WIFI Booster - Antenna and Router
I like to get away from it all, but I like to take it with me too. I mean there are some things that we have grown accustom too that are just too hard to let go of. One of those things is the computer and along with that, the internet. It is such a great tool for entertainment, business, and communications. Now that I have a laptop, I can take it with us wherever we go. It’s so handy making reservations at campgrounds the day before, dropping a line to friends our just catching the news.
This is why we usually stay at RV campgrounds that have Wi-Fi. But that’s not enough. A lot of the time campground Wi-Fi signals are so weak because they put you in the very back of the campground when the Wi-Fi is up at the office… or the Wi-Fi is so busy that you can’t get a strong signal if any at all. We’re talking bandwidth overload where the signal gets used up and crowded with folks surfing the web and downloading movies and such to the point where your signal gets weaker and slower until you can’t even get on the web.
So to remedy this I started reading about the Wi-Fi booster, of which there are many brands on the market. I wanted one that could reach out way past the normal campground signal in hopes of finding an open system that I could patch onto with hardly anyone else crowding the bandwidth.
Enter the Radio Labs XL Wave Wi-Fi booster antenna and wireless router. So when I was researching Wi-Fi boosters, several looked promising. The Radio Labs and the Wi-Fi Ranger were the ones I narrowed it down too. The Wi-Fi Ranger had a few more whistle and bells on it but was $300 more than the Radio Labs. The Radio Labs seem to me the better deal and I think it has better performance than the Ranger. Then there is the fact that on youtube, everyone liked the Radio Labs tech support a lot better than the Wi-Fi Ranger. Some said they couldn’t even get to speak to a technician…while at Radio Labs the owner answered the phone. I like service…especially since I usually haven’t a clue about this stuff. What I HATE WITH A PASSION are these companies that don’t have ANY phone support!!!
So I went with the Radio Labs Wave XL antenna and wireless router. It comes with the booster antenna (image 1939), which is nearly 5′ long ( the green thing on the outside is a swimming pool toy call a “Noodle”, which is made of a closed cell plastic foam material… I put this around the outside of the antenna to protect it from banging around on the roof when folded down…. images 1953, 1954).
I decided to mount this 5′ Wi-Fi booster antenna onto the crank-up over the air television antenna mast (images 1940, 1956, 1957). That way I wouldn’t have to get up on a ladder or the roof to raise it (I could do that from inside the trailer) and it would also give the Wi-Fi antenna an extra 3′ in height. I ran the wire down one of the legs of the crank-up and secured it with these zip tie mounting pads that are 1″x1″ squares with adhesive on the back and a screw hole (that I used as well). These pads have little slots built into them to hold zip ties to them (images 1941, 1942) to secure the wire (you can find them at Lowes). Then I zip tied the Wi-Fi wire to the tv wire at its base making sure that there was ample wire in case I ever needed to rotate the tv antenna and then ran the wire across the roof towards the front street side edge securing the loose wire with some Eternabond tape (image 1943). Over the edge of the trailer by my satellite locking bracket and on the side up to the front under the molding with more tape (image 1944). When I got to the very front I drilled holes and made them into a square hole so I could pass the end of the wire thru which has a USB connector on the end. I passed the USB wire thru the hole and filled it with some rigid spray in foam (images 1945, 1947) and after it hardened up, I smoothed it out and covered it with some more tape (image 1979, 1978). Now I had my USB Wi-Fi antenna wire on the inside of the cabinet up front above my couch. This wire can directly plug into your computers USB port or into a wireless router (image 1952).
One thing about this router….it runs off of a 110 volt AC converter ( to 12 v @1 a…image 1950) that plugs into a wall socket…but since we don’t have any 110 volt AC service in that cabinet I will use a small DC inverter (image 1980) that I can plug the converter into. Seems silly to have to go from DC to AC then back to DC once again, but it is for the best. The converter that is made to power the wireless router puts out 12 volts @ 1 amp and I didn’t want to over amp the unit…hence why I did it this way. So I installed a cigarette lighter receptacle (image 1946) and powered it off of the cabinet light on the bottom of the cabinet…that way I could plug in the inverter that would power the converter that would power the Wi-Fi router and booster antenna…(da hip bone connected to da ..tigh bone…da tigh bone connected to da….) OK…got all that…GOOD!
Well I thought it was good until I tried to power it all up…KARRAMBA!…the little inverter…she will not come on…**^$%$^&^%$##!!!..I don’t understand…it worked when I plugged the little inverter in the cigarette lighter in my truck…why won’t it work here??? I could give you the whole version here but you can read about that on the page listed as “New Converter Charger Upgrade” page 16. You can guess what happened..right? The short version is this…my old 2003 converter that powers all the 12 volt systems in the trailer had gone wonky! Instead of putting out the nice 12 volts like a good boy…it was pumping out 19 volts and was starting to fry all of the LED bulbs in my trailer. I wasn’t aware of this until I checked the voltage in the light sockets and the cigarette lighter (19 volts!!! YIKES). Then when I unplugged the shore power everything came on and worked like it should because now it was just running off the batteries in the back. The inverter (as it turned out) had a circuit that would not let it power up if over 14 volts. That’s so it wouldn’t fry itself to death. So now I had to have a new converter/charger, which is ok because newer is better anyways and the danger of roasting in my sleep is now greatly diminished and everything works like it should.
With this system I can reach out to Wi-Fi signals all over and not just at the campground and it doesn’t matter where we are parked either. It all fits so neatly in that front cabinet (image 1981). But the best thing is, that since I am getting the 12 volts off of the light there in the front cabinet, my router, antenna and inverter can all be turned off with that little round black switch located in front of the crank for the front popup vent (image 1982).
So with one click…turn off and one more… turn on!