After hours of trawling, please help before my head explodes! Caravan on seasonal pitch. Site WiFi not reliable, dongle intermittent, so I need a 4G mobile router that I can put my 3 nano SIM in and hopefully get a decent signal. I’m not looking to spend £600, but will happily spend £200 for a nice compact, black, easy to use unlocked mobile router that I can turn on and it works lol!
Help please 🥹 Thanks in advance!
TCx
------------- “It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.”
Vango and Outwell Tents > VW Camper and various Vango and Outwell awnings dependent on stay location and duration > Bailey Pegasus Grande SE Brindisi and Vango Air Awning.
Found our Nivana ❤️
We ditched BT 3 years ago and have a 3 wireless hub at home saving £35 a month on BT price. Now take this with us in caravan and has been used all over the UK with never any signal problem. We are away with caravan minimum of a week every month over 9 months and cover the length and breadth of the country
------------- “It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.”
Vango and Outwell Tents > VW Camper and various Vango and Outwell awnings dependent on stay location and duration > Bailey Pegasus Grande SE Brindisi and Vango Air Awning.
Found our Nivana ❤️
Have a look at the Falcon 4g combo - we use it everywhere we go - put your sim in, attach to side of van and you're away. Not failed us yet - with EE sim
Yes, signal intermittent on both of those too lol! We can have a great weekend and then a rubbish one. No rhyme or reason tbh, can’t put it down to anything. Trouble is, when you’re there so much and I need mine for work it’s becoming a bit of a pain :(
------------- “It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.”
Vango and Outwell Tents > VW Camper and various Vango and Outwell awnings dependent on stay location and duration > Bailey Pegasus Grande SE Brindisi and Vango Air Awning.
Found our Nivana ❤️
------------- “It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.”
Vango and Outwell Tents > VW Camper and various Vango and Outwell awnings dependent on stay location and duration > Bailey Pegasus Grande SE Brindisi and Vango Air Awning.
Found our Nivana ❤️
My own bitter experience after spending a small fortune on a 5G ready MiFi system is that, it can't boost the signal when there is none, and there are areas with no mobile phone signal to this day.
DK
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Quote: Originally posted by dk168 on 17/7/2024
Good luck!
My own bitter experience after spending a small fortune on a 5G ready MiFi system is that, it can't boost the signal when there is none, and there are areas with no mobile phone signal to this day.
DK
Indeedy DK. I’m hoping the external aerials on a mobile router will make the difference where the MiFi Dongle struggles. Fingers crossed! X
------------- “It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.”
Vango and Outwell Tents > VW Camper and various Vango and Outwell awnings dependent on stay location and duration > Bailey Pegasus Grande SE Brindisi and Vango Air Awning.
Found our Nivana ❤️
We have a TPLink 4G mobile router and it works well when there is a good signal. However, the little antennae attached to the router don’t really give a much better signal than hot spotting from a mobile. For example, when we arrive on site, my husband and I both do a speed test on our mobiles to see which of us has the better signal in that area. I am on EE and my husband is on Vodafone. We then put the better signal sim into the router (for a short trip) or buy a 1 month sim with loads of data (for a longer trip). We find that we get about the same or maybe fractionally better signal from the router. If you want to get the best signal possible, you need an external antenna that you mount on the roof/side of the caravan and point in the direction of the signal. We were on a site in Cornwall last year and we were getting virtually no signal at all but the guy opposite us had a tall external antenna that he pushed up to about a metre, or maybe more, above the roof line of the caravan and it looked like he was picking up a decent signal as he must have been streaming TV as there was no terrestrial TV signal in the area and we could see them watching TV.
If you are struggling for signal, I would recommend first trying all 4 uk networks to see which is best in the area you are in. It is incredible the difference between these. For example, at one of our favourite sites in Lancashire, I get 17mbps with EE but my husband gets 126mbps on Vodafone. On the other hand, we are just back from a site in Leicestershire and my EE signal was 181mbps whereas my husbands Vodafone signal was only 12mbps.
Quote: Originally posted by dk168 on 17/7/2024
Good luck!
My own bitter experience after spending a small fortune on a 5G ready MiFi system is that, it can't boost the signal when there is none, and there are areas with no mobile phone signal to this day.
DK
Indeed. Topography plays a large part for Not-Spots in some parts of the country.
