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Last Changed 5/13/2011 |
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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. |
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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 HN7000S modem. The local LAN allows
us to share files and the printer.
When we are on wireless connections to the park Wi-Fi, we lost
connection to our printer and shared file store, an inconvenience. |
click on image to enlarge |
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. |
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
HN7000S 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. The new name for WISP
equipment is now Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
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.
Since we have the CPE/WISP setup, we prefer to use park Wi-Fi when we can.
If park Wi-Fi is available, we can use it. Not that park Wi-Fi is always that
good. We have even managed to use a free Wi-Fi source that outside the
park we were in when the park Wi-Fi failed.
If click on the LINK you will download a 29MB Zip file with documents on how to setup
and operate a Deliberant CPE-2 with screenshots of each step.
The is a new alternative to the Deliberant radio,. the Ubiquiti
Bullet 2HP radio. A description of an installation of a Bullet is found at
Bullet Install, |
To accompany he Bullet installation, there are
also these documents:
And to assist the setup:
And finally, to configure the CradlePoint MBR1000 wireless router (Note - the MBR900 and MBR1200 are very similar):
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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 had top replace the DLB2310 with a Deliberant CPE-2 which is like the DLB2310
with the addition of a built-in flat panel antenna. We still used the 15db
omni-directional antenna.
Since we glued the DLB2310 to the roof, we mounted a bracket to the DLB2310 case
and used it to mount the CPE-2. |
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We mounted the omni-directional antenna onto a 4’ mast extension,
normally used with a boat VHF antenna. |
click on images to enlarge |
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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. |
click on images to enlarge |
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 HN7000S 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.
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When we added an air-card setup, we moved a lot of the LAN equipment
around in the
trailer and added a second C{E radio. The changes are covered in
Air-Card Installation.
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