Category Archives: Enhancements

Antenna installation or putting a hole in the roof!

Posted on by

One goal I wanted to accomplish during our time in one spot, was to enhance our cellular and WiFi connectivity. In my previous post about electronics, I alluded to the fact that we used a hotspot for cellular. I wanted to put an antenna on the roof for the hotspot to use, which should give better coverage than inside the ‘Faraday’ cage of the Airstream. I already had an inexpensive external antenna connected but why stop there? Additionally, I wanted to be able to connect to any local WiFi that might be available and use it on all devices in the trailer. I found an antenna that did that, although there are others, a Mobilemark LTMG502.

I wanted to add some type of conduit between roof access and inside the trailer. Usually, this is done behind the refrigerator and exiting to the roof through the vent on the roof. This is what I did with the solar install and also did with rear camera install. So we take the refrigerator back out, again. This time it was out for a couple of days. This is what I found:

The wires on the left are for the backup camera and a pull cord for future use. The wires in the center are for the solar panels, the lump in the middle is a jumper to connect the different segments of wires. The wires in the upper right are some Airstream wires.

Ammonia based refrigerators, like the one we have, depend upon airflow from the bottom to the top at the back of the unit. In our ’92 we had a lot of space behind the refrigerator. However, Airstream apparently decided to start building boxes close to the back of the refrigerators to concentrate the airflow and enhance cooling. The drawback, for this project, is that there is only about 1/2″ space between the box and the back of the cooling fins near the top. There was no way to put in a 2 1/2″ conduit like I wanted. Time to revise the plan. I was going to have to go through the box behind the refrigerator. I did some measurements. Here is my little diagram:

What the above denotes is that there is 9 1/2″ from the streetside edge of the refrigerator vent to the wall of the box. I also had to figure out the distance from a known point on the outside of the trailer to the other side of the box wall. Here are the measurements from the roof:

9 1/2″ from the edge of the vent puts me right about the drip moulding on the top of the trailer.

This measurement is from the side of the trailer, offsetting the appropriate inches (I don’t remember the number). The two measurements coincide to show about where the wall is, and where I need to put the hole. I have to put it below the drip moulding, into the curved side. I looked for other solutions but could not find one that I liked.

Time to put the refrigerator back in. But before I do that, I tidied up the wires a bit more:

I tightly secured the camera wire to the wall. I was able to disconnect the solar wires, drill a hole near the top of the box and underneath the box. I could then run the solar wires into the box and out so there was no interference with the refrigerator.

I asked Airstream about running wires in the box and they stated there is no issue with that as they do it all the time. Drilling a hole underneath allowed me to get an inside view:

You can definitely see that Airstream DOES use it for wiring! They have power (yellow), 12vDC, coax from the TV antenna, HDMI cabling in addition to my solar wiring. Plenty of room for my conduit!

Choosing the conduit was not easy. I wanted it flexible, not rigid. I wanted a smooth interior, not ribbed. I wanted it large enough in diameter. The local big box home stores didn’t have what I was looking for so I turned to Amazon. I ended up using this:

This is actually tubing for a pool pump but, at 2 1/2″ diameter, it fit the bill. It, however, was very stiff for most of the time but leaving it in the sun for a while softened it up.

It takes a bit of buildup, mainly mental, to prepare to drill a largish hole in the topside of your Airstream so I took a few days to prepare the other components. Here is the antenna and its’ components:

This shows the antenna, with the 5 cables from it, and the ground plane that is recommended. The 5 cables that come from the antenna are three different types of connections. Two of them are for WiFi, both 2.4GHz and 5GHz which will connect to the router, two of them are cellular connections that will connect to the hotspot. The last cable is for a GPS, which I have no need for until I add some GPS tracker unit for security. The grounding plane is needed for better reception since the antenna will not be mounted directly to the metal roof (see below).

This box will be where I will mount the antenna. This way I can mount the antenna wherever I need to. I will simply stick this to the roof with VHB tape. Here is the assembled antenna:

The wires just hanging free will be encased in a waterproof (even though it should not matter) conduit.

