Antennas for Air Card - RV-Dreams Community Forum

2Markeys · RV-Dreams Family Member

Antennas for Air Card

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

First I will say you need an antenna in many places and we also find we need and an amplifier. We would not be using our Verizon cell phone where we presently camped without both.

You do have to make sure you have antenna connectors on both the cell phone and air card to use an external antenna. You also need adapter cables for both to attach to the antenna cable. Trucker antennas are more powerful than mag mounts and will pull in more signals. There are more powerful directional antennas, but they require aiming towards the tower and cost a lot more.

There are two ways to use both an air card and a cell phone with external antennas. One way is two antennas. The air card needs all the signal it can get to have good speed. Marginal signal and you get slow and/or flakey air card service. Cell phones are a bit more forgiving so a mag mount for the cell and a Trucker for the air card would work best.

The other option is a wireless amplifier, which will not work as well as a wired amplifier, but in an area of about 3 to 6 feet both your cell phone and air card will work. You use an external antenna and bring the (heavy) wire to the wireless amplifier, which should be 20 feet from the external antenna or you get interference. No antenna connectors needed in this case. These cost over $200.

Wired amplifiers are more powerful than wireless but only work with one device at a time. They use the same cables as the antennas so your adapter cables work with both.

Edit: You still connect the antenna adapter cable to the air card when in the router. With a wireless amplifier the router with air card needs to be close to the amplifier.

Clear as mud?

-- Edited by bjoyce at 10:43, 2009-03-07

2Markeys · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill, yes...it is clear as mud! I think I am hearing that if we start with the trucker antenna for the air card, we can add an amplifier later as well as a separate mag mount antenna for the cell phone, if we find we need it? I am okay with having to add equipment later, I just don't want to buy equipment that will be useless if we go with the wrong setup initially.

-- Edited by 2Markeys at 11:26, 2009-03-07

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

I was hoping that Jack Mayer would step in and say something and point you to his web page on communication. He has done more testing than I have.

BTW: I have both a Verizon phone and a Verizon data card, but I use my Hughes.net satellite dish more for internet. I have a Wilson mag mount antenna and wired amplifier, but am thinking of getting a trucker antenna. Right now the mag mount is on the motorhome roof on a metal pie plate with the cable coming in a window to the amplifier. My Verizon phone is getting zero to two bars connected to the amplifier with its adapter cable. When the mag mount was inside the motorhome I was getting "searching" about half the time.

Edit: I also meant to say I have a friend with one of the $200+ wireless amplifiers they got from Prime Cellular, I can't remember the brand but it was not Wilson. They have to be about 2 to 3 feet from the amplifier to benefit, but I was able to use my Verizon card in a notebook computer from that same 2 to 3 feet.

-- Edited by bjoyce at 15:18, 2009-03-07

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill has given you a good reply. Let me add a little.

It would be helpful to know if you are a constant traveller, or stay in places for a long time, or are a weekend rver. The more you are mobile the more you will need both an amp and antenna. If you are a fulltimer that moves around a lot then you might as well buy them both now, because you WILL need them both at some point. As Bill said, having the amp for the air card is very important. It will increase your speed noticeably in marginal areas.

I prefer a wired solution over a wireless, but some people need the wireless because they want to run multiple cell phones at one time and still have internet. We do not find the need to have 2 cell phones in use and the aircard. A wired solution gives you far better connections if it works for you, and is less complex to set up and tune. Far less.

One option with a wired solution not mentioned is the use of a splitter. If this is used in conjunction with an amp it will allow 2 connections with one amp and antenna pair. There will be very little signal attenuation, since the splitter is before the amp and the amp boosts the signal back up. They cost about $100.

Antennas must be selected knowing where they will be located. The location will to some degree determine the type of antenna used. For example, you would not use a 30" trucker antenna permanently mounted on top of the roof - it would be too prone to damage. In that scenario the best antenna I have seen is the Wilson RV - which is short. On the other hand, if side mounting the antenna on the side of the rig then a Super Trucker antenna from MaximumSIgnal.net would be an excellent choice. Just some examples.

On the amps, I personally prefer the Cyfre amps, available from Maximumsignal. They perform as well of better than Wilson in my testing, and run totally cool. They are also slightly cheaper. I have one of both and if buying a third amp it would be a Cyfre. They do use a different coax connector than Wilson, so be aware of that if mixing with a Wilson antenna. If yo pair the cryfre amp with any of the antennas from Maximumsignal then they are directly connectable without a coax adaptor.

You should not buy anything until you have the entire system designed and the mounting location(s) determined.

My choice for rooftop mounting would be the Wilson RV (short), the cyfre amp, and appropriate adaptors. My choice for side mounts would be the cyfre amp with the super trucker or the Wilson Trucker with the inbuilt spring.

-- Edited by Jack Mayer at 09:20, 2009-03-08

2Markeys · RV-Dreams Family Member

Jack, thank you for jumping in.

I was just reading some of your reviews on the Escapees forum where you compared all amps/antennas etc. WOW-my head is spinning! It really helped to have you simplify with your response in regards to the amp and antenna.

Now we have two remaining areas of confusion.

1) we need to understand the difference between the CRT500 and CRT1000 routers. We will be moving the router between the sticks and bricks with desktop to the 5er with laptop only (or possibly purchasing two routers, if necessary).

2) which modem (Verizon) would be best. It looks like there is the USB727, PC5750, 595 aircard, USB760 and the V740 ExpressCard. All say they are RevA compatible and seem to have the same up/down speeds. Do you have any insight ???

Once we figure out the best solutions to these two areas for us we will be ready to place our order and make the switch. (We current have Comcast internet in the sticks and bricks and nothing in the 5er.) We are currently weekenders, but hope to transition to fulltimers someday!

-- Edited by 2Markeys at 12:19, 2009-03-08

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

If you are going to use the router at home as well then I would recommend the 1000. The reason is that it has more wifi range, has more LAN ports for directly connecting printers, computers, NAS, etc. And you can connect your cable modem into it via its WAN port.

As far as the air card goes, post on the SKP forum and ask Alex for his current best choice for use with a 1000. I like the 727, but they may have a "better one" out now.

jimmydoppler · RV-Dreams Community Member

The data speed is not a separate function of these amplifiers, the data transfer happens via the cell phone network and by improving the cell phone network we indirectly increase the data speed as well, not that this is anything new but felt the need to stress that point. Good discussion !

-- Edited by jimmydoppler on Tuesday 14th of September 2010 04:44:17 PM