Our RV Adventures

Well, Amber, our PO mail carrier showed up right on time today, with our Amazon order, but tomorrow may be the real test.

Last night I ordered this Yagi directional Wi-Fi antenna to try and resolve my Internet problems.

Yagi Wi-Fi Antenna

If I can get a consistently good signal from the Company Man’s system, then I’ll be OK. The problem right now is that sometimes I’ve got 1 – 2 bars, and sometimes I’ve got 4 bars, and the desktop in the rig can’t even see the signal. So this antenna, along with a 10 ft. cable will hopefully do the trick.

Anyway, because I ordered the antenna Next Day, it’s coming by FedEx, not the PO, so we’ll see what happens. Tony, the landowner here, says UPS and FedEx have both delivered to his house at this address, and his house is about a mile down the road past us. So hopefully it will work out. But you never know.

On the same subject, I’m beginning to think that the 3G problem here is not with my Wilson system but with the Verizon 3G signal. And if that’s true, it explains a lot about all the squirrely problems I’ve had.

I have always used the Open Signal App on my phone to point me in right direction of the closest Verizon cell tower. And that’s how I knew in 2012, the last  time we used the Wilson system, that we were hitting a tower over on I-37, 19.5 miles away. Open Signal even showed me the Lat/Long coordinates of the tower itself.

But things got strange when I did the same thing this year. First off, although OS showed me the direction of the nearest Verizon tower, it also said there were NO towers nearby. And although it gave me Lat/Long coordinates, it did not give me a distance.

Hmm!

But where it really gets strange is where OS thinks the cell tower actually is. Since it wasn’t telling me the distance to the tower, I thought I’d just type the coordinates into Google Maps and see where it was really located.

And suddenly the weak signal made sense, because according to OS, we hitting a cell tower about 80 miles SW of Kansas City, MO. Now that’s a long distance phone call. Something is screwy somewhere.

OS also gives me both the actual and the relative signal strength, which in this case was –111 dbm and 56%, not a good signal at all. I had been messing with the Wilson system, but at this point it was turned off, and I’m just staring at the OS display while I’m running through ideas about what the problem was, and what else could I check.

Suddenly the signal strength readings jumped to – 93 dbm and 100%, a good signal.

WTH?

Looking up at the top of my phone display, I noticed that it had dropped back to 3G mode instead of the normal 4G. And it stayed like that for a couple of minutes, when it then jumped back to 4G and –111 dbm.

WTH?

And as of right now, a little after midnight, I have no 3G or 4G,data at all, even on my Galaxy S5 phone. And when I try to Hotspot it, I get either ‘Fatal Error: No Connection’ or “No Data Connection’. And it’s been that way for a couple of hours. But the phone call part still works just fine. So this may all be Verizon’s fault.

But as they always say when you call them, they’re working on it.

I still haven’t heard back from Colaw RV Salvage since my phone call last week about a replacement screen door latch, so I’ll try to give them a call again tomorrow.

Thought for the Day:

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making mistakes.” ~ Meister Eckhart

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As usual Monday’s count picked up from the slow weekend, a lot of it due to salespeople trying to get an early start to the week. I guess some of it’s just subjective, because at 44 vehicles coming in, it was only 10 more than yesterday. But those extra 10 were concentrated in just a couple of hours so it made it seem like a lot more.

Today starts the beginning of our 2nd month here at Blue Moon Gate, and so far it hasn’t been bad at all. Not quite as good as last year’s Carthage Gate, mostly because of the sucky Wi-Fi/Internet and the distance to Wal-Mart. It’s hard to beat 4 bars of 3G/4G and 5 miles to Wal-Mart/Whataburger/Chicken Express/Sonic/ McDonald’s like we had last year, I guess.

We did get our Amazon order this afternoon, right on schedule, and Jan told the mail carrier lady that we had another one coming tomorrow. Today’s care package was a 2nd remote for the new Samsung TV, and a new computer mouse.

Tomorrow’s will be a new beard trimmer for me, and a couple of new AC to USB charger modules so it will be easier for Jan to keep her Kindles charged outside here  under the canopy.

I still need to figure out what to do about our Internet here. I still haven’t been able to get our Wilson Booster working. It seems to work, i.e.its showing the correct lights, and if  I bring the inside antenna near the outside antenna, it goes into feedback/overload just like it should. But as far as actually amplifying a 3G phone signal, zip, zero, nada, nyet.

The last time I used it in 2012, I was able to go from no signal whatsoever to 4 bars of 3G hitting a tower, that according to the Open Signal app, was 19.5 miles away. Now I’ve got 1 to 2 bars of 3G here, and I can’t seem to amplify it at all.

My fallback position here was to use the pad’s Wi-Fi, and I was able to get the password to the Company Man’s system, but unfortunately due to the distance his trailer is from our rig, the signal is OK sometimes, and not OK others. And the desktop computer in the coach can’t see it at all

I think maybe the variation in signal level I’m seeing is due to someone sitting at the Company Man’s desk between me and his Wi-Fi router. The water-filled  human body is a good absorber of the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi signal. In fact at a high enough level it can cook you.because that’s how a microwave oven works. It’s in the same 2.4 GHz band, just closer, more powerful, and concentrated.

So maybe don’t sit too close to your Wi-Fi router, especially if it makes you feel a little warm.

There are a couple of stronger Wi-Fi signals that show up and I’ve been trying to track down who owns them. But I found out tonight that it might not do me any good. As it turns out one of them is just a Wi-Fi data link between the drill rig and the directional drilling company’s instrumentation in their trailer. It’s not hooked up to the Internet at all. And I suspect the other signal might be the same.

So my next thought is to just get a better, stronger, directional Wi-Fi amplifier/antenna, mostly for the desktop in the rig for Jan. Outside here, my laptop and tablet are OK, not great, but usable.

So we’ll see what I come up with on Amazon.

On another note, I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my old RCA flat screen. I called what seems to be the only recycling center in B/CS today, and they don’t take TV’s, nor do they know anyone that does. So I may just have to find a lonely dumpster somewhere.

I still haven’t actually thrown away the box the new Samsung came in. I told Jan I want to keep if for at least two weeks before I throw it out, to get us through the ‘infant mortality’ phase in case I have to take it back. We’ll see.

After yesterday’s mini-rant on the lack of Fall, I guess Mother Nature heard me and decided to help out . . . somewhat. Although we’re still looking at temps in the mid-90’s for the next week or so, starting tomorrow night we’ll be having temps in the high 60’s for awhile.

So we’re halfway there.

“What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.” —Lord Melbourne (1779-1848)

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