How thick is the roof of my Elkridge?

[09Busaman]

Not that I want to do it, but I need to drill a hole in the roof of my Elkridge 37BAR. Will be installing a Weboost and I want to put the booster near the bar TV and power outlet. I plan to start from the inside and drill up, does anyone know the distance from the interior ceiling to the roof? I am hoping I can reach it with a 3/4" paddle bit. Thank you for any information.

 

[GK2018]

I'm not sure the thickness of the roof but I know you can get a 3/4" paddle bit that has at least an 8" shaft from Lowes and it would definitely go through the distance you're looking at. From personal experience and making mistakes before, I would recommend starting on the inside of the RV and drilling upwards instead of from the roof down and sometimes a small pilot hole going from one end to the other end is better than starting out with the main hole because smaller is easier to repair than bigger. Be careful to keep an eye out for any electrical wires, duct work etc. I'm sure someone on here knows the roof thickness and will chime in. Good luck!

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[danemayer]

Given that the roof material is rubber, you may want to have a board pressed down on the roof where drilling up. The bit may twist the rubber, and a board may reduce the twisting.

 

[Bogie]

Ditto what Dan said. In fact, if it were me, after the pilot hole, I would get up on the room and cut an X or a small hole in the roof membrane before drilling. If the drill catches the rubber, you could do more damage than you bargained for. The roof membrane is not very thick. A sharp xacto knife should do the trick.

 

[09Busaman]

Thank you guys, I appreciate the the tips. I have a weather proof box and plenty of dicor. Will keep any eye on the membrane.

 

[Moose074]

I just got an ElkRidge 33bhs in my master bedroom is an outlet on the ceiling says it is equipped to have WiFi extender added. Without the sticker I would have wondered why I have a wall outlet cover on ceiling if you have wingaurd 360 you might not need to drill


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[09Busaman]

We have the same, but I cant find the wires and I have looked everywhere. Dealer was no help.

 

[Moose074]

We have the same, but I cant find the wires and I have looked everywhere. Dealer was no help.

That’s good to know I need to check mine, we didn’t get a PDI so this weekend is our shakedown it wont take long to check. Sorry to hear yours are missing. I just went to the ask the factory thread appears it is closed.


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[Neckster]

Here is a link..

ElkRidge 37BAR

Look in the section called standard construction features.

Looks like it has 5" attic trusses.

Hope that helps.

 

[taskswap]

I strongly recommend a solar wiring "gland". I use one for my solar setup and one for my Weboost and they're a very secure, very waterproof, meant-for-this-purpose option. I drill through my roof from the inside "up" (so I can hit the corner of my front closet exactly) with a 3/8" "bellhanger" bit. This is a bit you can get from any hardware store or Amazon that is usually 18" long (goes through anything) and also has a small hole an inch or two from the end for a wire to "pull" the wires you want to run back through the hole. I don't use it for that, this is just a pilot to make sure everything is where I want it, but it's a nice tool to have for a lot of reasons. I then drill this out to 5/8" or 3/4" as needed with a spade bit from the bottom and the top, and then it doesn't matter how "thick" the ceiling is.

 

[09Busaman]

Thank you for all of the ideas all. I have the weboost installed, I drilled up and hit some spongy feeling resistance. I inspected as best I could with a flash light and found it was insulation. I cut the roof membrane and finished the cut. Box is installed, wire fished through and all should be well once the dicor sets up. Have to admit though, was expecting a little more from the weboost. Seems the external antenna connection takes a little wiggling around to get the green light to stay on solid. Pretty disappointing.

 

[taskswap]

They are definitely directional. They're best paired with an app that shows you where the towers are. Aim it wrong and it won't do much. But that's 5 minutes' well spent in my opinion...

 

[GK2018]

Thank you for all of the ideas all. I have the weboost installed, I drilled up and hit some spongy feeling resistance. I inspected as best I could with a flash light and found it was insulation. I cut the roof membrane and finished the cut. Box is installed, wire fished through and all should be well once the dicor sets up. Have to admit though, was expecting a little more from the weboost. Seems the external antenna connection takes a little wiggling around to get the green light to stay on solid. Pretty disappointing.

We had bought a Weboost as well and coming from a technology background with a fair bit of knowledge I was really disappointed with ours. We actually gave up using it and probably should've returned it while within the return period but to late for that now. Hopefully you'll have better luck!

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[taskswap]

I definitely recommend using CellMapper or a similar tool when trying to use a booster like this. Cell phone antennae are highly directional and what's not commonly discussed is that this applies to the towers as well as the device. Not only do you need to be aimed at a tower that matches your carrier but IT has to be aimed at YOU. Here's a good example, from the Book Cliffs in Utah where I camped recently. This is an AT&T tower that shows green signal all along I-70 but in the hills there was zero signal. A Weboost is not going to help at all here:




I moved a little further up the road I was camping on and was able to get closer to this guy:


As you can see there are a lot of dead areas here, if you camp in that empty area in the middle you're not going to get any service. Note that these are all for AT&T. Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile had nothing here. You can roam on other carriers but it's still best if the coverage matches your device.

