SURECALL2GO 3.0 RV is here. Testing & perma install soon

[Mansderm161]

Interstate surgery

[Mansderm161]

I just got to Naples and meet with Lew Farber tomorrow. Tentatively, I was planning on having him install WeBoost along with my solar and battery upgrades. I'll ask about this other option. I have Tmobile and I think it will help east of Texas; going west, I'll probably have to change carriers. My biggest problem with bars is in campgrounds. I'm pretty good on all freeways except West Virginia mountains.

[Alex AVI]

Originally Posted by Mansderm161

I just got to Naples and meet with Lew Farber tomorrow. Tentatively, I was planning on having him install WeBoost along with my solar and battery upgrades. I'll ask about this other option. I have Tmobile and I think it will help east of Texas; going west, I'll probably have to change carriers. My biggest problem with bars is in campgrounds. I'm pretty good on all freeways except West Virginia mountains.

MANSDERM161 - I am not up to speed on which carriers are good on west vs east coast. Been stuck with Sprint for ages, due to very nice family plan thru son-in-law who is a manager there. I didnt realize how well the new cell boosters help. Whichever one you buy, it will be big boost to signal (no pun intended). Just be sure Lew gets max separation between indoor & outdoor antennas to maximize its effectiveness & prevent oscillation issues. FYI horizontal & vertical spacing counts in separation figures.

[Mansderm161]

Thanks

[Alex AVI]

Booster mounted behind front tv

Booster is now mounted in it's perma spot. It's in the cavity created by front tv mounting cabinetry. Perfect spot for it.


Antenna sticks down perpendicular during use.


Flips up when needs to.


Then swings out of the way to the side, flush against forward compartment framing.

[Alex AVI]

FINAL UPDATE (hopefully)

Hoping this is the last time I have to open up my interior panels. Due to some overwhelming abundance of free time (since AI is hibernating until after holidays), I decided to bite the bullet and attempt the shortest run from the C/S rear roof corner to the middle of front overhead compartment. My original run estimate had a generous allowance of 3-4 " per turn (lateral or vertical), which came close to 29-30 ft. The more direct route with the least amount of turns saves me about 8-9 ft or 21-22 ft. run. SureCall only sells 10, 20, 40 etc. cables and my kit comes with 40 ft. A local shop can fabricate the cable to my specs. But the pricing was such that I was better off purchasing the crimper and at same time get 90° N-type connector so I won't bend the cable too tightly for the outdoor antenna connection. Final location was on the exterior of the rear awning cap. Had to bend the bracket a few degrees so it was perfectly plumb. Added few extra bolts to the cap/base to further secure the cap to its mounting base. AS secures cap with1 set screw & 2 strips of industrial velcro, that seemed to be good enough, I just wanted redundancy for an expensive antenna

Why did I go through this, rather than just go with SureCall Tech Support recommendation of just coiling the excess 18-19 ft.? For one, the booster is behind the front tv bracket enclosure and there isn't much more room there. And I would have to wind it up pretty tight to even try. And the tv would end up crushing that big bundle for it to engage the latches. The physical space issue could result in an electrical & transmission issue. Besides, it looks so much better with it cut to spec & just a few inches slack on both ends.

[Lotus54]

The shorter your RF cable, the better (in a duplexer there are other factors, not here)- especially with higher freqs.

Some of those cables/terminations can be harder to do a proper crimp than others. A poor crimp can make a huge difference. I always used a wattmeter to assure no excessive reflective power.

It will be interesting to see how you like it after a few months use. Sounds pretty good so far.

Around here- Sprint is awful, the best is Verizon with AT&T getting better.
Often pick up Canada, which used to cause lots of calls to take roaming charges off. At least that doesn’t happen all the time now.

Mark

[Alex AVI]

Originally Posted by Lotus54

The shorter your RF cable, the better (in a duplexer there are other factors, not here)- especially with higher freqs.

Some of those cables/terminations can be harder to do a proper crimp than others. A poor crimp can make a huge difference. I always used a wattmeter to assure no excessive reflective power.

It will be interesting to see how you like it after a few months use. Sounds pretty good so far.

Around here- Sprint is awful, the best is Verizon with AT&T getting better.
Often pick up Canada, which used to cause lots of calls to take roaming charges off. At least that doesn’t happen all the time now.

