Hacking the WeBoost Drive cell booster with a Camco flag pole
When you’re on the road and need to access the Internet there are a number of ways of doing so. Taking advantage of cell phone internet coverage is how we’ve chosen to do so. But what happens when the cell coverage is limited or weak?
We have also chosen to implement a WeBoost Drive 4GX cell phone booster.
WeBoost Drive
The WeBoost system consists of an outside antenna, an indoor amplifier and an indoor antenna. There is also a power adaptor to make the whole thing work and cables between all the devices.
We recently bought a new outdoor antenna which came with 16 feet of cable, enough for what I had in mind.
If you have a motorized RV you might want to permanently mount the external WeBoost antenna permanently. But I wanted something different so I bought a Camco portable flag pole.
Flag pole antenna
This Camco product allows you to drive on a heavy metal base to make for a stable mount. Then there’s a telescoping flag pole mast that goes up a full 20 feet. The various sections of the antenna hold in place like the legs of an old card table. There’s also a hole at the top and an included silver ball with a screw mount.
What I did was not mount the silver ball, but rather mount the included spring mount that came with the WeBoost antenna into the hole. Then I screwed the antenna into the spring mount. It fit so well it was as if it was made for the application.
Further, good on Camco because the American flag that’s included with the pole is actually made in America. Imagine!?
How it works
WeBoost is very specific that the antenna should be mounted away from windows or other metal items and be mounted higher than the highest point on the RV. The flag pole mount accomplishes this keeping the top of the antenna well above the RV.
I’ve been able to try this in a couple of locations thus far, both of them with limited cell phone coverage. The WeBoost system claims that it can boost any cell phone signal up to 50dB which could take a signal from mediocre to relatively strong.
There are a lot of variables associated with this including how far you are from the cell tower, the local coverage, obstacles and all of that.
But what I experienced is that, with the flag pole fully extended and the antenna way up there at the top of the flag pole, the signal boost was significant.
This solution was so effective I was quite shocked.
Installation
We used to have the antenna mounted to the ladder of our old RV. From there we ran a cable in permanently and then mounted the interior antenna and the amplifier to a wall.
Right now I’m running the cable from the outside antenna in through a window until I can figure a more permanent solution. But this solution was easy and, as mentioned, works incredibly well.
Plus I have the benefit of flying the flag high over my campsite. I like that.
Measuring results
Cell signal is measured in decibels, or dBm. The lower the number, the better, essentially. Signals that measure about -110 dBm are almost completely worthless, whereas an excellent signal is -50 dBm. This is also a logarithmic scale so a -3dBm signal change represents a doubling of power.
In other words, a cell signal that measures -76 dBm is twice as powerful as a cell signal that comes in at -79 dBm. WeBoost claims it can provide up to -50dBm of gain – which is really impressive – and, of course, this depends on a lot of factors.
How do you know your signal strength?
Smartphones come with a field test mode. While we are used to seeing the bars on the phone to represent signal strength, smartphones can be placed into field test mode to show the actual decibel reading. iPhones and Android phones access this differently and if you’re nerdy enough, as I am, it’s easy to find how to determine this.
On two recent outings I measured the results of the weBoost to see what was actually happening.
On the coast when the weBoost was turned off I was getting -135 dBm, which means I wasn’t able to use the phone for anything more than holding the door open. With the weBoost turned on the signal went to -115 dBm, which wasn’t great but made it so I could at least make a lousy phone call.
However, the fact that the boosted signal was so meager explained why the campground had two working pay phones on the property.
While camping in the Redwoods recently I did a similar test and the cell signal went from -105 dBm to -80 dBm, which is a significant change and made a vast difference in my phone’s usability.
In summary
When we had the older trailer with the exterior antenna mounted to the ladder, I wasn’t overly impressed with the WeBoost system. While it occasionally resulted in some signal boost, it wasn’t the be all end all that I had hoped.
Now, with the flag pole and the outside antenna mounted much, much higher and away from the RV, I’ve been thrilled with the results.
Of course there are disadvantages including the fact that I have to be able to raise the flag pole from a specific place on the RV. This is due to there being only one of the four wheels on our trailer that isn’t obstructed by either the slide room or the awning.
However I also know I could use the tongue jack and put the flag pole mount under that as well.
We do have an article about the tools we use to stay connected on the road.
