On the Road Wi-Fi

[feiter]

Hi, I have signed up for ATT Wireless Internet and my modem will be delivered tomorrow along with a weBoost system to get best cell for smooth WiFi.

What do current users use for an antenna for the weBoost and where do you mount...especially on an Intent 26 M if anyone has it also.

[feiter]

As said, I was told to go to att manage wifi...they ask me to sign into my ATT account and does not reference the Nighthawk. Anyway, I have now cancelled and signed up for ATT Wireless Internet and will pay $100/mo for 100 GB

[feiter]

I don't have am ATT phone...must have to use the ATT SIM and when I asked them to do it as ATT Store they told me they could not.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by feiter

What do current users use for an antenna for the weBoost and where do you mount...especially on an Intent 26 M if anyone has it also.

I use the little 4” stubby magnetic antenna that used to come with the Drive 4G-X. It requires a ground plane and I have a 12” round metal pizza pan divider for mine.

I also have the large OTR Trucker antenna but don’t use it due to difficulties mounting it. I used it for a while mounted to the rear ladder, but doing so used too long of a cable to reach the booster in the front of the RV. Since I had the stubby antenna already and it was easy to mount, I use it.

But frankly, the booster is not very helpful and most of the time we never even turn it on.

[feiter]

Thanks Creative...your input is always valuable. weBoost is a significant investment so sorry to hear not much help. I guess I assumed it would be most beneficial in more remote areas with few towers. Any use in that environment?

Purchased on Amazon so return easy...may do so and re-visit at later date

Looking forward to testing this new system especially the ATT Wireless Internet. I actually have not been able to determine what, if any, antenna I may be able to use with it as ATT has never given me an actual model number. Will arrive today and do plan on adding some antenna help for it...maybe that will be enough and weBoost can definitely be returned.

Thanks again

[creativepart]

Here's the thing, when the booster helps it's invaluable. It's just not very often that it helps.

We have found that in the vast majority of instances - probably better than 95% of the time we have no trouble getting a signal on our MiFi devices. We have a Verizon (7730L) and a ATT (Nighthawk) and both have dual TS-9 antenna ports for Mimo antenna connections. We use the $30 Netgear MiMo antenna and get great results. So, we never bother with using the booster in those conditions.

Our favorite State Park is 7 miles outside of a very small town. There is zero signal there for either my wife's Verizon phone or my ATT phone. However, when we fire up the booster we get ATT on the Nighthawk good enough to stream TV. So, when we are there it's really a plus.

This kind of result happens here and there - it's just not very often.

Here's a photo of the roof of our RV with the 4" stubby magnetic antenna (I have a larger round ground plane now instead of the rectangle in the photo). I've thought of putting another on the roof and running both wires into my tech cabinet and then connect them in a homemade MiMo configuration with SMA to TS-9 adapters.

[creativepart]

About the OTR Trucker Antenna - it's great and powerful. But it requires something substantial (metal) to clamp onto. it's made to clamp onto a Semi-truck mirror. That's hard to come up with. There are plenty of homemade attempts at this, but I didn't want to fool around with it, so I clamped it to my ladder at the rear of the coach.

The antenna wire on this things is fixed, you can't remove it and add on a longer cable. So, I ended up needing about 36' of additional Antenna cable to reach the front of the RV. And, I used a couple of 20' cables and associated connectors to make it work. By the time the signal reached my booster it was so weak that I bailed out on that plan and just used the easy to install 4" antenna that came with the booster.

[feiter]

Based on your input I will keep the weBoost for described situations. I am will do roof mount also and run cable same place Winegard is (running along the bath vent pipe). Will post updates asap