Mark

LOTUS54 - so glad someone here agrees with me that the shorter, the better; of course the caveat being I have enough distance between indoor/outdoor antennas to prevent oscillation. I was having a tough time convincing SureCall Tech Support of this as they non-chalantly said "absolutely no problem just coiling your extra 19 ft. in a softball-sized" cable mass sitting on top of booster. Wwhat? Was he asleep during Transmission Theories 101 in college? I am no Transmission & RF Propagation expert but one would think they would know better than saying stuff like that.

Anyways, since you mention Sprint, I don't know if Verizon/ATT is better here coz I have only had Sprint forever via the family plan of son in law who is a Sprint manager in CO. I wonder how the merger with TMobile will affect?

I never had my own transmission metering equipment, since it wasn't my field plus I had friends who had them (remember I worked in HP Computer division and had old college buddies who were in HP Test & Measurements division, one of the best test equipment around - I miss those days with free access to any test equipment ). But those friends are in Silicon Valley. So no easy access to them now. But when I visit son in law in CO after winter, he said he can have their regional tech folks who do their installs do the measurements to check my setup and minimize losses if they can. The good thing about having them test it is they have the latest equipment I would want to use: variable signal sources, latest power meters, spectrum analyzers, and network analyzers. All for free

[bugsbunny]

You are making all of us EE's jealous you know....

[Lotus54]

Originally Posted by Alex AVI

The good thing about having them test it is they have the latest equipment I would want to use: variable signal sources, latest power meters, spectrum analyzers, and network analyzers. All for free

I always liked trying out the newest test gear. While I was still a tech, we were mandated to use P25 ‘digital’ equipment (even though it didn’t work very well around here) and of course needed the gear to test it.
The small IFR (Aeroquip by then) with with a nice display and loads off goodies was wonderful when flying to mountaintop sites.

Most was lower frequency (~160.xxxmHz) with some lisenced 900 point to point.


Mark

[Alex AVI]

Originally Posted by bugsbunny

You are making all of us EE's jealous you know....

BUGSBUNNY - I am in the same jealous camp now too because I only get to visit Silicon Valley once a year if I am lucky, to check out the latest. If it didn't take so long to drive there from LV, I would visit every month. HP retirees have a gold badge (literally, colored gold) which allows us normal access to non-sensitive areas.

Originally Posted by Lotus54

I always liked trying out the newest test gear.
Mark

LOTUS54 - I am a sucker for new equipment, especially bleeding edge tech. I guess having done prototype work in HP has made me accepting of newest gear. It is risky at times, especially now that I have to buy my own, but also rewarding when you Beta test something and then become instrumental in helping make it better.

[InterBlog]

Yet another comment that does not lend itself well to Social Knowledge LLC's thread structure. This right here is the most recent and arguably the most relevant of the cellular booster threads, so I'm going to put it here.

Along with your booster, you're going to need cellular signal receivers into which the signal is to be boosted. You might be OK just with your phone, or you might be like me, in need of additional options.

In 2018, possibly in anticipation of the 5G roll-out, cell providers backed off the model of the cheap air card add-on. In addition to my phone, I have a Verizon Netgear hotspot that costs me $20 per month - very reasonable for the amount of usage it gets. It makes sense for me to pay for that add-on.

-- EXCEPT --

Verizon has whiteholes in some of the most interesting recreational areas of Texas, including in deep East Texas, where we have a lot in Texas Airstream Harbor:



These whiteholes are beyond aggravating. I need to maintain connectivity for work purposes, so "no cell coverage" is unacceptable. AT&T has coverage in those whiteholes, and my husband is an AT&T cellular subscriber. But AT&T now wants $50/mo plus $200 in equipment charges for their air card equivalent of what I already pay for with Verizon. Financially it makes no sense. That's more expensive than buying unlimited high-speed cable for your stick-and-brick.

But AT&T is now offering their Mobley device for a limited time only, for the sought-after price of $20/mo. We have one on order. It is designed to work in a vehicle's OBD port, but there are conversion devices that can be used to power it from USB. I'm researching that this morning. The device is obviously not hassle-free, but for the price, I will consider working with it.

Anyway, for work purposes, vendors such as Cradlepoint have always argued to me that I need to maintain both Verizon and AT&T in my kit bag. I've been trying like hell to get by without paying charges to both providers. This might be a reasonable compromise.

