I'm probably a bit behind the times on this one but here goes. I would like to use the iPad when away if the site has a wifi hot spot. I've looked on line and I see you can get boosters for a laptop, I assume by connecting the booster to your laptop using an USB connector. Can you get something to boost signal strength for an iPad using wifi or possibly 3G. If anyone can help and explain in idiot terms it would be most appreciated. Thanks Dixie.
We have a motorhome wifi booster kit and it does work very well.we stayed at one site this year where the owners had bt wifi, we were able to boost their hotspot and had the best and quickest wifi (free) we've ever had at any site
This is interesting stuff. The price is a bit scarey at first but it seems to be good kit
http://www.motorhomewifi.com/product/iboost-d8-directional-system/
I suppose over the years the £160 would pay itself.
You could always charge a neighbour on the site to use your connection? And recoup the cost ;0).
Any reports from users in France ,/ Europe?
This is interesting too.
i cant be arsed to google search but an antenna is simply a tuned piece of wire.. whats on the end of your £160 link isnt what i would call a good directional antenna.. its an over priced piece of junk designed to fool those who have more money than sense.. :)
It doesn't have to be directional as a good outside omni-directional will give a big increase on the laptop antenna within the van. A directional one will give a bigger increase but only if you can accurately align it to the sites wifi link.
The iboost systems are incredibly expensive and seem to overpriced because they are targeted at motorhome owners.
I use one of these antennas mounted high on the outside of the van. Mounting it outside cuts down on the attenuation of the signal by the van.
This is then connected to an Alfa AWUS036NH which can be connected via USB or ethernet to our laptop.
When we want to use more devices we use an Alfa R36 which distributes a local wifi signal to our devices.
Probably not the cheapest solution ( but a lot cheaper than the iboost )or the easiest to set up but does a very good job of boosting the signal when needed.
just for the record those long helical coil antennas are normally a lot smaller than the one in the pic.. the longer they are and the more coils they have the more gain they have and the more directional they become..
in simple terms its just like a torch beam.. an omni directional antenna is like a bulb with no reflector it shines its light in all directions but dosnt reach very far.. the directional antennas does what the reflector does in a torch.. it does massively increase signal range but it does need pointing in vaguely the right direction.. small five or seven coil ones cover quite a wide area.. 45 degrees or so..
The problem is that the more directional an antenna is then the more gain it will have, but obviously to have the highest gain the accuracy of its direction needs to be high.
My omni-directional has a gain of 8db. Its true that some directional ones have a gain of 32db but the beam width is 4 degrees. I would hate to have to set that up. Looking at an example of an 18db yagi antenna, it had a beam width of 24 degrees. I would imagine by the time you got to an antenna with a 45 degree beam width the gain would be quite a bit less.
I have always picked up the site wifi with my 8db omnidirectional and usually without it.
going back to the original request, you need to create a wifi signal in your caravan. this is the easy bit as you just need a router that does this. You can then connect your ipad to this via the wifi. this gives you your own locked down wifi signal around the van like you would have at home....but....
the hard bit is getting a broadband connection to the router. This is the bit that needs an aerial which needs to be set up as an access point to get the signal from the site wifi or a local free hotspot.
The motorhomewifi kit above is an out of the box solution all set up for you. you are of course paying for the set up as this is quite challenging if you are not IT literate...but that said there are loads of how-to guides on the internet.
I actually have very similar kit to what they are selling, but it cost me about £60. Basically i have a Nanostation M2 directional aerial to receive the broadband connection, and a basic router plugged into this. It can take a few minutes to set up with a very strong site wifi...or if its really weak, it has taken me 20 minutes just to align the aerial!
we actually have a complex system in the van as we have a whole network that has our network drive connected which is packed full of films, so even if we cant get a broadband connection we still use the network internally to view these on the TV/tablets/laptop.
I have used my Motorhome Wifi in France, where frequently Wifi is free near reception,which is no use if your pitch is not near reception.I have been very happy with the performance, it has picked up and amplified a signal 100m away even through some trees. It is expensive, but it is very quick and easy to set up, and works with iPads. The other advantage is that if you have to pay for Wifi, you only pay once,,and connect multiple devices to the router.
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Topic: Wifi booster?
