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Last changes 2/11/2007 |
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We have had times when we could not get a shot at
the satellite with our dish because of trees. One of our laptops
has built-in Wi-Fi. The other laptop has a Wi-Fi PCMCIA card.
We also have a USB Wi-Fi adapter that we use with the desktop PC
and the navigation computer in Red Rover. We used these Wi-Fi
connections but we encountered two problems doing this. |
Our local LAN |
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With the three PCs, we also have a LAN printer. When we are on the satellite, we use wired and wireless connections to our
wireless router attached to the HughesNet DW7000 modem. The local LAN allows us to share files and the printer.
When we are on wireless connections to the park Wi-Fi, we lose connection to our printer and shared file store, an inconvenience. |
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Signal Strength |
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The other problem we ran into often was poor signal strength. By nature, RV parks cover a large area of real estate
and quite often have trees that cause interference with Wi-Fi signals. Also, using the Wi-Fi adapters in our laptops,
we were subject to the interference of any other RV between the park antenna and us. This gave us dropped connects
while we were receiving email or web browsing. |
WISP Solution |
The solution we installed for those times when we cannot use our satellite Internet is a WISP (Wireless Internet Service
Provider) radio on the top of our trailer with a high gain (15 db) omni-directional (omni) antenna. This radio connects
to the park Wi-Fi. The enhanced strength of the antenna and it's location on the roof allows connection even in
weak strength areas of the campground. The WISP radio connects to our router just like the DW7000 modem used in the
satellite Internet connection. With this setup, when we are on Wi-Fi, we have a better chance to make connection to
the park Wi-Fi and when we do, we still have our local LAN with file and printer sharing.
We had assistance from Jack Mayer on the selection of the WISP radio, a Deliberant DLB 2310,
and an omni antenna. Jack had good experience with Deliberant products and they offered the WISP mode. We choose an omni
antenna so that we did not have to aim the antenna as we would have had to do with a directional antenna.
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The Deliberant DLB 2310 was mounted on the fiberglass roof of our trailer. We used 3M 5200 Adhesive Caulk to attached the
radio. The radio receives it power through the Category 5 (Cat-5) wire that is also carrying the logic signals to the router.
The antenna connects to the DLB2310 with a type N cable. |
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We mounted the omni-directional antenna onto a 4’ mast extension, normally used with a boat VHF antenna. |
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We also used a fold-down boat antenna mount. This gave us an easy way to erect and collapse the antenna.
Our boating experience gave us more options to do this installation.
In addition to screwing the mount to the roof, we glued the radio and the antenna base to our fiberglass roof.
We used 3M 5200 adhesive caulk that is another product we knew about due to our boating history. |
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We ran a outdoor grade Cat-5 cable from the DLB2310 across the roof using regular RV roof caulk by making puddles
along the Cat-5 cable to hold it in place. |
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We routed the Cat-5 cable from the roof to the belly by following the same path we created for the solar wiring.
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Then we routed the Cat-5 cable from the front right electric compartment to the left rear slide into the entertainment
compartment where the wireless router is located. |
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We ran the Cat-5 cable, along with a coax cable, in a plastic conduit run attached to the belly of the trailer. |
click on images to enlarge |
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The Cat-5 cable from the Deliberant radio is connected to a power injector in our electronics compartment in the living
room. We connect the power injector to our wireless router with a Cat-5 patch cable.
When we use the Deliberant 2310 as a WISP radio, the Cat-5 patch cable is plugged into the Internet port of the router. |
click on images to enlarge |
When we use the DW7000 satellite modem, the patch cable is plugged into one of the switch ports of the router and
the Deliberant 2310 is setup to run as an Access Point (AP). We use the swap cable method rather than using a RJ45 switch. |
