By BY

Good bye

 

Shit when I go camping it’s to disconnect from the world. Cell service and tvs isn’t camping in my book. I also carry a Garmin InReach should an emergency happen.

 

The truck can usually only create a WiFi hotspot if it has cell service so that's kind of out of the question if you already don't have cell service. Satellite internet can be good for remote areas, but I'm not sure how that works with a camper. It can also be quite expensive and you usually get a data limit.

When I travel, I just make sure I have the items I need either available off line or downloaded prior, such as maps or gps routes. As for the rest, although it can be annoying at first, it's nice to disconnect for a while.

 

Your only option is satellite internet. And it isn’t cheap.

I won’t editorialize about wanting to watch YouTube when camping. Edit - I see this is more of a living situation.

 

You might have luck with a weboost, depending on location.

If they have a satellite dish, i assume this is an RV or cabin. Probably a good candidate for starlink once that rolls out.

 

It depends on a lot of variables I think. If theres moderate cell service currently, a booster would be the way to go IMO. If theres very little service then a booster may or may not add much value. I believe there is actually an active group buy here on TW for the latest version of the WeBoost booster.

I feel like boosters are one of those things that are hard to compare - too many variables with signal strength, etc. But this video I happened to run across recently seems to do a decent job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTaknpbGYpU

If there flat out isnt any cell service Id think satellite would be the only way to go, but that gets expensive from what I know.

 

I agree with ST-71a, there are a number of variables- the challenge with satellite is latency (the time it takes the signal to travel 22500 miles up to the satellite, then another 22500 miles down, then actually go out to the internet.) which makes WiFi calling a no-go and internet searches very sloooow.
If you are anywhere even remotely close to a cell tower the most effective solution is to use a high gain directional antenna with a cellular booster. This method could yield enough usable signal to reach many times further then a booster alone could achieve.

 

In addition, antenna height can make all the difference- since they are camping I would suggest some sort of manually telescoping mast on which the antenna would be attached. If course this would necessitate some initial setup- like rotating the antenna to find the best signal. I would imagine it would not be problematic to do so.

 

This is a problem I've solved before a few times, but the devil is always in the details. I'm going to do my best to break down the parts of the problem and outline the tools and equipment that can be considered for any individual case. I might occasionally digress into gory details, but I'll do my best to keep it very Applied and not Theoretical.

Others have noted that Sat links are expensive and slow for modern Internet use, and that the best solution is probably to try to get onto the cell network somehow. I agree with all of the above. Getting onto the cell network from beyond its normal range is fundamentally a radio problem. (Your cellphone is just a really fancy radio transceiver. So is the cell network.)

The best solution given common constraints is going to be to establish line-of-sight with the closest cell tower. @WiFiDoctor has mentioned antenna masts and a directional antenna. This is absolutely the gist of it. When it comes to the fine details, and also, making the setup and aiming of the antenna much more efficient than trial and error, I would recommend doing a bit of homework first.


1) DETERMINING ANTENNA TYPE:
Using a smartphone app such as Tower Collector for Android (there are many other apps that do the same thing), determine the Network Type. This will be UMTS (3G), LTE (4G), or possibly 5G.

The exact choice of app is not important - there are many to choose from, but I'll be referring to Tower Collector, since it's what I use and what I recommend.

All you have to do is go to the closest area to your campsite where you get reception, and collect the data using your chosen app. This is usually just a matter of opening the app and pressing "record", or similar.

As soon as you're in the coverage area of a cell panel, Tower Collector will present you with a list of information about that panel including your Network Type as well as some other things like MCC/MNC, LAC, CellID, and others.

Let's assume it's an LTE network panel. You'll want to use a directional antenna (or bonded antenna pair) that corresponds to the frequencies used by this network type. As far as the actual RF details go, the nerd talk stops here... Just get an appropriate LTE antenna and stick it on an extendable mast! There are a million choices of masts for things like RV camping. Pick whatever suits your needs. If you're at a permanent site, you can probably use a nice, tall tree nearby.

