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Old 04-08-2016, 08:29 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Donna D. View Post
I bought one of these to use in the receiver at the rear of the trailer. I also bought a telescoping flag pole to go into the mount. My plan, when I'm camped for several days or in crappy weather, is to use a television antenna on the pole and connect to the coax connection on the trailer.
Donna, which telescoping mast do you use? (I have the same mast holder.)
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Old 04-08-2016, 08:32 AM   #22
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Not if you put it under a stabilizer as you mentioned in your earlier post.
Geez, thanks for the reminder that I am losing my mind.
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Old 04-08-2016, 08:35 AM   #23
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Yup, I spend Thursday afternoons with my bikes and beer group -- the Blue Herons Bicycle and Hops Society. We have been gathering at various micro breweries for over three years now. If the weather is decent we ride.

I got a wifi repeater set up from JefaTech I got the high gain antenna which is 1650mm long.
Like the bike 'n beer idea, Leon.

And great idea for a setup. This router could also be used to create a network for our devices.

Am I right to assume the mast could be used for an HD TV and phone booster antenna too?
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Old 04-08-2016, 08:49 AM   #24
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I like the idea of using the receiver at the back bumper to mount an antenna but I also have a bike rack to put there and wouldn't want to be swapping them out. Can't ETI install another receiver off to the side? I seem to recall someone having three receivers across the width of the bumper so they could mount a substantial storage box.
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Old 04-08-2016, 08:52 AM   #25
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Can't ETI install another receiver off to the side?
That would be a good solution too. I am sure they would do it, you would just have to make sure that you could use it with the bikes on the rack.
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Old 04-08-2016, 08:58 AM   #26
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I like the idea of using the receiver at the back bumper to mount an antenna but I also have a bike rack to put there and wouldn't want to be swapping them out. Can't ETI install another receiver off to the side? I seem to recall someone having three receivers across the width of the bumper so they could mount a substantial storage box.
I had considered this too. You could get a bumper mounted receiver to use with the flag pole holder. But a cheaper and more elegant solution I think is to use something like this. I only wish it had a larger diameter.
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:16 AM   #27
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Yup, I spend Thursday afternoons with my bikes and beer group -- the Blue Herons Bicycle and Hops Society. We have been gathering at various micro breweries for over three years now. If the weather is decent we ride.

I got a wifi repeater set up from JefaTech I got the high gain antenna which is 1650mm long. I got a 18" piece of scrap 2" PVC from the hardware store and attached that to the tongue jack with radiator clamps. That serves as the base of the mast when it is up. Then I got a 6' piece of 1.5" PVC that serves as the antenna pole. I attached the metal base of the antenna to a 12" piece of PVC that screws in to the mast with clamps. The antenna slides into the metal base and is secured with a small phillips screw. The cable goes from the antenna to a power cord port that is next to the storage hatch on the 21. I would have liked to find a nicer port, but decided that this was the easiest, best solution.

When traveling, the antenna slips inside the antenna pole which, intern slips into a piece of 2" PVC that is secured to the rear bumper with more radiator clamps. I have attached a photo of the antenna below.

Jefatech says that some folks who have class A motor homes have attached the antenna to the satellite dishes that fold flat for travel but can be raised when camping.

I have been pleased with the Jefatech solution as a WIFI repeater. It is based on a Linksys WRT54GL WIFI router. I considered just buying a router and flashing it with DD-WRT. But decided that for the $30.00 difference it made more sense to get jefatech's custom build. The repeater is easy to configure for most wireless networks that I have run across. Usually you just have to join the network and enter the userid and password that the campground gives you. There were a couple of campgrounds that were using older WEP encryption which were a bit more complicated. In one case, I had to enter the ASCII codes of the passphrase rather than the characters. And in one case, I couldn't get the repeater to join the network -- but that campground had a particularly complicated chicken dance to get any device on their network. We finally just used the open wifi at the nearby McDonalds (which we could get with the big antenna).
Great info, thanks for sharing.

I will have a very similar setup. I found a Linksys WRT54G in my garage and flashed it with the dd-wrt firmware. It will be paired with an L-com antenna. After a lot a ton of research I am ditching the powered antenna mount idea in favor of a less permanent setup. I will instead mount a telescoping pole to the rear bumper and deploy as needed. I am looking at this mast from Max Gain Systems.