Crazy, but there’s a section on the M77 in cut approaching Glasgow where the signal is only E, so my iPhone is scrolling & can’t open the UKCS site search.
Quote: Originally posted by Pixie_Hez on 17/7/2024
We have a TPLink 4G mobile router and it works well when there is a good signal. However, the little antennae attached to the router don’t really give a much better signal than hot spotting from a mobile. For example, when we arrive on site, my husband and I both do a speed test on our mobiles to see which of us has the better signal in that area. I am on EE and my husband is on Vodafone. We then put the better signal sim into the router (for a short trip) or buy a 1 month sim with loads of data (for a longer trip). We find that we get about the same or maybe fractionally better signal from the router. If you want to get the best signal possible, you need an external antenna that you mount on the roof/side of the caravan and point in the direction of the signal. We were on a site in Cornwall last year and we were getting virtually no signal at all but the guy opposite us had a tall external antenna that he pushed up to about a metre, or maybe more, above the roof line of the caravan and it looked like he was picking up a decent signal as he must have been streaming TV as there was no terrestrial TV signal in the area and we could see them watching TV.
If you are struggling for signal, I would recommend first trying all 4 uk networks to see which is best in the area you are in. It is incredible the difference between these. For example, at one of our favourite sites in Lancashire, I get 17mbps with EE but my husband gets 126mbps on Vodafone. On the other hand, we are just back from a site in Leicestershire and my EE signal was 181mbps whereas my husbands Vodafone signal was only 12mbps.
Thanks for such comprehensive advice. Have spoken to neighbour and he’s done that work for me lol, 3 mobile gets best signal. I’m on EE (work phone so no choice) and other half on O2.
Have just ordered 3 SIM and a TP Link router on his advice. Fingers crossed next weekend is successful set up lol x
------------- “It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.”
Vango and Outwell Tents > VW Camper and various Vango and Outwell awnings dependent on stay location and duration > Bailey Pegasus Grande SE Brindisi and Vango Air Awning.
Found our Nivana ❤️
Quote: Originally posted by dk168 on 17/7/2024
Good luck!
My own bitter experience after spending a small fortune on a 5G ready MiFi system is that, it can't boost the signal when there is none, and there are areas with no mobile phone signal to this day.
DK
Spot on so if theie signal is intermittent, they will have the same issue with a £500 router.
I get around the country a fair bit, I can confirm that signal coverage varies by network to both extremes at any given location, one may have no signal at all whilst another may have decent signal. I was in Essex a couple of weeks back, in a village surrounded by other villages, so not truly out in the wilds of nowhere, and couldn't even send a text on O2 (texts will work on the most feeble signal!), family member on another network was streaming video! Been in Devon where my Vodafone didn't work, my Mrs O2 was fine!
Many camp sites are remote, and outside or borderline signal areas! Sometimes just a lost cause seeking a signal.
I've learnt to mentally switch off from communication from the outside world and not even try to beat the not-spots chasing 'best network' and 'better gear'. OK, years of hillwalking in the true wilds of Cumbria, Yorkshire etc. got me used to being out of touch and mentally at ease with the notion, but now I find it quite relaxing to be away and 'isolated'.
But I see a conflict in the future, the days of terrestrial and satellite TV as we know it are numbered, the move is to streaming over the internet, be it fibre or wireless. Not talking or browsing the internet is one thing, but those lonely evenings (I usually caravan alone) without TV may be isolation too far! …. can see my book consumption rising!
BT have announced a significant postponement on the withdrawal of old fashioned copper telephone wires, partially because of protests that the mobile networks are not adequate as a substitute! Even at home in the burbs of London, my mobile signal is marginal (and has been on several different networks!), to have a reliable mobile phone I have to use Wi-Fi calling to route calls through the internet - the EXACT reversal of how a lot of infrastructure development is going!
If you can't live without a mobile signal, then you are going to have to pick your camping venues based on network coverage maps, and all the high tech gear only helps a little!
It is always worth trying to get the aerial as high as possible. I have been using an old fishing pole of about 8m for nearly 20 years. Aerial is taped to the top and the router is normally in the awning, or sometimes just the old 3 mifi taped to the top of the pole. The extra height can make all the difference between a poor signal and an acceptable signal.
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Topic: Which mobile plug and play router…
via mobile 16/7/2024 at 11:40am
