I think you are mixing up wifi signals and cellphone signals. You need completely different equipment to get wifi and cellphone/aircard signals, they are not the same. Do you have an aircard?

For WiFi I picked up a little antenna (looks like a very small satellite dish) made by Hawke industries at Best Buy store or website. This antenna sits inside the RV and plugs into a USB port on the laptop. In one campground the signal went from weak to very strong plus we saw three other WiFi services in the area that we could access.

For the aircard, I use a cradlepoint router to distribute the verizon signal wirelessly to the laptop. The aircard plugs into the router and there is a port on the aircard where I connect an external antenna to help pickup the verizon cell tower signal in remote locations.

Verizon has widespread coverage around most major and secondary highways and most cities throughout the US. It's very impressive. And the service works well.

A good source of information is at www.3gstore.com (little confusing) or www.jackdanmayer.com (very good information and easy to understand).

-- Edited by thebearII at 10:52, 2008-12-09

I have an AT&T Air Card. When I open it up as Communications Manager it locates both the cell signal and wifi signals. I click on either GSM if I want to use the cell data signal or Wifi if I want to use the wifi system. I currently have a Wilson antenna to increase my cell signal. So what I am looking for is something to boost the wifi signal.

Bill is correct - the communications manager that ATT uses is looking at all of your available connections and offering you a choice. Verizon works the same way, if I recall correctly. So you are seeing your inbuilt wifi.

The first thing to do to try to improve your signal is what Bill suggested. Get the antenna up in a window facing the signal, or on the roof of the rig. The most PRACTICAL way, and cheapest way, to do this is to use a USB adapter like Bill suggested. Why? Because the USB adapter is a digital signal and does not degrade over the 15' of USB cable that you can attach to it. An analog signal - like an antenna extension - will degrade over distance.

You can buy a little USB adapter with an inbuilt antenna on it for about $50 at Walmart. That usually solves the problem if you are in an RV park with wifi. Use double sided tape and put it high in a window where the park wifi AP is. If that does not solve it, try putting it in a Glad storage container and put it on top of your roof or slide. That almost always works. If not, there are other, more complex solutions that I won't go into now....

I was interested in the Wi-fi antena you referenced as Hawke that looks like a dish.  I have been trying (unsucessfully) to find something to help me get weak park signals.  Best Buy sold me a netgear antena booster. Had a devil of a time with the instal and ended up talking to the netgear tech support guy in India.  He indicated that their product does not improve wi-fi reception (it didn't) and that there was no such thing.  When I returned it to Best Buy they also said that the wi-fi source (in this case the rv park) was the only one who could improve the signal and that there is no such thing as a wi-fi antena or booster.  Where can I get what you have?

I have one of those Acer's, mine is an Aspire One running XP and Intel and journalists like to call these mini-notebooks "netbooks". I use a blank 1GB USB drive, clone the CD to it and then install from USB. So far I haven't needed to change the volume name on the USB drive to match the CD volume name, but I can handle that if required. I just bought two 8GB USB drives from Fry's Electronics for $30 + tax so I am set if I need to install from DVD. I do reuse the USB drive for each install since none of the software has asked for the CD again.
Jack, I have had to "activate" my aircard twice now to update roaming and use VZAM on my main notebook computer. I am also thinking of putting VZAM on the netbook both to do those occasional activations and to carry in the car when I have no cell phone signal and want to get online in town. The netbook is much easier to carry around than my notebook. I also figure the netbook can be recovered easier than my notebook if VZAM messes it up.
(Note: I am in one of those places where even with an amp and external antenna I have no Verizon signal, WHR Ramona Canyon RV Resort in Ramona, CA. Luckily I have a Hughes.net tripod and it is working. )

-- Edited by bjoyce at 19:08, 2008-12-10