Marina doesn't have
WiFi. LTE
service is spotty; I can get it in some places, so I know I'm not too far from a tower, but where I moor I get one or two bars, and no
internet. I need
WiFi internet connectivity.
My first attempt was to buy a Netgear Nighthawk M1, which I thought might connect better than my
phone. It didn't. Internet was about the same as the
phone (nothing in the
mooring, out on the
water it picked up when my phone did). I also got two antennas, BingFu 4G, about 12". These made no difference (which was frankly what I was expecting, once I saw them).
Here's my question: there is signal, and I need it stronger. Would getting a better
antenna be enough, or do I need a full M2M booster? I was looking at something like
https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/hot...-kit-wa974471/, but with the hotspot itself the total solution is close to $800, which is a lot to spend for the amount of time I'm using it. On the other hand, Wilson has several
antenna options that I could connect directly to the Nighthawk for closer to $200.
I realize that the answer is dependent on the signal in that particular location, I'm just trying to get a sense of the relative effectiveness of the two solutions. I can say that I get about 2 bars out of 5, but if I run speedtest.net it can't connect.
Another possibility that crossed my mind is that the Nighthawk just isn't that good. It looks like the Peplink Max-BR1-MINI-LTE-US-T is only about $250 on Amazon, which is cheaper than the Nighthawk. I bought the former mainly because as a consumer oriented product I thought it would be easier to deploy.
Suggestions?