WiFi Ranger... What is it? This video explains it well.

Sharing this informative video from WiFi Ranger for those who have wondered what it is. I use their product and am quite happy with it.

Jim, You use this with your Mellinicom?

Steve

Steve - yes.

Great, thanks. I'm ordering the Mellinicom today and I will order the Ranger as well.

Maria and I were at Hershey and we met Tom. Tried to get a chance to meet you......but you were surrounded by quite a few people when we saw you. Came back later and didn't see you. My loss for sure.

i told Tom I'd love to see Heartland come back with the Landmark Monticello. Maria and I love this floor plan and don't feel "at home" in any other floor plan we've seen in any of the Landmarks. With us being full timers at the old age of 45....that feel is a must for the long haul. We're crossing our fingers......just maybe.....??

Steve

Hi Steve,

Never say never on a rear living room that can be closed off - if that's what a large enough set of RVers want

If you want to tether the a modem to the WiFi Ranger product via USB, you will need the WiFi Ranger Go as it's the indoor version with the USB port. I use this AND a WiFi Ranger Sky on the RV roof.

That said, I believe you can use the Millenicom modem (and any MyFi like device) with only the WiFi Ranger Sky by connected them via WiFi.
The only reason I have the WiFi Ranger Go is because I need some Ethernet ports for some things I'm doing in my coach. For even more gain, consider one of the two WiFi Ranger devices that clamp to your batwing (RV TV antenna). By raising the batwing, the WiFi Ranger antenna becomes vertical and is super high-mounted for better reception.

The image below is my current setup using the WiFi Ranger, more or less. In my next coach, I plan to add to this setup a bit.

Awesome set up. Thank you for sharing. I need the Ethernet ports as well.

Jim, what is that white thing connected to the Verizon Mifi in your diagram?


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Erika, it's an outdoor antenna for the cellular signal feed to the MiFi.

jbeletti said:

Hi Steve,

Never say never on a rear living room that can be closed off - if that's what a large enough set of RVers want

If you want to tether the a modem to the WiFi Ranger product via USB, you will need the WiFi Ranger Go as it's the indoor version with the USB port. I use this AND a WiFi Ranger Sky on the RV roof.

That said, I believe you can use the Millenicom modem (and any MyFi like device) with only the WiFi Ranger Sky by connected them via WiFi.
The only reason I have the WiFi Ranger Go is because I need some Ethernet ports for some things I'm doing in my coach. For even more gain, consider one of the two WiFi Ranger devices that clamp to your batwing (RV TV antenna). By raising the batwing, the WiFi Ranger antenna becomes vertical and is super high-mounted for better reception.

Click to expand...

How measurable is the improvement with the mifi ranger? I mean, we've been to many parks where the wifi gets slower as more users are on it. Does the ranger pull more bandwidth to give you more reliable connection?


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Erika,

By "mifi ranger", I believe you mean "WiFi Ranger"?

Here's my take on the WiFi Ranger as it relates to use with Campground WiFi systems:

• By being roof-mounted, it increases my ability to pull in a more usable campground WiFi signal, especially for mobile devices (smart phones/tablets) whose built-in WiFi antennas may not be very effective in reliably picking up the campground WiFi signal
• By connecting my devices to the WiFi Ranger, I have a more secure network that I'm using versus having my devices connected directly to the campground WiFi system
• As you eluded to, as more users connect to the campground WiFi system and begin to use the available Internet, everyone gets less bandwidth and Internet gets slower for all. The WiFi Ranger does little to improve this, though you may be connected to the campground WiFi network with a stronger signal due to your antenna being roof mounted and that likely gives you some advantage

A question not asked is "Does my external Cellular Antenna really help me in some way?" The answer is yes. The MiFi, like a cell phone, has a built-in antenna. When I get in areas where the nearest cell site is distant, the available amount of signal to pickup is low. The goal here is to pickup as much of that weaker signal as possible. An external antenna is a big help here. One day, when I know I'm in an area where my cellular signal is lower, I will do some RSSI comparisons with and without the external Cellular Antenna.

For clarity, when I speak above about an external Cellular Antenna, this is used solely for the MiFi (or similar) Cellular Modem. I am not using an external antenna for my cellular phone. If I needed better cellular voice communications, I would consider an external cellular antenna / amplifier / cellular hotspot solution. Expensive - but if you need it.....

jbeletti said:

Erika,

By "mifi ranger", I believe you mean "WiFi Ranger"?

Here's my take on the WiFi Ranger as it relates to use with Campground WiFi systems:

• By being roof-mounted, it increases my ability to pull in a more usable campground WiFi signal, especially for mobile devices (smart phones/tablets) whose built-in WiFi antennas may not be very effective in reliably picking up the campground WiFi signal
• By connecting my devices to the WiFi Ranger, I have a more secure network that I'm using versus having my devices connected directly to the campground WiFi system
• As you eluded to, as more users connect to the campground WiFi system and begin to use the available Internet, everyone gets less bandwidth and Internet gets slower for all. The WiFi Ranger does little to improve this, though you may be connected to the campground WiFi network with a stronger signal due to your antenna being roof mounted and that likely gives you some advantage

A question not asked is "Does my external Cellular Antenna really help me in some way?" The answer is yes. The MiFi, like a cell phone, has a built-in antenna. When I get in areas where the nearest cell site is distant, the available amount of signal to pickup is low. The goal here is to pickup as much of that weaker signal as possible. An external antenna is a big help here. One day, when I know I'm in an area where my cellular signal is lower, I will do some RSSI comparisons with and without the external Cellular Antenna.

