Thoughts on cellular and/or satellite internet?

jeegro

Adventurer
I was camping up around the Cougar Hot Springs in Oregon (45 min east of Eugene) with no cell service. I run an internet based business and was pretty anxious about not having internet to check up on things.

Has anyone put in a booster and/or antenna to their rig? I have a Verizon Jetpack (mobile hotspot), which has 2 MIMO antenna ports. I guess the options are to either add an antenna (has anyone tried any?), and/or add a cell booster (maybe this https://store.weboost.com/products/rv-4g ).

I want to do a permanent install.

Even with either of those addons, I'm dubious a signal could have been picked up where I was camping. So that leads to satellite, which I imagine to be quite costly and bulky...
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie
I had a Novatel Verizon Jetpack for two years. I tried two different $20 antennae from Amazon.

I noticed very little improvement in reception, but it was able to push the transmission a bit harder.

Net effect was that it could (occasionally) establish a two way connection with marginal cell towers. Without the antenna, it could hear them, but not reply loud enough for the tower to hear it.

If I did it over, I would try a cell repeater/booster instead.
 

hour

Observer
I set up dozens of internal use hotspots in Colorado for the state, many in rural parks. These were all Verizon jetpacks with external antenna ports in ~2012.

Most of these spots had pretty flaky cell reception so I'd pair them with either an omnidirectional cheap magnetic antenna or a directional Yagi. Always got Wilson brand antennas, I think from alternativewireless or 3gstore.

It helped tremendously at most spots. Others, I would see significant rise in bars (say no service / 1 bar -> 3 bars) but requests would still time out. I've been baffled by this with all cell carriers actually, plenty of times where I've been in remote spots and gone to crazy lengths to get some signal, achieve 2+ bars, get little to no data transmission. Very annoying on phones or hotspots alike. I know that the signal readings (when viewing device logs) improved dramatically with the antennas, even at the spots where data transmission remained erratic.

I'd go with the appropriate ~12" omnidirectional magnetic Wilson and correct pigtail. Both of the sources I mentioned above should guide you to a package with everything you need if you google "[your model jetpack/novatel whatever] antenna". Directional yagi antennas are bulky and not good for what you're trying to achieve with a permanent install. Hopefully you have enough roof space to put the magnetic antenna. I don't anymore and bought a trucker style antenna (spiky nasty looking beast of a thing mounted to roof rack) and find it inferior to the cheaper magnetic ones.

Now I just keep my hotspot and some other electronics in an ammo can and stick a magnetic one to the inside of the ammo can lid, leaving it open. I then place this wherever I want around camp and achieve better signal than having it stuck on my stationary car.

Cell signal boosters lend themselves better to permanent install but at 10x the cost I'd roll the dice with a magnetic antenna first. For ~$60 you could get two complete antenna setups and divorce the hotspot from the vehicle. Sometimes it makes all the difference. Pic related from many years ago, a complete mess of a picnic table, but antenna stuck on ammo can lid. Not a huge grounding plane but does make a difference. Be careful connecting/removing the antenna, they're tiny plugs and rather fragile.

ammocanlid_zpswb04qokg.jpg
 
Cell Boosters like Wilson use to be very popular when sites were spares. Once cells sites started appearing most places they were finding they were being swamped by extremely high signal levels from some users. FCC stepped in and now regulate it as to what maximum received signal strength should be to a cell site. The sites will often ignore connect request from overly strong received signals. You might find that reducing the output signal strength might help with some of the request failures you are seeing. Carriers can and have been know to ban cell id's of repeat and excessive offenders.
 

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