Van Life Router Help!

[cobravenom39]

Hey guys!

New here and found this from doing some "research" over on Reddit. Wife and I currently live in a van fulltime, and have for over a year. We are breaking from the corporate life, but would love to stay in touch while camping and such.

We have a 2020 Ford Transit with At&T unlimited Wifi, but we need to keep the key in the ignition in order to use it. It times out after 30 minutes, so it's hard to play music or watch vids. It is good because it uses an external antenna. You can check out our Instagram to see pics of the rig and such.

https://www.instagram.com/terfandserf/

Both my wife and I have Visible plans and we also bought a cracked phone Pixel 2XL to use as a dedicated wifi hotspot for our Laptop, our tablets and our cameras. I have a Visible sim in there for this as well. Total of 3 Visible phone plans and 1 At&T. We have 5 Blink cameras (1 outside and 4 outside) and a BlackVu DRS 9000 2 channel system. The BlackVue runs in Parking mode off our house batteries so it does time lapse 24 hours. The Blinks are motion detected. It's nice to have the dedicated phone hotspot so I can check on the van remotely.

The only bad part is that the dedicated phone for the wifi doesn't work that well because the reception is terrible in the van. With the insulated window covers up, the van is like a Faraday cage. I considered getting a WeBoost, but it cost $600 and apparently uses a shit ton of energy. We have 400 amp hour of Lithium, but it still uses quite a bit more than I'd like.

After some research, I stumbled across a YouTuber who uses the Mofi4500 with good results. He doesn't go into specifics on the antenna or the power, so I'd like to have you guys review my situation and tell me what you think I should get.

I would like it to be 12V powered, so it can run all the time sans the inverter. I would also like to be able to attach an external antenna to my roof rack.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

[cobravenom39]

Is there place I can post this that I can get one or a few responses? I did some research (I am a noob) and I think that I may want to go with something like this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124517213159 ZBT WE826-Q Router with Quectel EM12-G CAT 12 Modem

Do you guys think it makes sense to buy these together like this and is this a decent price?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Dr-BroadBand]

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Welcome to the group

Would stay away from MoFi and WeBost

If you like building things see the two links below.
It shows step by step how to build a system.

You can get all the needed parts at the The Wireless Haven store
https://thewirelesshaven.com

Part 1: How to build an outdoor POE LTE router
https://youtu.be/-SbNkn1161s

Part 2: How to build an outdoor POE LTE Router
https://youtu.be/WMhEMOqNNwQ

Mobile Internet Resource Center
https://www.youtube.com/c/MobileInternetResourceCenter

[gscheb]

Are you tethering any of these phones to a router?

[gscheb]

If you are could use phone as modem outside the van where signal not blocked by van.
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=15 ... =10#p10833

[cobravenom39]

Are you tethering any of these phones to a router?

I have a cracked screen pixel 2 xl that I picked up up off of Fleabay for cheap that I'm using as a hotspot. The Pixel doesn't limit the number of devices tethered to it, but it gets terrible cell reception and is limited to 5mbps. I would prefer to have a router with an antenna on the roof to kind of act as a booster. I think it would be helpful.

[cobravenom39]

If you are could use phone as modem outside the van where signal not blocked by van.
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=15 ... =10#p10833

Thanks for the suggestions so far, guys. I'm not sure I want to go with the outside router on the van. The van is black and the outside gets SUPER hot during even mild temperatures. Also, it would be subjected to 70+ mph winds and rain when driving.

I would rather mount it inside so I could restart it without going onto the roof and just have a roof mounted antenna.

I'm not confident enough to build a router I think at this point. I'm not really even sure I know enough about the WE862. If anyone has a link to an explanation for dummies or would like to just like to give me a quick high-level description of what's going on...that would be much appreciated.

[gscheb]

Then your only other choice is antenna outside the van and LTE router on the inside. Can't connect antennas to a phone..

[Dr-BroadBand]

Netgear make some modems that may fit your needs, nighthawk mobile modem.

The problem with the nighthawks they work best with AT&T other carriers black list it.

Also it’s hard to tweak things like TTL and band lock.

Make sure you figure out your data/SIM before you start buying hardware

See link https://youtu.be/jqfYooPiowY

[cobravenom39]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! Instead of going MOFI, I did some searching and took your suggestions on a WE826-Q with a Quecetel EM-12-g CAT 12. I went with an ebay unit.

I'm running a Visible SIM, but I'm only pulling 5 mbps down. I have the APN setup for "vsblinternet" but I'm not sure about the other settings. Can someone explain what the "TTL" settings should be?

Also, what antenna do you guys recommend?

[Didneywhorl]

https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2752

and

https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/anten ... rs-bundle/

[cobravenom39]

https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2752

and

https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/anten ... rs-bundle/

Thanks! I'm sorting through these links now. Is the only antenna you guys would recommend? I'm having problems trying to add this to my cart on that website.

[Didneywhorl]

Thanks! I'm sorting through these links now. Is the only antenna you guys would recommend? I'm having problems trying to add this to my cart on that website.

What trouble? The antenna showed up as on backorder, but they are not on backorder. They are in stock. site error.

[Didneywhorl]

I can recommend others, that one is just the most powerful that is also about the easiest to setup.