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I've had a couple of goes at researching this but there are so many options I'm not clear what I need!
I'd like to be able to stick an external aerial on the roof of my campervan to improve mobile internet reception. At the moment I prop my phone in the rooflight and then hotspot to my laptop or my wife's phone. Sometimes its just patchy internet, more often its being at a event where the number of people onsite just overload the local rural phone mast so it would be nice to point an aerial at an alternative mast slightly further away if possible.
I don't know if a standard 4g router would improve things, or if that would be no better than propping a phone on the roof.
Do I need a specific type of aerial plugged into a standard 4g router that I can point at a specific mast location?
USB powered would be ideal as everything in my van is 12v, no mains voltage.
Finally, not hundreds of pounds!
Thanks for any advice 🙂
Finally, not hundreds of pounds!
I suspect you're out of luck on that front.
For the rest though; I've not really looked at signal boosters/repeaters - I know ofcom relaxed the rules recently, but I don't think there are many legal options - especially for vehicles.
A decent roof mounted antenna and a 4g router will far outperform a mobile phone, I can get a usable connection[0] in some places where I get zero signal standing outside the van on my phone. I'm not sure you'll be able to select which cell tower you'd like to connect to to get a less congested one, I don't know enough about the mobile network to know if that's even possible.
[0] My definition of that is that I can work off of it, and I'd be at least willing to try a call (perhaps with video off).
so it would be nice to point an aerial at an alternative mast slightly further away if possible.
I don't think it really works like that.
This is a useful video
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