RV campground wi-fi & cellular antenna/repeater Featured

On Thu, 7 Apr 2022 at 04:10:15, Jock snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: (my responses usually follow points raised):

Then close your eyes, put a blindfold on, get a divining rod, and use that. Unless you have a better idea, a site survey is what the guy needs first.

I don't mean it flippantly but without site information he will know nothing

An omni is going to give him what, maybe a 3dBi gain at best? That's worthless if the signal is low at the campsite.

It's not my fault that an omni can't work in low signal strength situations. The only thing that will work in those situations is a highly directional antenna and a powerful transmitter with a sensitive receiver.

You can flatten the torroid with expensive omni's but it's still an omni. And even with the omni you still need to tailor it for 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

What you would do if you wanted to cover all bases is you get _two_ radios and one dual-band antenna. Or you get a radio that itself is dual band.

When you get to the campsite, you run a site survey on your phone.

If the 5GHz bands are stronger, you flip the switches to the 5GHz bands. If the 2.4GHz bands are stronger, you flip them back.

That way you get a 30dBi antenna gain (or whatever it is) for sensitive reception, and about the same 30 dBm (or whatever it is) for transmission.

Instead of a 3dBi omni.

Or, if the site survey shows better than about -100dBm on the cellular bands, use the phone as a personal hotspot (although most carriers limit the amount of hotspot data to something like 5GB/phone/month on basic plans).

Do you have a better idea?

On Tue, 5 Apr 2022 at 22:01:34, micky snipped-for-privacy@fmguy.com wrote: (my responses usually follow points raised):

Anything will work if he has good signal strength. Nothing will work if he has no signal strength.

He has to run a site survey on his phone to tell him what he has.

If the site survey shows better than about -100dBm on the cellular bands, he can probably use the phone as a personal hotspot (although most carriers limit the amount of free hotspot data to something like

If the site survey shows worse than about -110 dBm, then he's going to have to use wifi instead (as long as he can get about -70 dBm or so on wifi).

No thanks, I will use a decent directional antenna.

A decent directional antenna or get real radical and use your cellphone.

Not sensible with an overnight stay.

Doesn/t need to know anything when you use a cellphone, just check if the site has decent coverage before checking in, on the street outside.

You can even get real radical and have someone else in the RV checking that as you drive up.

But a site survey won't help with that.

A cellphone also works fine.

Or a cellphone.

Makes much more sense to use it as a hotspot.

Makes more sense to do that instead of a site survey.

So don't have a basic plan.

Yep, see above.

On Thu, 7 Apr 2022 at 05:46:52, Jock snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: (my responses usually follow points raised):

You are as much an idiot as Rod Speed is (and you probably are Rod Speed). I thought trader knew nothing before I plonked him but you know even less. Plonk!

You never could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag.

On Thu, 7 Apr 2022 at 17:49:07, <%%@gmail.com> wrote: (my responses usually follow points raised):

This is another Rod Speed moronic nym (that idiot must have hundreds). Plonk.

Fat lot of good that will do you, you stupid plonker.

Only terminal f*****ts are stupid enough to announce who they have plonked.

Thanks for the cellular hotspot device which I took a look at. I'm leaning toward suggesting a set of WiFi CPE outdoor equipment because there is more control over the receiver power & sensitivity.

These are what I'm looking at for Ubiquiti CPE outdoor radios & antennas.

Antenna gain dBi? Transmit power dBm? Receiver sensitivity dBm?

I'm assuming signal strength is so low that consumer APs won't work. It's likely worse than -85 dBm, which is why good equipment is needed.

Given the common campground wifi AP situation described, which is best? Antenna gain of Ubiquiti 25 & 18 or Mikrotik 16 & 10 dBi Transmit power Ubiquiti 23 & 24 or Mikrotik 20 & 36 dBm EIRP Ubiquiti 48 & 42 or Mikrotik 36 & 46 dBm Receiver sensitivity Ubiquiti 75 & 75 or Mikrotik 80 & 80 dBm

Notice the $158 Ubiquiti set wins on power alone but the $96 Mikrotik set wins big on the sensitivity which can help pull out the weak signals.

Anyone here have the heuristics for making the required performance trade off weighting of which of the three main specs is most important given we can presume the signal is very weak and the campground AP also weak.

Antenna gain? Transmit power? Receiver sensitivity?

If you have to give up a decibel to get a decibel you're better off trading antenna gain for receiver sensitivity since the antenna works both ways.

This will boost all the cellular carriers no matter which tower is nearby.

Wow, what brilliance. The issue is the range in between and clearly there are situations where an omni antenna will work. Or do you claim to know more about antennas than Winegard?

How many decibels of gain & transmission does that Winegard buy you?

How does a boost of 100 decibels of your cellular signal sound to you?

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