4G mobile signal booster

If you intend using it in the UK you may want to check if it's legal, as most cell phone boosters are illegal to use.
 
Ofcom have detector vans of course, just like the tv people.

No idea. You'd probably only get caught if it interferred with something else. I think there are legal ones, not cheap though, but they have to have the ability for the mobile networks to control them.
 
Amazing how many websites sell these illegal boosters. While it is Illegal to use what about owning one?

Not that I am condoning such illegal activity.
 
2copplane said:
Family and friends have a selection of mobile and tablet devices and I'd like to install a signal booster to extend the signal further offshore. In particular so MAis running on my ipad will show my position further.

Has anyone experimented with any low cost solution such as :

http://www.lightinthebox.com/70db-1...rds_shopping&gclid=CP7No4veqMYCFUvJtAodiqQOdg
Click to expand...
Interesting to note the output power is only 27dBm. That's half a watt.
So actually less power than a phone, but effectively about the same due to the antenna gain (i.e. the power is focussed toward the horizon).
This would be consistent with it being intended to provide coverage in a building from an antenna on the roof, for example.
In the old days, you could have got the same benefit with a 'car kit', i.e. exterior aerial and amplifier in a box, plugged into your phone.

There may be an issue keeping enough isolation between indoor and out door aerials on a yacht, but it could well control the gain so it does not deafen itself?
 
Fewer potential legal issues in using one of the mi-fi dongles that has an external antenna port. Three do one. Combine that with a good high-gain mobile antenna up the mast, or at a pinch even just hoist the dongle up there, and you'll have the best bet of a good wifi internet connection on board. No good for calls but who calls on phones anyway anymore?

Combine it with a PAYG data SIM and it's a reasonably cost effective solution.
 
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abraxus said:
Ofcom have detector vans of course, just like the tv people.

No idea. You'd probably only get caught if it interferred with something else. I think there are legal ones, not cheap though, but they have to have the ability for the mobile networks to control them.
Click to expand...

How can they tell they are detecting a boosted signal, rather than a normal 4G signal, and why would it matter to anyone if you were merely boosting a weak, unuseable signal to normal levels. If you had a normal level signal, you wouldn't be boosting it - would you?
 
yachtailsa said:
Fewer potential legal issues in using one of the mi-fi dongles that has an external antenna port. Three do one. Combine that with a good high-gain mobile antenna up the mast, or at a pinch even just hoist the dongle up there, and you'll have the best bet of a good wifi internet connection on board. No good for calls but who calls on phones anyway anymore?

Combine it with a PAYG data SIM and it's a reasonably cost effective solution.
Click to expand...

This is more or less what I have... a Huawei unlocked mifi with antenna socket, with an EE 4G data sim, and an antenna on the TV Aerial mast. Near Lymm for 3 weeks in May, the signal was unuseable without the aerial, but very useable with.

On my normal mooring, the signal is useable without the aerial, but much better with it.

Having said that, if I'd known about 4G boosters, I'd probably have bought one, rather than the aerial.
 
yachtailsa said:
Fewer potential legal issues in using one of the mi-fi dongles that has an external antenna port. Three do one. Combine that with a good high-gain mobile antenna up the mast, or at a pinch even just hoist the dongle up there, and you'll have the best bet of a good wifi internet connection on board. No good for calls but who calls on phones anyway anymore?

Combine it with a PAYG data SIM and it's a reasonably cost effective solution.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've an EE data contract with 10gb allowance that I currently use in a 'free' Alcatel tablet as a hotspot so may look to try the the mifi with aerial with that.
However doesn't get me me an improved mobile signal...
 
They can easily detect it because the signal will be picked up by several widely separated masts. What they'd do about it, I don't know. But they detected my friends illegally spec'd home telephone base station, which had the power to allow him to "roam" all over town, and they came knocking on his door.

They confiscated it, and left him with a stern warning.
 
Richard10002 said:
How can they tell they are detecting a boosted signal, rather than a normal 4G signal, and why would it matter to anyone if you were merely boosting a weak, unuseable signal to normal levels. If you had a normal level signal, you wouldn't be boosting it - would you?
Click to expand...
It matters because aparently it can intefere with the rest of the network and bugger up conectivity for everyone else. There are legal boosters, which are approved by the networks, as they allow the networks to access them and turn them on and off remotely to avoid problems.

The detector van reference was just tongue in cheek.
 
Am I right in thinking there is some confusion here?

I wanted the best possibe 3/4G signal on board so I could continue to connect as far as possible off shore or in "remote" locations. The answer seemed to be a booster.

However a booster "takes" whatever signal is passed to it by the aerial and retransmits the signal in often a relatively small "bubble" around the booster. Essentially the more you pay for the booster the bigger the bubble.

Now that seems fine, but I use devices that dont have a 3/4G sim installed so they are never going to connect anyway. Moreover if the only signal available to be boosted is, for example EE, its not much good if the other device is a Vodaphone. So a better solution to me seems to be a 3/4G router, The sim is now located in a single device and the "signal" is retransmitted as WiFi, which means any WiFi device can now access the 3/4G network and as long as I have the "right" sim in the router all is well. The router is "legal" because it is not boosting the 3/4G signal. So far, so good. I accept that this means friends and family will be using your sim. not theirs, a possible down side and that unless they can make VOIP calls this will only give them data, emails and texts not voice.

Now I thought a booster would boost the 3/4G signal. I dont think so. It makes no difference to the signal the booster actually receives. What does make a difference is the quality of the aerial connected to the booster and the length and quality of cable between the booster and aerial. I started with a poor quality (albiet expensive) aerial and a long but again poor quality cable between aerial and booster. There was almost no difference betwen the signal strength received by the router and an on board phone. I note that the aerials sold with boosters are equally often of poor quality.

I then replaced the aerial with the highest gain omnidirectional aerial I could find, moved the router so it was within 3 metres of the aerial and connected the two with the lowest loss cable. The difference was extraordinary. I now regularly have data access 15 miles offshore and almost never without an "on shore" connection.

The purpose built marine devices that make similiar claims I think do exactly the same job such as Hubba albeit they place the sim in the aerial which I think is cumbersome because if the aerial is mounted high up its a pain changing the sim. Of course they do this to minimise signal loss in the cable, but I think with really low loss cable over a short length this is minimal. More to the point a good aerial, router and low loss cable is less expensive and offers more options in terms of functionality and connectivity.
 
Which high gain aerial do you suggest? I currently use one I purchased at the same time as the mi-fi .. it does help but not as much as I had hoped.
 
2copplane said:
Thanks, I've an EE data contract with 10gb allowance that I currently use in a 'free' Alcatel tablet as a hotspot so may look to try the the mifi with aerial with that.
However doesn't get me me an improved mobile signal...
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delayed reply. The external antenna socket with a high gain antenna up the mast is what improves the signal. The signal amp and processing in your device is already pretty efficient I'm skeptical about what good a "booster" can do unless it has a better antenna, which you can solve legally by getting a better antenna yourself and plugging it into the Mi-Fi...
 
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