My next dilemma is how to run the coax cable to the router. I want to avoid long runs to minimize signal loss. I could use the Ubiquiti Bullet and connect to the router with an RJ45 cable, but it comes at an additional expense and setup.

How long is the cable that you used? Is there any noticeable drop in performance?
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:19 AM   #28
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Like the bike 'n beer idea, Leon.

And great idea for a setup. This router could also be used to create a network for our devices.

Am I right to assume the mast could be used for an HD TV and phone booster antenna too?
Yup. The router creates a network ("Skylark" in my case), and our laptops, tablets, and phones can all join Skylark rather than the campground's network. Since they have been on Skylark before, we don't have to configure each of the devices. This is really nice when the campground gives you separate password for every device that is on their network.

I don't know a lot about antennas, radio waves, etc. but I don't see any reason why you couldn't put other antennas up there as well. I bet someone like Mike Lewis could give you a better answer. As a matter of fact, Thoer and I had a brief discussion about whether or not I would get a TV antenna on top of the trailer again. I said that I wouldn't bother to get another antenna for several reasons:s
  1. Turns out we don't watch broadcast TV all that much. We were gone about 6 weeks this spring and only watched broadcast TV a couple of times
  2. If I do want to watch TV I could put up an antenna on the wifi mast or maybe one of the antennas that attach to the window
  3. Many times the places we camp are way out of range from any broadcast tv

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that there are a lot of places that don't have WIFI, so this antenna set up doesn't work. Or maybe we are paying more attention to other things. But we found several CA state parks that had wifi, some MN state parks with wifi, and if you are spending an overnight in a Walmart, Cracker Barrel, etc, there is often WIFI available. And of course the reception in some campgrounds is spotty.
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:24 AM   #29
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This is really nice when the campground gives you separate password for every device that is on their network.

I said that I wouldn't bother to get another antenna for several reasons:s
  1. Turns out we don't watch broadcast TV all that much. We were gone about 6 weeks this spring and only watched broadcast TV a couple of times
  2. If I do want to watch TV I could put up an antenna on the wifi mast or maybe one of the antennas that attach to the window
  3. Many times the places we camp are way out of range from any broadcast tv
That alone is a good reason to have a router, that with one password entered all devices are covered. We usually each have a phone, Lisa with a tablet, and me with a laptop.

Did JefaTech just set up the router for you, or did they do the install either.

For pretty much the same reasons as you Leon, I too am foregoing the roof mounted antenna. Another reason is they just don't look nice. But neither does a solar panel, and I am most likely getting one of those.
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:29 AM   #30
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Donna, really interesting idea. Where did you purchase the pole holder for receiver at the rear of the trailer and also where did you get the telescoping flag pole to go into the mount? Did you find an a TV antenna that works on top of the pole? It sounds just like what I have been trying to figure out for my 17b. Do you have a cell antenna installed on the side of the trailer or do you use the pole for that also? Of course if staying somewhere for a while you might need cell and tv antenna both, would they work on same pole? Trying to not put holes in my trailer. Thanks for any info, much appreciated!
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:29 AM   #31
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Great info, thanks for sharing.

I will have a very similar setup. I found a Linksys WRT54G in my garage and flashed it with the dd-wrt firmware. It will be paired with an L-com antenna. After a lot a ton of research I am ditching the powered antenna mount idea in favor of a less permanent setup. I will instead mount a telescoping pole to the rear bumper and deploy as needed. I am looking at this mast from Max Gain Systems.

My next dilemma is how to run the coax cable to the router. I want to avoid long runs to minimize signal loss. I could use the Ubiquiti Bullet and connect to the router with an RJ45 cable, but it comes at an additional expense and setup.

How long is the cable that you used? Is there any noticeable drop in performance?
I originally got a 30' cable because I wasn't sure how I was going to mount the antenna. But I am going to replace it with a 20' or maybe even 15' cable, for exactly the reasons you mention. I thought about a Ubiquiti solution but it seemed too complex. By the way, there are some places where simply using the 7" antenna that comes with the router and placing it in a window of the trailer provides a reasonable solution and better reception than our laptops/tablets get on their own.
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:36 AM   #32
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Great info, thanks for sharing.

I will have a very similar setup. I found a Linksys WRT54G in my garage and flashed it with the dd-wrt firmware. It will be paired with an L-com antenna. After a lot a ton of research I am ditching the powered antenna mount idea in favor of a less permanent setup. I will instead mount a telescoping pole to the rear bumper and deploy as needed. I am looking at this mast from Max Gain Systems.

