The Perfect Long Range WiFi Setup?

fpoole wrote:
Yah, full-timing, it's a whole different ball game for most....
Some, and kudos to those brave souls, would be happy with a tent in the middle of the desert, but that would be a "Small Some"....

I used to just do the weekend trips when working, get away from it all, but I am not able to do it full time and having a problem keeping up.

While it's nice to be able to "..get away from it all..." it's nice in theory, but hard to do with banking/bills, meds, contacts and photo sharing that one can do at a "Sticks N Stone" home when coming back off a trip.

My problem is the cost of the Data highways and the cost for good coverage. Verizon is good, but they do 'luv' their system and smile as the gauge nudges past the data plan limits...

Posting on the forum is a good example of not choosing to "..get away from it all."

Apples - Oranges styles..

now, I have to log off, heheh, to keep Verizon from smiling...

fun..

Frank, you are so right. It is really an Apples and Oranges, style.

Just as in Full-Timing. A Full-Timer is actually a person who cuts all ties, being that they sell their home, leave their apartment, mom and dad’s, jettison their excess material possessions and hit the road. Otherwise you are just a Long Tripper. No matter how you look at it, when you climb into your Truck, RV, or hike that pack onto your back, with nothing left behind you to return too, that is Full-Timing. If you leave by shutting the door and locking (renting it out) it until you return, you are virtually on a wonderful and exciting vacation, for a year or two.

No matter what you call it, any length of time in a Tent, on the Pacific Coast Trail or in an RV it takes some serious planning, preparation and, well, courage. Then you include a family, which in my mind is amazingly courageously a life experience one cannot ever duplicate.

But the best advice I ever got, when I started on my adventure, was to surround myself with the things that made me happy and comfortable, when I lived in a home/apartment/mom and dad’s. One of these luxuries is access to internet. By using the Apps in smartphones I can plan for these cellular zones and travel through or linger within them. Last year I spent 4 months in an area that had no cell or internet availability. It felt like I had gone back 35 years and enjoyed every minute.

Each time when one of these threads come up, I watch and learn as much as I can and maybe secretly wish to join in. But, there is so much to comprehend and figure out, I just wish someone would post a D-I-Y post on installing one, just like is done with an upgrade for solar, or Closet installation. That is what I am truly waiting for!

My booster, so far, is taking my Mi-Fi device and placing it on the roof of my camper or sending up an extendable Fiberglass Pole, with surprising success. You just have to protect it from overheating from the sun, so your battery does not become pregnant. But shifting to nighttime surfing facilitates that issue. As well as surfing out under the stars!

derrickg wrote:
T-Mobile has a service that's included which allows you to stream popular apps (Netflix, etc.) with NO reduction in your data plan usage.

Sadly, this is not the reality beyond populated areas. For many of us, we wish to travel beyond the “Belt-Way” and “Interstate Corridors” that are famous for now having Cellular coverage. So the two major carriers, AT&T/Verizon, are the standard for these travelers. Straight Talk, Cricket, T-Mobile and others are great alternatives when your major usesage percentage is in populated areas, but otherwise the promise of piggybacking onto other networks (roaming) you virtually become 2nd and 3rd Class customers that suffer connectivity equal to those classes as these major’s customers have first right at the Internet Table.

The biggest changes, I have found, in my multiyear adventure is that some areas that once did not have cellular coverage, now does. (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, as an example) As time goes forward, things are changing much like when Indoor Plumbing and Electricity came to rural areas. Often with the same subsidies that were afforded the Small Phone Companies and the Rural Electric Companies of a time not that long ago.

b