I ran the wires through the 6′ of conduit to the other end:

Now, let’s tackle that hole! This is the approximate area that I need the hole:

The first thing was to drill a test hole:

This enabled me to peer from the underneath to assess where I want put the large hole. The peering view:

I could compare this to the other photo to assess that is is pretty close to where I wanted it, I just have to take into consideration the angle how the conduit is coming through. Remember there are two walls to the Airstream construction. Time to drill!

Mark off the area, tape it up, drill it!

The holes are drilled! Let’s look from below:

I think I got it in the right place. More work up top.

The next question is where to mount the antenna. I wanted in the middle and decided that this location was the best option:

This is on the centerline. It is high for the cellular, it is above the solar panels, the only issue might be to the rear due to the air conditioner. It also was the right distance for the waterproof conduit.

The wires from the antenna are not long enough to get down to my devices so I needed to add an extension. I also used heat shrink tubing on the connections. You can also see the conduit coming through the hole. I had a device to attach to the end but could not get it to work so a simple hose clamp should hold it in place. You also see the pull wire there to ease any other wires I might need to run in the future.

This is all coming into this access box that is VHB’d to the roof and will be thoroughly caulked with Vulkem.

Here is the box ready to close up:

The conduit path worked out pretty well also:

All buttoned up:

The next question is, how does it all work now?

I have connected up all 4 wires to their appropriate devices and the performance is great. On the cellular side, the bars went from 2-3 to a constant 4. Speed from 12Mbps to around 40Mbps. On the WiFi side, connecting to our son’s network, the signal strength has improved by about 20 dB.

It was a lot of work to get all this going, planning being the most, but I am pleased with the results.

Entertainment on the road

Posted on by

For most campers, entertainment while camping is reading a book, sitting around a campfire, hiking some trails. We like that also but we aren’t really camping all the time, we are living on the road. We like our Internet connectivity, TV to watch and shows to stream. How do we do that is what this post is addressing.

Let’s start with a bit of history. Our first trailer had a very small TV with a crank-up Wingard antenna on the roof:

This limited our channels and also only worked when we had shore power. It was not setup for boondocking on 12V power. The Internet was not on any sort of handheld devices yet.

Our next step was to bring our Satellite receiver from home on the road. I would disconnect it and setup a single LNB DirecTV dish at each location. I found a real neat modification that allowed me to make a mount for the dish out of PVC pipe and put the dish upside down on it. Alas I don’t have a picture of it but it was odd looking. Here are representative pictures of the receiver and dish:

This worked very well, as long as we had power. This was all done in our old trailer but things still were similar when we got our new trailer. We started out with the same type of crank up antenna but we had 2 TV’s in the new trailer. It also had a DVD player supplied that fed both TV’s and we could also use the trailer speakers for the audio. They called it surround sound but it really wasn’t.

We lived with that TV setup for a while since we were just taking trips in it from time to time and not full-timing yet. The focus now shifted to the Internet. Our phones now had full blown Internet capability but the laptop, iPad, and other computers did not have access on the road. We need a hotspot (a device that will connect to cell phone towers and provide a local WiFi network). AT&T came through with their ‘Connected Car’ program. We got a Mobley from them:

This unit is designed to create a WiFi hotspot in your vehicle. It plugs into your car’s OBD port (normally down near your pedals). It connects to AT&T towers. With our plan, we could add it as an extra line for $20/month. It provides unlimited data with no caps. AT&T will possibly slow down the data if you surpass 22GB/month, but that is only if the local tower is overwhelmed. But the trailer doesn’t have an OBD port. I got one of these:

This allows me to plug in the device into an 5V USB port. This was a game changer for our Internet access. We could now connect with any network device in the trailer!

Back to TV. When I put on solar over 3 years ago, I replaced the antenna with a King antenna:

This completely replaced the old crank up one and it took up much less space on the roof. So much space, I was able to put an entire solar panel where the old antenna was. We also went back to satellite, this time choosing Dish. We got a Wally receiver and the Tailgater dish:

The reason I went with Dish, and not DirecTV, was the dish needed. Dish is the only one that gives HD (High Definition) content with a small, portable unit. DirecTV requires the same dish (Slimline) that you would use on a home. This one is much easier. Just see if you can see the three satellites in the sky (I use an app), point it to the south and it aims itself. One problem, the receiver uses HDMI and we already have an HDMI device that connects to the TV’s. Airstream uses an HDMI duplicator to send the same image to both TV’s but it only takes one input. Time to put in an HDMI switcher:

This device takes in multiple HDMI inputs and sends them out the output HDMI which is then connected to the HDMI splitter and on to both TVs. It has a remote control and an IR (Infrared) receiver so it can be hidden away.