Here's Cherie's video describing the Mobley. If you are considering this option, this is a must-watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLDR-l8b5Eg

[Alex AVI]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

But AT&T is now offering their Mobley device for a limited time only, for the sought-after price of $20/mo. We have one on order. It is designed to work in a vehicle's OBD port, but there are conversion devices that can be used to power it from USB. I'm researching that this morning. The device is obviously not hassle-free, but for the price, I will consider working with it.

Here's Cherie's video describing the Mobley. If you are considering this option, this is a must-watch:

INTERBLOG - Sounds like ATT Mobley is a great cheap way to get if you are able to figure out the hassles associated with said sleep-mode when engine is turned off. Can't get any better for that price. If I was not already tied semi-permanently to Sprint via my son-in-law's employee plan, I would consider buying this or other dedicated hotspot for the rv & our highest mileage daily driver. Keep posted how it works. If there is a good way to keep it running while rv is docked in place and ignition off, I may get one myself.

Our Sprint Employee Wireless Advantage Club Program is $30 per line (unlimited data, unlimited talk & text in Mexico/Canada), Global roaming, Hulu, Tidal, HD stream @ 1080, no throttling until after 50GB and each phone has 50GB of mobile hotspot. So we have at least 200GB mobile hotspot per month. Way more hotspot than we ever need. While Sprint isn't the best nationwide, it works really well in my local area and most places we frequent (so far). One of the things we do is dedicate our old S7 phone as our mobile hotspot rather than tying up our personal phone in hotspot/tether mode. For $30, it is much cheaper than any provider's hotspot data plans. While 50GB/phone hotspot is not unlimited, we never gone over even with grandson's primary usage being YouTube & Netflix at Low Or Medium setting (300MB/hr.) while in minivan or rv. And if we ever max out, we have all the other family members 50GB hotspot to switch if if ever necessary.

Having the SureCall Fusion2Go (RV version) works really great with this too, because it services the entire rv and all it's phones without issue much better than the standard vehicle single user version. I read in SignalBoosters that this RV version supports up to 4 devices. But that is not anywhere in the SureCall docs. We have certainly gone beyond 4 devices and noticed no issues. Not sure where SignalBoosters got that info from.

[InterBlog]

ALL STOP ON MOBLEY -

LB_3 just stumbled out of bed and announced that AT&T (or someone pretending to be) informed him via text message that our new Mobley has already racked up over $1,000 in international roaming charges.

Except we haven't even activated it yet. And the physical device is here in our house, not in some international location.

Something stinks with this deal, obviously. Even if the St. Louis phone number rings through to a scammer, how did they acquire my husband's AT&T account information, which they clearly have?

Details to follow.

[azflycaster]

It is a scam. That number has been doing robocalls...

https://forums.att.com/t5/Network-Co...g/td-p/5594859

[InterBlog]

AT&T confirms that the debt is real. The Mobley was shipped to us with massive debt pre-loaded.

My husband had to go into a work meeting, but he is working on a resolution.

Edit: To clarify what Richard said above, that number is commonly spoofed. The St. Louis number is actually an AT&T customer service number. But scammers may use it to spoof people.

In other words, they are not calling from that number, but they have hacked Caller ID to make it LOOK as if they are.

[Rocinante]

Whenever you get a txt like that, ignore the text and log directly onto your account to see whether anything is actually going on. Do not, under any circumstances, call the number provided in the text message.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Rocinante

Whenever you get a txt like that, ignore the text and log directly onto your account to see whether anything is actually going on. Do not, under any circumstances, call the number provided in the text message.

Correct. That is what my husband did. That is how he confirmed that AT&T (the REAL one) does believe that he owes this massive debt for a device not yet activated by us.

[Rocinante]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Correct. That is what my husband did. That is how he confirmed that AT&T (the REAL one) does believe that he owes this massive debt for a device not yet activated by us.

I wonder whether this has anything to do with the strangeness wrt the SIM installed in the Mobley vs. the SIM in their database. When we got our new Mobley, the SIM in the unit did not match the SIM in their database. I better go check...

Meanwhile, please share what you learn, (e.g. how in the world this happened and how quickly they are fixing it for you).

[InterBlog]

OK, I have more info now on what happened to my husband.

Allegedly, the group selling the Mobley is fraudulently placing additional cellular lines on some buyers' AT&T accounts at the same time as they are adding the legitimate Mobley line to those accounts.

They then proceed to rack up extreme charges on the buyer's account before they are detected and shut down by AT&T.

Details here:

PSA - AT&T MOBLEY CELLULAR DEVICE FRAUD