Cell phone booster

[Chappy133]

Any suggestions or ideas?  This one looks promising:

[charliem]

Where do you plan to use it and how? In the car or in the trailer. Either place requires an outside antenna on the roof. The WeBoost line works well. Get a 4G capable unit compatible with your wireless provider, i.e AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile. I use the WeBoost drive unit in the camper with an external antenna mounted on the roof. I glued a large galvanized washer to the aluminum roof so I could use the magnetic mount antenna. I ran the cable in through a front top clearance light. The unit I use is a cradle version that requires the phone to be placed in the cradle to operate. When camped I mostly use the phone as a hot spot for a computer so the cradle version works. If you want to use the phone in the TV while on the road a non cradle version may work better but they are more of a permanent installation. The non cradle version requires two antennas, on outside on the roof and one inside the car or camper.

[Merlin]

I agree with Charlie.

I copied below a post I made in the old LL forum last year about our experience with boosting cellular signals for use inside our camper.

I have no experience with wifi signal boosting and would not recommend it in general. Although certainly possible and effective in some locations, in the vast majority of instances, the wifi at campgrounds is hopelessly overloaded with its minimal to non-existence bandwidth (they don't put a lot of money into the equipment or it's maintenance). That means that no matter how much you boost, you still get a slow, noisy signal. If you want to go that route anyway, I suggest going to a reliable source like the repeaterstore.com or the 3gstore.com for help and to get the right equipment ordered. In any event, I still suggest using the cellular network instead of campground wifi for Internet connection from the standpoint of availability and speed.

Here is my post from last year:

A cellular signal booster is an often-needed accessory in a Camplite. The all aluminum exterior creates an effective block to all but the strongest cellular signal and campgrounds are often in areas of weak cell signals to begin with. The basic premise of a booster is to receive the signal with an antenna outside the camper, amplify it, and the re-broadcast it inside the camper for the phone/tablet to pick up. For anyone wanting technical details, practical advice, or the full scoop on equipment, The Mobile Internet Handbook is an excellent reference book that covers both cellular and wifi usage while traveling.

All boosters need to be registered with the carrier (AT&T, Verizon, etc.). Improper use of a booster or a defective booster can screw up signals for everyone within range of the tower, so the cell phone carriers care a lot about boosted signals. Mobil boosters are more limited in power than fixed location boosters.

There are many ways to approach the basic issue of cell phone and Internet usage while traveling. A few phone calls/texts once in a while will take less expensive and easy to use boosters. Multiple devices with heavy bandwidth use will take more expensive and carefully installed boosters to get a good signal inside a Camplite.

In our case, we are very heavy Internet and cell phone users for a wide variety of purposes and the set up described below has given us a fast, strong signal on multiple devices at the same time in every campground we've been to so far. My wife and I don't share well (cue the laugh track). She has an AT&T iPhone and iPad and I have a Verizon iPhone and iPad. We have found that both carriers have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to coverage and speed. Many times we have found a usable signal with one carrier but not the other. With the separate carriers, we are covered pretty much everywhere, if there is even a faint signal available. Controlling data costs is an issue, but having both Verizon and AT&T available is worth it for us.

For the latest booster work in our Camplite, I installed a WeBoost Drive 4G-X in a cabinet over the bed and plugged it into a switched 12VDC outlet on the TV wall. We don't leave it on when we are not using it. The small antennas that come with it are meant more for use in a car, so I purchased and installed better antennas both inside and outside. The booster and the antennas are all multi-band, to cover all possible frequencies used by all cell carriers in all locations.

The outside antenna is a Panorama Multi-Band Low Profile Permanent Mount Antenna. I bolted it to the highest place on the camper, which is the top of the AC housing on the roof. Underneath the antenna is an 18" square piece of galvanized sheet metal to serve as the ground plane. The wire runs along the roof in a puddle of self-leveling caulk to a well-sealed hole I drilled in the side of the camper under the awning and goes directly into the booster cabinet. Even though we have an aluminum roof, the sheet steel is a much better ground plane for the antenna.

The indoor antenna is a WeBoost wide band directional panel antenna. I mounted it on the ceiling in a central location in the camper. That wire is fastened with Velcro tabs to the ceiling. By aiming the antenna down, I eliminated interference with the external antenna, which can cause the booster to stop boosting. And, by mounting it centrally on the ceiling, we get good coverage anywhere inside the camper.

Cellular signal boosting is an ever-changing industry that will have new stuff coming out all the time. I have found that a phone call to a specialty store helps a lot to make sure I get the latest info and that all the parts and pieces I buy can plug into one another. The 3GStore.com and the Repeaterstore.com have both been extraordinarily helpful, as has WeBoost.com. The next generation of cell signal enhancing equipment will re-create the signal before re-broadcasting it rather than just amplifying it. That has the potential to be terrific, because the noise will be eliminated and not amplified along with the signal.

