Cellular booster

[Okydowky]

We just installed a Pepwave cell/wifi booster with 2 Shakespeare 5239 antennas. This system runs off a Telus SIM card with its own data. I will keep you posted how it works later this month when we get out of the shed.

 

[catalinajack]

We just moved to a new marina. Our old place had recently installed updated repeaters on each dock. We had excellent wifi there. The wifi here is pretty good with repeaters on each dock but not as good as the old marina. Here, because we are in a covered slip, our satellite dish does not work for TV. So, we subscribed to youtubetv. We have TV in both the main salon and in our aft cabin. True to form, the aft cabin smart TV would not pull in the wifi signal. I took a chance on a Netgear signal booster ($119). It plugs into an outlet. Plugged it in, let it boot up, and used its phone app to set it up and connect to the dock wifi. We now have a good enough signal to stream anything on both TVs.

I do not know whether this would work with an inherently weak signal but it worked for us here.

 

[Mako]

Has anyone tried a Yagi antenna? An 8-9 db gain should be substantial and when anchored or at a mooring there won’t be big hassles with shifting directions.

 

[Alex F]

Boosting any cellular signal is going to have pros and cons given how that is done, and in most of my testing / customer use, it is not as effective as really high quality antennas paired with purpose-built LTE routers.

You might want to check out the Peplink HD1/HD2 domes. I did an article and a video on them:
Peplink MAX HD1 Dome

It is an outdoor dome with the LTE radios directly inside the dome. The SIM cards can be inserted into the dome itself, or you can both power the dome and manage the SIM cards in an inside product called a SIM injector.

I have two of them aboard my boat and they have outperformed even high end LTE antennas and $10k LTE routers in almost all cases. There are a bunch of caveats (article forthcoming on using multiple domes) but in general this is the direction I see a lot of vendors moving - LTE radios outside instead of lots of cables and complications.

They're not cheap, but if you are really wanting reliable connectivity with a minimal amount of cables and loss, this is a good option.

Great presentation. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Alex F]

We just installed a Pepwave cell/wifi booster with 2 Shakespeare 5239 antennas. This system runs off a Telus SIM card with its own data. I will keep you posted how it works later this month when we get out of the shed.

This is how started solving my issue, by using one of these antennas for Verizon jetpack. Where I was located, the same 1 bar and no improvement on actual speed. I know that jetpack has two antenna ports, but ones I saw no performance improvement, I didn't even wanted to bother with purchase a 2nd one.

Depending on location, your experience might be much better. I do see these antennas on vessels. So, I'm sure that some people get some benefit out of them.

 

[jbinbi]

Is cell phone reception line of sight? I ask as we were recently in the bahamas and we could see towers on chub key, but had no reception at all. Then later in the day. At roughly the same distance, we had ok signal. Like they turned off the signal until after 5!

 

[RoostersReward]

If I am understanding you correctly, even though my Verizon Android 5G phone can create its own hotspot, I should also have a Mobile Hotspot device from the other prevalent carrier in my area so that if my Verizon poops out, likely my other carrier will step in to save the day. I suppose I need to figure out how often I find myself in areas where my Verizon signal sucks. If it's often, than this second device idea sounds like a very smart one. However, if it turns out I mostly spend my time either at a marina or at anchor where my Verizon signal is just fine, then it sounds like it becomes purely a cost/benefit dealio. Please correct me if I am wrong, as what the hell do I know?

 

[vancouvertechie]

@Steve - Love the information you have on your website and the testing that you do.

I will probably look at getting a couple of the antennas in the future.

I went with SureCall for the booster and so far the results have been good. Time will tell when we get back up to the SJIs next year. But I plan to have a couple of solutions in place.

Here is what I have and getting as far as performance with my Verizon hotspot. I also have a Tmobile hotspot as well. Most of my meetings are on Teams and I find its best to not connected to VPN for those meetings. For other meetings on Zoom or Webex, I have no issues.

VT