As far as the actual antennas go, here is a quick and dirty resource for LTE antenna arrangements. This particular article talks about using a spectrum analyzer to determine network type and frequencies - we did that with our smartphone app already, so don't worry about that part:

https://support.itel.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004728406-Location-and-Aiming-of-External-LTE-Antennas

and here are some sources for inexpensive, decent LTE directional antennas:

https://ltefix.com/product-category/antennas/4g-lte-antennas/
https://www.wpsantennas.com/high-gaindirectionalyagicellularandpcsantennas.aspx

2) DETERMINING ANTENNA BEARING AND ANGLE OF ELEVATION:

Step 1: Find the tower
Now, to make aiming a bit easier (if you want to get into the nerd geometry), you'll want to use some of that extra information from your smartphone app to figure out the actual location of the cell tower you're trying to hit.

Check out https://www.cellmapper.net/map and don't sweat all the millions of options you're presented with for now.

First start with "Select Provider" in the upper left. Scroll down to find the country you're in, and then, using the MCC and MNC (from your smartphone app), choose the provider that corresponds to the info you collected with your smartphone.

Let's just use AT&T in the United States for this example. The MCC and MNC are 310 and 410 respectively, so in the drop down select the appropriate options. Note that I've also selected the Network Type (from your smartphone app), in this case LTE.



Use the location search drop-down to narrow your search geographically. I arbitrarily chose Halifax, VT. You'll obviously choose wherever you are in the world.

Zooming out a bit, we can see a tower that might be the one we're looking for:



Let's click on the tower and see what cell panels are on it, and if any of them match the CellID that we collected with our smartphone:



You can now see each cell panel (there can be MANY on a given tower) and its corresponding footprint and information. Hopefully, one of the Cell Identifiers corresponds to the one we're looking for, which will let us move on to the next step - orientation and inclination of our directional antennas.

Now, the locations pinned on this map are NOT exact. However, if we zoom in a bit and use some logic:



I'd bet this tower is on the top of Mt. Olga, or VERY close to it! This gives us coordinates and an elevation to aim our antenna at. (A quick peek at Google Maps says there's a fire lookout tower on the top of Mt. Olga. I bet our cell panels are glued to it!)

@gearcruncher if your friends have to drive to the highway, I'm going to bet dollars to donuts that they will be hitting a cell panel pointed parallel to the highway. It's common to install two highly directional panels at 180 degrees to each other to efficiently cover highways in remote areas without "wasting" coverage expense off-highway. This may be a limitation for them establishing line of sight from their campsite, depending on their angle to the highway-side panels.

Step 2: Find your campsite and bearing angle
From here, you'll just need the coordinates and elevation of your campsite (any hiking GPS should do that easy!) and a little trigonometry to figure out where to aim your antennas.

Here's a tool for bearing angle: https://planetcalc.com/7042/
And here's a tool for the elevation angle ("nod"): https://www.easycalculation.com/trigonometry/angle-elevation-calculator.php



This gives us an Azimuth of about 330 degrees - use a compass to find 330 degrees from the antenna mast at your campsite. Note that reversing the locations (putting the tower first, and the campsite second) will give you the exactly wrong bearing!

Step 3: Find your angle of elevation
And to calculate the angle of elevation (the "nod" of the antennas on your campsite mast), subtract the approximate elevation of your antenna from the approximate elevation of the tower.

We know Mt. Olga is at about 750 meters, and our campsite is at about 490 meters. This gives us an approximate height difference of 260 meters. We know from our bearing angle calculator that the distance is 8.9 km, so we plug the numbers in and get:



About 1.7 degrees "up" in this example, which is negligible in the given application, but the amount may be greater or may matter a great deal elsewhere!

Tada! Now you know where to point your antennas from your campsite, and can fine-tune from there if you wish!

 

So nerdy. I love it haha