Last year the 3G Store gave me a 3G/4G Antenna to review. At the time I was just about to leave for our trip to Florida, so I hadn’t been able to properly install it. I was talking with Colin and had just completed installing one on his original TV mast. I thought that was a great idea. I had already installed my Wifi Ranger there so it was going to be crowded.
Ideally the 4G antenna should be installed at the very top so the mast itself doesn’t block the signal to the antenna, but I already had the Ranger there, so I had to make a trade off. The nice thing about these original masts is that they telescope and rotate with a built-in rotor inside the trailer. So if I need to, I can rotate the mast to get a better signal.
Here is a photo with the mast extended.
The easy part was mounting the antenna, the hard part was running the wire inside to my Millenicom MyFi. The Millenicom service is great for RVers because its non-contract, uses Verizon’s network, and has high data plans. My Ambassador and Colin’s originally had a battery in the front of the trailer inside a small aluminum battery box. Inside the box there are the original battery wires running through to the interior wall. Since I abandoned that wiring long ago, I made use of the wiring path for my coax cabling. The added bonus is the extra cabling can stay inside the battery box so it’s available when telescoping the mast.
It was a simple matter to drill a hole inside to access the wire. Added a grommet and I was on my way to a better LTE signal.
I drilled another hole behind my speaker to bring the cable up through the counter to conceal it.
Here is the MyFi inside the aluminum trailer without the antenna connected. You can see I’m getting 36% RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator), the higher the better.
Here are the speed test results. Not too hot. I guess I live in a Verizon dead zone.
Here is a photo with the external 4G antenna connected. You can see I gained some RSSI.
Now the speed test. It has improved quite a bit. Still not really LTE speeds, but I live in a dead zone. The take away is that the signal went from not usable to very usable. This should be a big improvement on the road.
Ready to hit the road for summer vacation!
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