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We’ve never had good cell phone service with AT&T at our home on the west slope, Northern Sierra Nevada.We get one bar of signal in the house, maybe, and occasionally 2 bars if standing in a particular spot on the deck which picks up the hot signal from 18 mile away Highway I-80. But this signal is traffic related so on holidays or friday late afternoon, the signal is worthless even with one bar.
So, what cell phone booster have you used that will work BOTH for your home and be useful in the TC when parked in some remote spot?
Looking at Wilson, they have a Drive X RV 471410 that claims to work in motion and while stationary. Will that work at home?On the other hand, my son Matt is still a working stiff and he’s interested in getting the maximum signal for his IT gig on-the-road i his Lance camper, which can also be used at home.
I know we have several electronic gadget; communications gurus on here so has anyone had actual experience with this quandary?
jefe2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
I suggest you contact AT&T and get their network extender. I got one from Verizon which works very well. Most Cell phone companies have these and they work much better than the various extenders, because they tie into both GPS and your WIFI.
Hey Jefe, I purchased the Wilson x 5G (their latest model) a few months back primarily because at one of our favorite Oregon beach campsites (Tillicum beach just south of Waldport) we could only rarely if ever catch even a hint of cell service, and when we could it was mostly only momentary but as I said mostly not at all…
With the Wilson, I was able ‘enough of the time’ to get service and even slip in a couple of short youtube clips, though at certain times service would still be spotty…I tend to believe some of the spottiness was due to ‘signal crowding’ at the local cell tower, but it at least worked well enough (though somewhat intermittent…) to get our email and to stay abreast of news events…
Although I cannot recall the specific instances or exact whereabouts since having acquired the booster, there have been another maybe two or three times in our travels where recep was not otherwise happening unless the booster was on, and for some odd reason we have a similar kinda intermittent problem at our house…I was told that because of investment in 5G (though not coming to our area) my carrier was not spending moola to maintain our local 4G, thereby causing the poor recep problem – I have no way to know whether or not this is true, but the booster did allow me to make a cell call from inside my RV garage…
So my experience is admittedly relatively recent and limited, but after much frustration, I took the plunge based mostly on my seasoned and credible camping pal who has always sworn by his.
It does at least provide me with a bit of additional peace of mind when out on the road…Hope this helps,
Phil
I have had a couple of Wilson Boosters over the years and they worked well. Looking at their page they don’t make the ones I have anymore. There are a few things you need to be aware of on the antenna.
The antenna is line of sight so it needs to be the highest point on your RV. Looks like that model comes with a bracket for your ladder. So it should work well. It has a spring base so id you hit a tree branch it shouldn’t break? I broke several on my dump truck before I got a spring loaded wire antenna.
Any of them should work at your house. If you know where the tower is you may be able to get away with not having it at the highest point on your house I would check at their tech support on that and if you need a ground plane. Might wanna buy an extra antenna so you won’t have to keep moving them around. The other thing to check out is the length of the antenna wire to see if it is long enough for your application. Mine isn’t long enough to reach from the camper ladder to the cab of my truck. I just use my phone in the camper.
Wilson has a 90 money back deal if it doesn’t work for you, so there isn’t much risk.
2016 3500 HD Durmax
1994 S and S 9.5' Camper (SOLD)
1999 S and S 9.5 CamperHi Jeff,
We have used the Wilson Electronics Weboost Drive X RV Cell booster with good success. We consistently get a 2-bar boost when using it: 1-bar within the entire camper, 2-bars within 1 foot of the interior antenna. On a recent trip to Utah it boosted a 2-bar 3G signal into a 3-bar LTE signal! Much better. Here’s our review in case you haven’t seen it…Jefe, this is a question I wrestled with a couple years ago due to our traveling in the 4 corners area where we have some of the worst cell reception in the nation. I found out that elevation is your friend in the cities as well as the back-country.
On the Rig I use the trucker antenna (weBoost Wilson Electronics 17” / 32” / 45” 4G Truck and RV Spring-Mount Antenna) this works great as you can leave the 110 adapter in the house and then hardwire the 12v adapter in the rig.
The state of communications for rural and on the road people is changing quickly.
Yesterday, our cell phone provider, AT&T quietly announced its, “Great Deal Plan” offering 100 GB of data for $55 per month. You must purchase the Netgear Nighthawk LTE mobile hotspot (dedicated internet box) router for an extra $8.34/mo.This follows our installation of Wilson’s Cell Phone Booster for our home on Sunday.
The hotspotting of our phones to our computers is ridiculously faster than HughesNet’s $112/mo. slow WiFi. Hughes is going to take a giant hit.So, I cancelled HughesNet today.
I was ready to order Wilson’s Drivereach RV (and hardwire #850022 DC/DC adapter) when the news broke about the “Great Deal”. What is so great about it for us RV types? Portability. The Nighthawk will go right into the camper so I can continue to work with enough reception whether at home or on the road.
So the question remains: Will the Nighthawk be enough in the boonies?
We’ll take this one step at a time. If it’s not enough, I’ll continue to order Wilson’s Drivereach RV.
Yes, the state of the art of communications is changing faster than we can keep up.
When I was in College in the early 1960’s, I attended a speech presented by the legendary anthropologist, Margaret Mead.
She said,”The ever increasing speed in the world of technology is changing faster than we can comprehend or keep up with.”
So it has come to pass; over and over again.
jefe2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
Mike,
Gigabytes of data.
100 GB per month for $55,
and portable. this is great news for RV’ers.HughesNet, the only option for us at the time, was $112 for 30GB and simply terrible latency (ping) and slow loading.
The Nighthawk goes straight from the cell tower through the NH to your device leaving the cell phone out of the picture.
The Nighthawk Hotspot Router does all the work and is battery operated.
It is a cell phone hotspot that you cannot use as a phone.This only works with AT&T cell service….so far.
jefe2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
UPDATE:
We purchased and installed the Wilson Home cell phone signal booster (#470144 for $549.98) as outlined above with the very focused stationary antenna and got very good reception and speed through our phone’s hotspot,unlike the previous experience with HughesNet. For the past decade, Hughes was all that was available in our area. Our carrier is AT&T with newer iPhones.
The news hit about the prepaid, “Great Deal” from AT&T.
This is really big news for TC and RV folks who spend a lot of time on the road or in the boondocks.
The offer was $55 per month for 100GB’s of data for your computer or tablet, or
$75 per month for unlimited GB’s of data. We opted for the unlimited.
You must buy or lease Netgear’s Nighthawk LTE Mobile hotspot router as the receiver indoors.
Let’s compare Hughes speed to AT&T’s through the Nighthawk.
Hughes:
ping: 856ms
down: 0.45 mbps
up: 0.63
AT&T with home cell booster and Nighthawk:
ping: 21ms
down: 23.01 mbps
up: 3.58
The great part is the Nighthawk is portable, battery powered, and compact.
It’s a shoe-in for the road.
After our trip to NV,ID,MT, and WYO we’ll see if we get the Wilson We Boost Drive-X or the Wilson Drive Reach RV multi directional antenna, or maybe the Mimo Netgear antenna for the mobile modem.
We also got unlimited data GB’s for each of our phones.
So, I’m hopeful we won’t be cut off from ciberspace any more.
jefe2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
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