Since we knew we were going to be going to the Bahamas we changed our cell phone plans to Google Fi. They have free international data and texting and really easy to change your plan around. We learned last season that Fi works just fine in the Bahamas but most of their towers are only 3g anyway so that limited what we could do. There were only a few places that I couldn’t get any service at all and a few more places where I had to go up by the mast with my phone in the air to send texts. There’s definitely a way to fix this problem though! Companies make a range of products from cars to hotels to boost cell service. We chose to install a Weboost Reach Extreme. It got good reviews and includes a legit marine grade antenna and extra long cables.
Remember that huge wind generator that we removed from the arch? The mount was still welded to the arch so when we had the solar rack installed, Dan cut that mount off. He left a little stub and then sent us a little mounting bracket to install that will hold our new cell boost antenna and the old WiFi boost antenna that the boat came with.
The cell booster has quite a few rules for how it needs to be installed like minimal lengths for the connector cable and where to put the units. It was hard to figure out the best location for everything. The antenna made sense on the starboard side and the cable was just long enough to put the converter box in the little unused storage cubby underneath the emergency escape window. The inside antenna was actually harder to place because it’s directional. We decided that the easiest place to put it was behind the wall with the navigation electronics. If it ends up not working we can move it somewhere else later!
The main point of the cell and wifi boosters is that they have a larger antenna outside that’s mounted up high. We got the mounting bracket installed the other day, but I was just waiting on Jason to help me drill the hole in the side of the arch to run the cables through. For some reason every manufacturer uses these gigantic end connections for antenna equipment. I don’t see the point when the cable itself is much much smaller. It just makes it so hard to snake the cable through things to where it needs to go. This time, I finally got my chase line ran and was pulling the cell boost cable and I literally pulled the huge end connection off of it. After that running the cables through was easy, but I had to crimp the connection back on. I hope the signal is still good, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now!
Unfortunately, neither of these work very well. The cell booster is functional and boost signal slightly, but not the noticeable difference I was hoping for. Either that’s just all that I can reasonably expect and it’s working as it should, or I messed it up when I yanked the end off. Either way, the chances of finding a replacement cable or end in the Bahamas is effectively zero, so we’re going to live with it for the next 6 months. I’m not sure the wifi booster really even works at all. I turned it on and I think either the antenna is so old it doesn’t work, or the router that we have is so obsolete that nothing will connect to it. I’ll play with it a little bit, but I don’t have much hope of it being the amazing piece of equipment I hoped for.
So, slightly disappointing, but at least I finished this project and can move on to something else. I’ll do some more testing and see what I can come up with!