Cell Booster install

[Mule]

Got tired of shitty coverage in the mountains. Have a booster (older Wilson) in the F550, and it works well. Time to get one in the PW.
Mag-mount/NMO antenna up last week. Might drill a hole next summer, for now i'll deal with mag-mount. (If I do drill the roof, i'll probably knock out a hole for UHF too).
Swept the antenna with my analyzer, found a bad connection on the PL259 side. Cut and reterminated with Mini-UHF (was going to do that anyways).


Wilson cell antenna. Better performance than the dinky little mag-mount that comes in the booster kit.


Fired up the label printer and went bananas. Labelled the booster, coax (since i've got several dangling back there now), and mount.
WeBoost Drive 4G-X. Wilson amplifier's consumer stuff was rebranded ZBoost, guess there was a copyright claim with that name so now they're WeBoost.


Pulled the rear platform/seat, tek-screwed the bracket to the floor with some standoffs to elevate the bracket/amplifier off the carpet. Little more airflow for the device (air vents on the bottom sides), and a little more elevation to clear the power cables to the amp.


I have good battery-power back here. Since the amp's back here, I've got turn-on from the headunit... Quick wiring harness to a relay - coil driven by the remote turn-on, switching power to a connector.


Acceptably clean.
Inside antenna is in the lower center console - close to the phone in the cupholder or on the center console, and should provide a good bubble of coverage anywhere in the cab.


Kind of a shitty design for the power supply, given it's designed for mobile/automotive use. Not sure why they didn't integrate the power brick into the booster itself.


Cut the cig.lighter connector off, install 5A inline fuse, and crimp on an Anderson connector.


Seat in, platform in. Seat protects the equipment from abuse/damage caused by gearbag/tools/etc.


Didn't completely "hard-wire" this in here - I wanted it to be somewhat removable. Most of its use is going to be in my pickup.
We've got a booster in the F-550 that pulls our avalanche education classroom trailer, but we currently don't have anything in the trailer. Some areas we teach out of have very weak service even with the booster in the pickup, but we can usually "drag in" signal to the trailhead with the omni on the roof.
I ordered a surveyors tripod, going to get a directional antenna and some cable/hardware early this week. Build something so I can pop the booster out of my pickup and use it in the trailer when we're in weak areas, and bring cell service into the trailer (it's a very good faraday cage). Being somewhat portable also gives me some options in the summer if needed.

Back seat down and everything's hidden away.

[DamageWagon]

I dig it!! How much of a difference are you getting from the boosters? Most of the places we have gone in the West there has usually been some form of coverage and it was more an issue of weak signal than no signal. I’ve wanted to do one of these for a while.

[Mule]

Testing in the truck this evening I got about 20dB better on voice and 10dB better on 4G. (Measured on the phone's info screen.)
Testing in the house earlier I got about 10dB better all around, but the outside antenna was in a real shitty position and had no ground plane. It did help though, and I saw the same 10dB gain in PCS band on my spec an (didn't look at everything, just pulled up the first preset in the list).

My house is in a big radio hole - can't get out to anything reliably.
Voice on the phone drops in ~5min in the house, and it's hard on the battery.
Data will show 1-bar 4G if i'm on wifi, if I shut wifi off it'll drop to 1-bar 3G, then if I try and do anything more than the occasional email or telegram message (like loading a webpage or trying a speed test), it'll drop to 1x and toggle between that and no-service.
UHF and 800meg are the same way - i'm in the shadow-zone of the foothills from the big sites. I have LoS to a few sites (broadcast, public safety) but the foothills are in the fresnel zone.

Out in the pickup in the driveway I've got better service (it'll hold a 4G data connection, and voice calls work pretty well).

Real test will be in the mountains this winter.

[Mule]

Also worth noting, and it might seem obvious, but - It's not going to "make" service where there isn't anything.
It will boost a weak signal into something useable.

If you want service where there isn't anything, you'll need IP (Satellite works well; ~$1000 hardware and $100/mo) and a cellular network extender ($100-$250).
Mutual-aid for sheriffs office this summer... verizon pushed a bad update to the sites, took cellular down for over a day. Phone still had bars, but something between BTS and switch was broken. Couldn't make/receive calls.
Satellite up and aligned, turned on; Incident-command trailer now has internet. Network extender turned on, now there's a little bubble of phone service around the trailer that's completely independent of any local infrastructure.

[TankerZak]

I have this same booster. I get about 2 bars. I have an antenna installed in my RV and a mobile kit for the truck. So if you have 0 coverage you still have nothing. But if your in that, i have coverage but nothing works or barely works it becomes useable. You do have to basically be right ontop of the internal antenna though with your phone.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[OffroadTreks]

I've had two of these for years. It's in my build thread. One in the truck, one in the Airstream. they work.

[Mule]

Portable booster is a go. Tripod, adapter plate, pole mount, and antenna.
~90ft of (kinda shitty) RG58, might try a different/better brand with a little more shielding... don't really want to make the jump to LMR400, but it'd help with the cable loss quite a bit.
Will give it a go from the mountains near Togwotee Pass in a little over a week.

[Mule007]

Good work & good luck !

[OffroadTreks]

Portable booster is a go. Tripod, adapter plate, pole mount, and antenna.
~90ft of (kinda shitty) RG58, might try a different/better brand with a little more shielding... don't really want to make the jump to LMR400, but it'd help with the cable loss quite a bit.
Will give it a go from the mountains near Togwotee Pass in a little over a week.

That's similar to what I use on the Airstream, but I did opt for the LMR400. Quality stuff, very stiff though.

[Mule]

Tripod worked great. Hooked it up to my service monitor to DF the tower, then connected the line into the trailer.


Just cut/reterm'd the cable tonight... 30ft and 60ft lengths. 30's really all we need in the trailer, and going shorter really helps with loss through the shitty cable.


Solid 3-bar 3G inside the trailer. No issues with a couple phones/laptops tethered.