In our prior coach we had the Converge Denali/Aspen combination installed when they were initially released. There were some issues with that system, some on the user end.

So far, we have not been out in more remote areas so it's difficult to say anything more than that in most urban areas it has worked well. Of course, if there is no Cell signal, you are out of luck. We have a T-Mobile SIM (installed in the Osprey) and a Verizon MiFi (USB tethered), but we've also used our T-Mobile Home Internet Gateway (Ethernet connected) ... all without issue.

The CAT 12 modem doesn't support T-Mobile band 71 which is their long range rural band. At CAT 7 modem is better fit for T-Mobile with band 71 support.

Category 7 modems support connecting to the primary bands of all major carriers such as Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint & AT&T and include additional LTE secondary bands for increased speed and coverage in many areas. This includes access to Band 14, AT&T's FirstNET band and Band 71 for TMobile's rural band.

I have used band locking that will lock out bands that are stronger but over used and lock on to band 71 which lot of devices don't have the ability to use.