My next dilemma is how to run the coax cable to the router. I want to avoid long runs to minimize signal loss. I could use the Ubiquiti Bullet and connect to the router with an RJ45 cable, but it comes at an additional expense and setup.

How long is the cable that you used? Is there any noticeable drop in performance?
Both Leon and you (as well as other previously) mention flashing the router with DD-WRT firmware. What exactly is this, and what does it achieve? I have set up many a router at home, just plug and play basically. What is the difference?

I assume the coax you refer to, is from the antenna to the router, correct? Could you not just run through a port near your mast mount?

I plan to be ordering waterproof connectors from CNLINKO for my portable solar sometime soon, and they have some good solutions for data/signal connections too.
Data/Signal Connector | Cnlinko

Another thought of mine is to use a small access hatch on the rear, and have a board of it sealed to the interior of the trailer, on which I can mount whatever connectors I want on it, solar, coax, data, etc.
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:42 AM   #33
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Did JefaTech just set up the router for you, or did they do the install either.
JefaTech's version of DD-WRT has a simpler user interface than DDWRT. I just sign on to the router, ask it to search for available wifi networks, and then enter the user id and password the campground provided to me. if it is an open network, you don't even have to enter the userID and Password.

At Lake Jennings Park the password they provided didn't work. I contacted JefaTech and got an answer the next morning. In that case, I had to enter the hexadecimal version ASCII codes for the password. for example, instead of 'password' I would enter '70617373776F7264' apparently this only true of some old versions of WEP encryption (which isn't that secure anyhow).

long ago I had a couple of WRT54G routers, but I gave them away when I got replacements at home. So when I went looking for them, they were no where to be found. So had to buy new ones.
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Old 04-08-2016, 09:52 AM   #34
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I'm thinking of just trying the JefaTech router inside like Leon mentioned. About the only places we have found wifi is at the rare stops at commercial RV campgrounds. And at those, often the signal is weak and the network capacity poor.

For a TV antenna my current thought is just getting the TV ready so I have the coax connection outside and maybe bringing an antenna like this along:Antenna

I like it because it can easily use 12V for its amplifier.
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Old 04-08-2016, 10:22 AM   #35
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Telescopic flag poles
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Old 04-08-2016, 10:41 AM   #36
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Telescopic flag poles
Maybe even a fiberglass paint extension pole?
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Old 04-08-2016, 10:52 AM   #37
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I'm not at all familiar with the amount of strength needed or a desirable extended length. However, thinking outside the box, one could purchase a telescopic or sectioned fiberglass tree pruning pole from someone like Forestry Suppliers or Ben Meadows. They sell heavy duty commercial stuff. You could even go so nuts as to buy the pole pruner or saw head and actually use it to trim trees at your home. Fiberglass is non conductive so that might help. My
telescopic crappie fishing pole with micro diameter tip seems a little light for the task.
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Old 04-08-2016, 11:07 AM   #38
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Eric
I'm not at all familiar with the amount of strength needed or a desirable extended length. However, thinking outside the box, one could purchase a telescopic or sectioned fiberglass tree pruning pole from someone like Forestry Suppliers or Ben Meadows. They sell heavy duty commercial stuff. You could even go so nuts as to buy the pole pruner or saw head and actually use it to trim trees at your home. Fiberglass is non conductive so that might help. My
telescopic crappie fishing pole with micro diameter tip seems a little light for the task.
Dave
We think alike again. I already own both a manual and battery electric saw model tree pruners. Tools you know.....

Neither have poles that would be conducive to use though. I thought of the paint poles as I used to pick up some commercial grade ones for my students to use in our video production class for boom mics. They were about 1/4 the cost of one sold as boom mic handles and held up even to high school student abuse pretty well.
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Old 04-08-2016, 11:11 AM   #39
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Donna, which telescoping mast do you use? (I have the same mast holder.)
It's called a Flag Pole to Go 20' I got it cheaper on Amazon.
https://flagpolesetc.com/flagpoles/t...le-20-ft-fp-21

The holder requires a rubber plug to get the pole centered in the holder. I picked that up at Lowe's <$5. Lemme see if I can find the information.
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Old 04-08-2016, 11:34 AM   #40
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What would be a recommend minimum height for a mast/antenna? For storage reasons, obviously the shorter the better.
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