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Cell Amplifier in the Oliver or In the Tow Vehicle ?


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Now that I have finaly gave up on my old dependable Motorola E815 cell phone and replaced it with a pocket personal computer/cell phone, I am starting to think. Now that is a dangerous thing in it's self.

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Our laptop is mounted in the Jeep. If we cable tether our PPC with unlimited internet to the laptop and to a cell amplifier/repeater, would it be more useful ?

Example: extended distances of internet access to bring up gas prices, ect..

If the amplifier/repeater is in the Oliver, a cable tether is not feasable, and a bluetooth tether may not be possible because of distance.

Question: Will cable tethering the cell phone to the laptop & the amplifier increase internet line speeds versus an RF tether via bluetooth ?

Advice please, before this old redneck mountainboy gets in over his head ! Or am I already ?

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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There are actually multiple options for cell phone boosting. When Chris and I embarked on technomadism last year (as an internet software developer, I must have internet to make a living), I had a Verizon xv6700 as my cell phone that I used for tethering, which was a predecessor to your new PPC. (We also have an air card from Sprint.)

 

After a couple of nights of spotty coverage, I ordered a plug in cell phone booster from 3Gstore.com that works with both devices. (Having FedEx deliver to me at a campsite was mega-fun). There's actually an antenna jack right in your PPC that is likely covered by a small rubber nob.. and this thing just pugs right in there and generally boosts a bar or two - enough to stabilize a spotty signal. This eliminates the need to have a big amplifier built into your Oliver and a lot more affordable (~$70 vs ~$800).

 

The positive to this is that you can take your bandwidth with you anywhere.. you're not dependent upon being in range of your Oliver to get the boost. The negative is that it's not as powerful as a built in booster antenna, and you have an extra device to carry around and extra wires to contend with. Also, the boost only works for the connected device, whereas with the built in booster it amplifies all cell phone devices in the range.

 

 

I've since moved on from the xv6700 to an Apple iPhone (which doesn't support tethering.. legally), but we do still use the sprint air card as our primary internet for our laptops (for now, we'll see how hard they actually enforce their new 5GB of 'unlimited' data limits). So, on our Oliver we're having the cell phone booster installed to boost the aircard and our iPhones. We'll continue to use our connected booster antenna with the air card when we're not soaking up bandwidth by the Oliver.

 

We talked with both the manufacturer and with Pete (of the wonder egg) to get information to determine the best location of the cell phone booster, so that we can reap the benefits from both inside the Oliver and in the tow vehicle. We'll be doing extensive testing once we have our Oliver next week.. and will report back on the results. :)

 

- Cherie

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Very cool, thanks. How important is having the metal roof of a vehicle for a reflective plane ?

The roof of our Jeep wrangler is fiberglass and even weak signals from global positioning satellites are readily recieved inside by hand held electronics.

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I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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