7 antennas off - 2 on - here is what I did

[RKins]

It's a bad idea to broadcast your wifi outside the rv. Its even worse doing it when you intend to use it inside.

Exterior wifi antenna should be for accessing campground wifi.

By broadcasting on the outside you are adding rf noise to the campground and hurting your own usable signal.

I use a pair of deco m9s inside the rv, set to very low output.

The pepwave wifi is for Wan use only on my setup.

Really? How do you propose not broadcasting your wifi through the walls of your coach. 2.4 and 5ghz are designed to go through walls. I can see 8 of my neighbor's routers on a scan right now.

 

[redbaron]

Really? How do you propose not broadcasting your wifi through the walls of your coach. 2.4 and 5ghz are designed to go through walls. I can see 8 of my neighbor's routers on a scan right now.

You can't stop it, but you can limit it and be smart about it.

2.4ghz has only 3 channels. Parks are mostly broadcasting on 2.4ghz using a 120degree beam so that their channels don't overlap. This wonderful design is thrown out with the king routers and winegard routers that are rooftop configured to broadcast at max signal

The rv parks already had a bad name for wifi. The industry has ensured the bad name stays by adding so much rf pollution.

Going to 5ghz gives a lot more options, but is still limited.

None of this can be stopped, but we what you can do to make sure you have the best possible signal is turn your output to lowest power and disabling 2.4 if possible. I could not disable 2.4 due to the nest smoke detectors and the tank automation.

By running your 2.4 and 5g on low power settings, your devices will connect while in your rv and around. It won't work when you walk around the park, but I would say that's a good thing.

RF pollution is a big deal and getting worse. By educating others we can stretch the useful life of 5g until the 6g catches on...then who cares.

 

[RKins]

MIMO makes it even worse as they are designed to scatter and collect bounced/reflected signals off everything. 5Ghz distances help but MIMO will still collect through their multiple antennas.
I would venture to say most people haven't even changed the default password on their router, let alone gotten into the config pages to tweek anything in them. They plugs it in, it works, they are happy.

 

[redbaron]

most campgrounds take an offense approach to wifi, which usually results in no usable wifi for any guests. I wish it was required to be an amateur radio license holder at minimum to setup WiFi networks in any commercial setting. At least the basic knowledge how radio frequency works, and what RF reflection is would cut down on most of the problems.

I have seen campgrounds with omni 360's broadcasting on channel 4, which as you know, knocks out 2 usable channels.

The only channels that should ever be used are 1,6,11 and you should never allow the distance of the signal to overlap on the same channel.

This means if your campground is broadcasting on 1, then you should change yours to channel 6 for the rebroadcast.

 

[Neal]

Cellular is working well with antennas mounted on the AC shrouds.

 

[Neal]

Then of course this morning I wake up to Verizon showing 0.15 Mb/s. Back to AT&T which is more stable bandwidth. Hate cellular!

 

[Neal]

Very happy about Parsec Husky cellular, very unhappy with its WiFi. It may very well be the AC shrouds are a problem for WiFi, I don't know. Regardless, I just ordered 2 x Puma 201's (WiFi only) which will go back to what I had before for roof WiFi antennas leaving the Parsec's for cellular.

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[Neal]

I was thinking today about the poor Wi-Fi from the Parsec Husky, at least in my setup... my hunch is that Parsec built in a ground plane in this massive antenna and as such the downward connectivity is limited. Pepwave's antennas are small and obviously don't have this large platform that I suspect is a ground plane which is why I had better downward coverage for Wi-Fi.

My Pepwave Wi-Fi antennas have arrived and will go up at some point in the coming months as the coach is in storage for several months now. Antenna towers/mounts are 3D printing as I type this.

 

[Neal]

Today was the day, ya know, camping, to put the Pepwave antennas on the roof again as I got two new WiFi pepwave antennas (formerly known as 201's). As I had an available path over the driver's AV box I dropped the lines through and connected to perform a test. Welp, the test didn't go well. I'm not sure what I had so right the first time that is not happening now but long story short, I quickly removed the antenna and sealed the path back up. However not all is lost. Instead of dealing with rabbit ears flopping around I connected the pepwave antennas to the pepwaves (both of them) and will use these as indoor antennas. They are working well and now my OCD'ness won't have to deal with rabbit ears not sitting perfectly.

Saga closed, no more antennas on the roof. Very pleased with Parsec cellular performance so my conclusion is, put your cellular on the roof, your wifi inside, and be done with it.

 

[Neal]

I think my conclusion is going to be going back to rabbit ears. They seem to be the best for WiFi.

 

[Neal]

I haven't really used my Parsec Husky's to pull in Wi-Fi as typically my cellular is better and more secure. I'm at Freightliner Custom Chassis, Gaffney, SC and figured I'd give a try connecting to their public/open Wi-Fi from the parking lot. Typically it's too weak for most, unless they changed something since I heard that. But I'm happy to report the Parsec Husky does a great job pulling in wi-fi from the roof location and I was pulling over 50 down from the parking lot. While I haven't been overly pleased with the wi-fi transmit, mostly just from a poor location for my use, the receive side appears to be optimal.