The Weboost isn't perfect and I don't get anything for saying this. But my 2c if I'm careful about how I aim it, make sure the 30' antenna is fully extended, and am careful where I camp, with some pre-planning I can always count on service. It typically gives me 2 bars in places where I would otherwise have "no service", enough for low-bandwidth 3G usage (calls, texts, and maybe occasional things like weather updates) and 3-4 bars (enough for moderate Internet usage) in places where I would have 1 bar and almost no data. As always, YMMV.

 

[GK2018]

I definitely recommend using CellMapper or a similar tool when trying to use a booster like this. Cell phone antennae are highly directional and what's not commonly discussed is that this applies to the towers as well as the device. Not only do you need to be aimed at a tower that matches your carrier but IT has to be aimed at YOU. Here's a good example, from the Book Cliffs in Utah where I camped recently. This is an AT&T tower that shows green signal all along I-70 but in the hills there was zero signal. A Weboost is not going to help at all here:

View attachment 66091


I moved a little further up the road I was camping on and was able to get closer to this guy:

View attachment 66092
As you can see there are a lot of dead areas here, if you camp in that empty area in the middle you're not going to get any service. Note that these are all for AT&T. Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile had nothing here. You can roam on other carriers but it's still best if the coverage matches your device.

The Weboost isn't perfect and I don't get anything for saying this. But my 2c if I'm careful about how I aim it, make sure the 30' antenna is fully extended, and am careful where I camp, with some pre-planning I can always count on service. It typically gives me 2 bars in places where I would otherwise have "no service", enough for low-bandwidth 3G usage (calls, texts, and maybe occasional things like weather updates) and 3-4 bars (enough for moderate Internet usage) in places where I would have 1 bar and almost no data. As always, YMMV.

That's a pretty good write up on some tips and tricks!

There's also a couple cell phone apps you can use that will give you the Dbi (signal strength) you're receiving, as well as locate the direction of the cell towers although using the computer like you're doing is a whole lot more detailed!

When I couldn't get our Weboost to work I was going to use an old satellite dish to build a custom cell antenna which no doubt would pull the signal in strong but the area we full time at started laying fiber internet so I figured we'll just wait a couple more months and we'll have internet and wifi calling, I'm so excited about that fiber drop!

I even tried various cables pre-built and I built a couple custom ones (although I don't claim to be a pro in anything haha) to influence the impedance and influence the Dbi, but anything I tried would never work for ours. We usually have 1-2 bars of cell service which is definitely enough for it to have worked. It could have just been a defective weboost I guess. I would elaborate on all the troubleshooting but it would probably wind up being boring and the length of a novel.

I've heard really great things about the Wilson Cell Boosters and if I wasn't holding out for that fiber drop I'd probably try that brand out.

I'm not trying to hijack the OP's thread over here, sometimes I chase rabbit holes

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[09Busaman]

Thank you for the tips and ideas all. My exterior antenna is a omnidirectional, just the small round one that comes with the Reach RV. I have 1 bar 5G with it off, and 1 bar 5G with it on. Moving around inside or going outside it drops to 4G, but still 1 bar. I know I wont get something from nothing, but I should get a little more than what I already have, I think. My exterior antenna is at least 18ft from the interior antenna, I do not believe it is feedback or interference (forgot the technical term).

 

[taskswap]

Unfortunately the omni antennae are just not very good, for two reasons. First, they're weaker to begin with, but second, they're invariably mounted on 18" or so "whip" mounts that don't give much height advantage. If the problem is signal getting out of an aluminum-walled camper they help a lot. But if what you needed in the first place is height, they won't help. I have the Weboost RV which is nothing special except for its telescoping pole. Getting that thing 25' into the air makes a world of difference in the backwoods of Colorado where I camp most of the time.

 

[GK2018]

The omnidirectional antennas not being able to pick up as good of a signal as the directional antennas is one of the biggest downsides with them but they can sure be convenient if you move around quite a bit and don't want to spend the time researchimg towers and readjusting the antenna. You might also look into a dual antenna setup one omnidirectional and one directional.

My problem with the weboost was the same as yours though, it didn't reflect a difference whether plugged in or not no matter what I did but I have a directional antenna instead of the omnidirectional.

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[09Busaman]

Darn, I was hoping to not carry a pole and buy another antenna. We are moving to Lake Texoma on Sunday, maybe do a little more evaluation based on multiple locations and then decide if I want to invest in another antenna. Thank you guys, really appreciate the information.

 

[GK2018]

Darn, I was hoping to not carry a pole and buy another antenna. We are moving to Lake Texoma on Sunday, maybe do a little more evaluation based on multiple locations and then decide if I want to invest in another antenna. Thank you guys, really appreciate the information.

Last time we were at lake Texoma we had pretty good cell service using ATT, so you might luck out!

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