We ran like this for a few years but needed some upgrades. Many RV Parks have WiFi for their customers but normally it is very poor, both in coverage of the park and bandwidth out to the Internet.

AT&T came up with another device for hotspots. Of course, I had to get it. It is the Netgear Nighthawk M1. I was able to add it to our account for $20/month for unlimited data. This device is amazing! It is fast, easy to connect to and can even extend the parks WiFi. Here it is, notice the connections, they will be mentioned later:

Our TV entertainment now started to include streaming devices. I had a WD TV, Firestick, Roku, Apple TV but I wanted to see it on both TVs. I had to attach them to my HDMI switch.

So I am now stuck with a hodgepodge of devices. The HDMI devices are pretty well consolidated in a cabinet above our seating area in the front. However it makes it difficult to access. There is also the matter of 12V DC power versus 110V AC power. The 12V is easy, just connect to the trailers native power. The 110V requires connected to an RV park, but there is another option.

Our trailer was equipped with an inverter. This is a device that takes battery (12V) power and converts it to 110V AC power so we can run those devices without being hooked up. There are numerous outlets throughout the trailer that are dedicated to the inverter. Both TVs are connected to the inverter outlets. That way, when we are on shore power (hooked up) the power is passed through to the outlets. When we aren’t, we can just push a button and get power to the TVs.

One of the things that I did during quarantine this year was to create new storage drawers in the trailer after removing the bench for our dinette, the link is here. I also created a location for all my electronic devices. I also did some upgrading and adding equipment. I will go over what our current layout is.

I was striving for a setup that required little maintenance, was in one location, allowed a way for all the devices to connect to one location that would not change from place to place. The hotspots that we had created their own WiFi network which we could connect to but you had to connect to each one manually. I knew I needed a router that I could connect the hotspots to. I found one in the Peplink Surf SOHO router (here is the back of it):

This router allows me to connect my Mobley hotspot to the USB connection. I can also connect the Netgear Nighthawk to the WAN (Wide-area network) connection. The software allows me to configure the device to connect to the Netgear via the WAN for Internet connectivity. If that connection would go down, it will automatically switch to the Mobley via the USB. I can also change it if I want to. The router creates its own WiFi network which gives me a specific place to connect all the devices. As you can see the router also has some direct hard-wired connections.

Another function of this router is a capability of WiFi as WAN. This means that I will be able to attach an antenna to the three WiFi connectors and be able to connect to the RV parks WiFi connection (if good enough). This would allow us to use their services if available. Another function that this router has is the capability to be powered with 12V. This means our network is on all the time.

The location for all the equipment is located low in the trailer. An Airstream’s construction basically creates a Faraday cage, a mesh of metal that doesn’t allow electrical signals to pass easily. This degrades the signal of the hotspots and any park WiFi. The solution for the Netgear is to extend the antenna. There are external antenna jacks on the Netgear and I have run cables to the roof and have an antenna mounted outside to the get the cell signals:

For the Mobley, I have placed the device high in the trailer, near a Vista View window so it can get a signal through the glass. It is on the left in this picture:

But what is that device on the right? Until I extend the antennas on the router, I use a separate device to attach to the park WiFi. This device, which is very cost effective on Amazon, will work as a WiFi extender. It connects to any WiFi, such as the park’s, and create a local WiFi network that we can connect our devices to (phone, iPad, laptop) and not use our data plans via the hotspots.

I have two of these devices, one does just 2.4gHz and the other does 2.4gHz and 5gHz. They are extremely affordable and flexible:

I am overall pretty happy with the current setup. I still have a few things to tweak, such as the external WiFi capture, but that will come. If you have any questions about all this, please let me know.