 

[Neal]

At the start of this trip (July 1st) I had Wi-Fi broadcasting from Pepwave 1 via the Parsec Husky roof antenna. I was standing at my outdoor TV and couldn't get good Wi-Fi at one point and that was the final straw for me. I'm using the included antennas (paddles) for Wi-Fi on the Pepwave for transmit. Pepwave 2 is connected to Parsec's Wi-Fi on the roof for it which is the receive path for outside Wi-Fi sources such as campground, etc. I'm seeing great range even outside of the coach using the paddles, although I also have the AP One AX in the bedroom AV cabinet so that could be helping.

What I don't know is if there is a difference in antenna requirements for Wi-Fi 6 which the BR1 Pro 5G has. If the parsec wi-fi antennas are not compatible or optimized for Wi-Fi 6, if that is even a thing, it could be the reason. I don't know! But I'm done with using the Parsec for Wi-Fi broadcast from the roof, it has not been a good performer for me.

 

[Buly]

I bought on sale Pepwave 42G 7 in one, but have not installed it yet. Glad to hear some feedback on installing it.

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

We have the max duo transit, so NOT the latest 5G pepwave offering, coupled with the Parsec Husky antenna.

Our experience is similar to what you described - WiFi works better when using the paddles that come with the Pepwave, WiFi with the Husky had challenges.

Generally I have found the Pepwave to be ok, but every location requires work to “dial it in”. Need to scan to see what channels are being used on each WiFi band, which internet sources are available/best and what needs to be changed. Takes me a few days of tinkering before I consider it stable for work.

 

[redbaron]

I use the husky parsec for its purpose of dealing with external signals. This is GPS, wifi from outside source, and cellular.

I use a separate access point for Lan purposes inside and around the coach.

I have had great results with this setup. I get 600Mb speeds from the Parsec when using WiFi6 Wan.

Another advantage is the range it gets far exceeds what I would have from inside the coach.

A lot of things come into play, but the biggest is the use of a ground plane. Also mounting it as far from other RF interference as possible is key.

Putting it on top of an AC shroud is guaranteed to cut performance due to RF interference.

Same goes for other antennas. Finding a sweet spot is difficult.

I have been very pleased with the 5G performance and WiFi performance of the Husky.

 

[Neal]

I've had amazing performance with INPUT. Cellular is amazing, Wi-Fi as WAN is amazing. No issues there at all. My issue is Wi-Fi broadcast (LAN) outbound ONLY. Pep1 is the broadcaster, Pep2 is for inbound. In the end, none of us really need to be broadcasting outside of the coach like this (that). We are helping the neighborhood keeping it in and around the coach. An AP behind the pegboard would be ideal for patio use. Hmmmm, yeah, no, not doing that. My setup is fine. Over driver's seat broadcast is giving me a great signal and my AP in the bedroom opposite patio though, is fine too. Starlink Wi-Fi is at the patio side for now, it's probably going to get permanently located in the cord reel with Wi-Fi disabled so I have a grommet access into a bay for the cable with a dishy on the roof. Oh the puzzles this creates for us....

 

[Tnedator]

Dropped WiFi again. Ugh.

Broadcasting outside and having it strong both inside and outside just allows me to use my WiFi wherever from walking the dog, outside at the bench etc. Guess paddle antennas going on WiFi in the morning.

Hmmmm, hadn't planned on putting Wifi outside, but now you have me rethinking. I was thinking about going with the Peplink 42g, but not use the Wifi (40g has no wifi, but am drawing a blank now, but there was something on the Cell side that the 42g was better about).

Will be curious what your results with Wifi inside are if you switch to the 42g

 

[Neal]

The Wi-Fi 6 is outstanding with the paddle antennas. I was thinking an hour ago about running an ethernet from over driver's seat to pegboard bay and putting an AP there then reminding myself I have full strength Wi-Fi there as is. It's a tinker problem! So as I've stated before, I will never get Wi-Fi on the roof again, cellular only antennas. Adding PoE access points is the better solution in my opinion. Throw one at the pegboard bay directed out at the patio if needed but it's not needed in my setup.

 

[Tnedator]

The Wi-Fi 6 is outstanding with the paddle antennas. I was thinking an hour ago about running an ethernet from over driver's seat to pegboard bay and putting an AP there then reminding myself I have full strength Wi-Fi there as is. It's a tinker problem! So as I've stated before, I will never get Wi-Fi on the roof again, cellular only antennas. Adding PoE access points is the better solution in my opinion. Throw one at the pegboard bay directed out at the patio if needed but it's not needed in my setup.

Yea, reading on in the thread, I got to that point. I was thinking at the place I just got a lease (hour away, local lake), having it on the roof could be nice where I walk the dog (crappy cell reception), but I'll probably stick with my original plan of not putting wifi up there. On this lease, I will be adding a deck, and my sister will have a few fifth wheels, so if I want more coverage, another option would be a repeater mounted/powered on the deck, which should pick up my wifi and repeat. Will see once they setup their fifth wheels and we have the decks in place.