Long Range Wifi for Campervan Usage

[bmouthboyo]

Hi Guys,

OK so I have a nice little VW T25 Campervan that I have been restoring and next year I will be hoping to complete the leisure battery system and get her on the road.

I was inspired by a guide to build a 12v PC here.

Now I may do this in the future but I also stumbled on this nice although expensive solution from Motorhome Wifi: iBoost d8

So my first question is could I easily build my own kit which has the Directional Antenna to a Micro Hub running of 12v for a lot less? Most of the antennas seem to be powered of USB where as thehttp:// iBoost d8 kit seems to have a separate 12v source, or is this just for the HUB and the antenna using the same USB only power?

The original self build guide seems to link to a antenna I cannot source here but is a 36dBI directional antenna.

So my final question is if I decide to build my own kit, will a Chinese imported antenna work OK like this? And does the dBI rating have a big impact? I found one that was 80dBI and many much lower but more expensive.

Cheers

 

[COLGeek]

Any external (to the van), powered antenna is going to help wireless networking performance. Most campgrounds I have used have decent coverage throughout the facilities. That being the case, a directional antenna may be overkill (and unnecessarily complex). A powered, external omni-directional antenna would be my recommendation (within your budget, of course).

 

[kanewolf]

An Engenius ENS202 is a directional outdoor WIFI device that can use WIFI as input and either create a local WIFI signal or connect wired devices. It can be powered off 12VDC. The ENS202EXT is an omni-directional version of the same device.