For clarity, when I speak above about an external Cellular Antenna, this is used solely for the MiFi (or similar) Cellular Modem. I am not using an external antenna for my cellular phone. If I needed better cellular voice communications, I would consider an external cellular antenna / amplifier / cellular hotspot solution. Expensive - but if you need it.....

Click to expand...

Thanks, Jim, yes I meant WIfi Ranger. As we are "home-basing" in an RV park, park wifi internet and cellular based internet are critical to my work.

I've invested in a Wilson Sleek cellular booster, http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...=aps&hvadid=3527178013&ref=pd_sl_6ud2b5xtvi_p which helps me get "more bars" on my iphone or mifi cellular broadband device, just by setting it in the Wilson Sleek cradle. It has an antenna that (with accessory kit) can be mounted with suction cups in a window. Since I am a little over 2 miles from the nearest att tower, this has worked to help with that signal both in calls and cellular-based internet.

without the Wilson Sleek.


with the Wilson Sleek.

As far as park wifi, that is available as well and is noticeably slower in the evening as more folks get on.

I have looked for a solution to enhance both areas, that's why I asked the questions.




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Erika - thanks for sharing your positive experience with the Wilson Sleek product. It's always good to have options

Jim, your Wifi Ranger is a good solution for park wifi boosting. The Wilson Sleek is a good option for cellular signal boosting. Both seem to be options for the RVer.

How does the Ranger Goto Router work with Apple devices? I have a cradlepoint, but had too many issues with it.


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TravelTiger said:

...How does the Ranger Goto Router work with Apple devices? I have a cradlepoint, but had too many issues with it...

Click to expand...

My WiFi Ranger has worked with everything I've thrown at thus far as follows:
- Apple Macbook Pro (via WiFi)
- Apple iPhone 4s and 5 on iOS 7 and lower - untested on iOS 8 (via WiFi)
- Apple Time Capsule (via WiFi and Ethernet)
- Apple Mac Mini (via Ethernet)
- Raspberry Pi (via Ethernet)
- HP Laptop (via WiFi)
- Smartthings Home Automation Hub (via Ethernet)

Our experience with our first generation WiFi Ranger Go with attempting to stream video content between two Apple devices (from MacBook Pro to Apple TV) wirelessly was a pretty big fail.

Our subsequent experience using using it for its main purpose - plugging a USB Verizon data device into the side and switching between park WiFi and cell data was better but still finicky.

I did find a good use for the device now, though. I recently purchased a Netgear AC1200 wireless repeater which can effortlessly stream full HD video wirelessly between our Mac Mini media server and either of our Apple TV units (one in living room and one in outdoor kitchen). We quickly found out that our Netgear repeater was using our MiFi unit to assign addresses to our devices and subsequently bumped into our MiFi's 10 device limit.

Today, I hooked up the WiFi Ranger and had it connect to our MiFi as its WiFi internet source and set the WiFi Ranger as the Netgear's internet source. Now the WiFi Ranger is handing out addresses to our devices while appearing as the only wireless device connecting to our MiFi unit.

Sort of kludgy but it works. I may go back and run a network cable between the WiFi Ranger and the Netgear unit.

One thing to note. Certainly a good video but when he says "a more secure network" he is generally referring to bad guys seeing into the devices you have hooked up.

My my point here is if you are using a public network as your source it is just that public. So anyone who has the ability can "see" your data. So you are not absolutely secure.

In in another thread I mentioned we hardly ever get a good signal out of park wifi. At our current park we do. But whenever Linda runs a customers credit card or goes online with our bank she switches over directly to our hotspot for added security.

But as as my dad used to say "locks only keep the honest people out". I am sure if someone really wanted to they could also break into a more secure hot spot.

I have aver given some thought of buying another soho device and setting up a VPN so we don't have to worry about data security when on park wifi. But being on the road full time we don't have the other end.

jbeletti said:

In my next coach, I plan to add to this setup a bit.

Click to expand...

Who'd thunk it?

We just lost our DSL line at our campground. So now I am looking at one of these. I have permission (and pay for) backend access to the big "tengo" wifi they have here on site. Basically, I want to give the campground ONE mac address and have all of my devices filtered through it - so that I can continue with my time capsule network inside.... What would be your suggestion for setup? Basically all I want to do is take their wifi signal and use it instead of my DSL line and modem....

Thoughts? How do you like the ranger? It's a lot of money to spend, but it would definitely be cheaper than paying for wifi somewhere else.

Hi Mizmary,

I use a Pepwave Surf-on-the-Go to connect to Tengo Internet. All of my devices in the coach then connect to the Pepwave and have internet access. Requires only one Tengo coupon.

However, let me suggest that you ask the park about the Tengo bandwidth policy. We're currently at La Hacienda Resort in Austin, TX. Tengo here allows one coupon per site with a 750 MB limit on data consumption per day at high speed, after which they slow you down to 56 Kb/sec (dialup speed). Our park in Colorado has a limit of 1 GB per day after which you're slowed to 100 Kb/sec. Tengo may be your only choice, but it can be very limited in what is provided.