As a final note, something like a Cradlepoint router and antenna setup with a separate cellular data plan like Verizon Data Services may be cheaper than a data plan on a cell phone and is worth looking into that's the case. It wasn't for me with our grandfathered unlimited data plan, but few of those exist now.

[gbpack]

Thanks for posting that again Merlin. Sounds like a good set-up. We will probably end up doing that with our camper soon.

[nhlakes]

Anyone have any updated recommendations for which versions of WeBoost (or other cell boosters) make the best combination for camper and tow vehicle?

My wife and I have our own consulting/training practice.  We don't try to book ourselves 100% (so we have lots of time or camping, etc.) but we do try to stay somewhat connected to communicate with clients, partners, etc.   

We found ourselves at a 1 bar dead spot campsite (awesome waterfront site) the last few days and had to walk/drive a ways to get any form of signal to get email/messages.  We missed a couple important calls so we decided that improving connectivity is now top of the list.

There's a TON of info/opinions out there but much of it is old and most of it is not geared toward people who want to use the unit in both a tow vehicle and a camper, so any advice is welcome.

Using just one phone as a hotspot to serve several other devices via wifi is an option.  But we have not done enough research yet to validate that is the best approach.

[Merlin]

I'm not up on the latest, but Technomadia is a good site to get that info.

http://www.technomadia.com/2014/08/how-we-keep-online-illustrated-tour-of-our-rv-mobile-internet-setup/

I still use my Weboost setup described above, except that I now use the booster with my iPhone that acts as a hotspot for Bluetooth connection to all my other devices (including the MacBook Pro I'm using to send this message) It's a fast, easy to use, and versatile set up. But expensive overall because plans that include unlimited data and hotspot capacity are not cheap. It would be fine (but double the cost of equipment) to get 2 boosters, one for the tow vehicle and one for the camper. I've found that I don't really need a booster in the tow vehicle and that the one in the camper serves all my Internet needs. If there are boosters on the market now that clean up the signal as it is amplified, get one of those. Just amplifying the signal is great, but sometimes all it amplifies is noise from a weak signal, so cleaning it up simultaneously would be excellent.

[nhlakes]

Thanks, Technomadia is one of the sites I've come across.   

Most of the complaints that I've read about current generation of Weboost is that when the cell signal is marginal you have to have your phone right next to the internal antenna to get much benefit.  Not thrilled with this as, assuming it is true, we'd have to set one phone down in one location and dedicate it as a hotspot.   That's fine if we're both using laptops, but that is seldom the case, and we both like to have a phones nearby when work stuff is going on.   (We often use a phone for a hotspot, but typically just when we're using one of the laptops.)
 
I see some folks use a dedicated cellular wifi router as a hotspot to wifi to all devices which allows for a wifi signal inside and directly outside the camper.  This allows for wifi calling, etc.   In the aluminum box shell of the camplite I suspect antenna and router would need to be located near a window to get much outside benefit.

One of the more interesting installations I've seen so far is mounting the outside omnidirectional antenna on a pvc pole that extends well about the camper roof line.  This requires it to be put in place with heavy duty suction cup mount, but I can see how performance may be enhanced.

Described here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3GYVMICC1P5O6/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B01N705CF3

Anyway, still looking for the perfect solution...

[Merlin]

My omni-directional antenna is outside on top and has a large ground plane, which helps performance a lot. Mounting the antenna on a pole would not offer any particular benefit and in fact, with a longer entrance wire and minimal ground plane, might actually attenuate the signal.

The inside antenna that comes with the boosters is usually pretty wimpy. The directional antenna I use inside easily covers the entire inside of the camper with a signal. I use the same setup at my cabin and can sit at least 10 feet away from the antenna and still have a good signal.

I agree that the dedicated cell-to-wifi booster units that don't need a cell phone are definitely worth looking at, even though adding an unlimited data plan to one of those units will be costly and will limit you to one carrier. And yes, the shell of the all-aluminum Camplites pretty much wipes out signals!

[ADR]

One of the more interesting installations I've seen so far is mounting the outside omnidirectional antenna on a pvc pole that extends well about the camper roof line.  This requires it to be put in place with heavy duty suction cup mount, but I can see how performance may be enhanced.

I do something similar but use an Al telescoping pole that was originally for a pool skimmer.  I had a piece of galvanized pipe mounted to my Rpod's tongue with a "square" U bolt that the Al pole slipped over.
Used quality RG142 coax, bigger than comes with most extenders or antennas and lower loss, that ran into the camper. 
Carried two antennas an omni gain antenna and a directional Wilson (now weboost) antenna.   Most of the time the omni worked best.

Added later-  just mounted my short pipe that the pool skimmer slips over to the right rear bumper of the CL.  Now just need to find a path for the coax into the camper....