After slogging along with Virgin Mobile for several years we found ourselves in a home-base CG that has wifi that's either down or jammed up a lot of the time and no Virgin Mobile / Sprint signal at all, so some serious upgrading was in order. Besides, DW wanted a smartphone...
After a bit of research I decided that the Pepwave and BoatANT would give the most bang for the buck although the bucks are fairly large. I'm familiar with Pepwave products so had no hesitation in that regard.
The BR1 LTE is a cellular modem that has two sim slots; you could install two sims (LTE only), Verizon and ATT for example, and switch between them. It is also a wifi AP and will do wifi as wan. It will of course do automatic fallover.
The BoatANT is, obviously, an antenna intended for marine usage. It's a fiberglass tube about a foot tall and designed to be mounted on a mast or other vertical tube or on a wall. What distinguishes the BoatANT from the Wilson Trucker we've been using is that it has much more gain for its intended usage, rated at 10dB at 2.5gHz.
Unfortunatly on setup there was some sort of glitch with the sim; Verizon sent me another so I had to bide my time for a couple of days. Of course this was over the July 4 weeked.
Finally ready, I put the BR1 near a window, installed the rubber duckie antennas, plugged it in, hooked up the lan and was online. Just like that. Further setup was needed for the secured wifi, wifi as wan etc., Pepwave's admin firmware has built-in "help" explanations for everything.
Once set up I installed the unit in a rear closet, plugged in the 12-volt power and attached the antenna cable.
Since we're parked under a steel shelter (a must here in Texas) I installed the antenna to the only place feasible, a six-foot post out in the open. Of course when we drive out I'll install it on the rear roof rail. Cable length is about 20 feet.
Performance is great. The BR1 near the window got RSSI -83dB, while the BoatANT lowered that to -72dB! Also surprising is the wifi performance. We'd been using a Pepwave AP 400 with an external whip antenna as a repeater; the BR1 matches it in signal strength (RSSI) inside the cabinet inside the rear cap of the MH! Of course that won't happen if the wifi AP is in the other direction but it'll do for now. The BR1 wifi radio is rated at 400mW.
And as things go, park wifi has been up and fast since we installed the BR1. LOL
-jbh-
