Pepwave MAX HD1 Dome Pro

[SV-Spark]

Apologies for the prior, incorrect post (now deleted).

We're looking for a terrestrial mobile data solution for a sailboat cruising Europe and then the Pacific, and we're thinking about the Pepwave Max HD1 Dome Pro, which is a dome antenna with an integrated LTE/5G/WIFI wireless router. The integrated radio / antenna solves the line loss problem from a long antenna run at these high frequencies but at 4" wide x 4" tall I'm wondering how good it can be. It is also quite pricey -- $3800 with the optional (but necessary) SIM injector.

I'd love to hear from anyone with experience with it or its predecessor products.

[bjornfb]

We had an HD1 Dome and now upgraded to an HD1 Dome Pro. Love it. Easy to install, easy to use, the speeds are very good.
What questions can I answer for you?

-Bjorn

[chubby]

take the same money and purchase:



peplink Maritime 20 or 40G antenna.. ~$500 or 700usd
the Peplink MAX BR1 that you posted previously.. ~$9-1100 usd

starlink RV dish ($600 or $2500)

ethernet adapter(or bypass router) (<$25)


mobile data challenge solved for harbor/marina/near shore and (often times)...well offshore


data sheet for 40G antenna..it is probably overkill if pairing local sims with starlink.
https://download.peplink.com/resourc..._datasheet.pdf

[SV-Spark]

Hi Bjorn —

Thanks for the quick response! I’m curious about the following:

Do you use the sim injector? Is this also a switch with POE injection capabilities?

Do you have another WAN source onboard (e.g., Starlink or another sat provider) and if so, how do you integrate the two? Seems like you need another router that has WAN prioritization?

Where is your dome pro mounted? I would need to decide between spreader (~30-40' off the water) or aft antenna mast (15' off water)

And finally, does the fringe reception performance of the dome pro justify the additional cost over a discrete LTE router plus antenna? My concern with the discrete solution is that the signal loss over the 25 - 50' feed wire will wipe out any advantage from the higher gain discrete antenna.

Whatever wisdom you can share would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Adam

Originally Posted by bjornfb

We had an HD1 Dome and now upgraded to an HD1 Dome Pro. Love it. Easy to install, easy to use, the speeds are very good.
What questions can I answer for you?

-Bjorn

[SV-Spark]

Hey Chubby —.

That’s exactly what I am trying to figure out — whether to go with the the cheaper discrete solution as you suggested or the more expensive integrated one. Will the hardware combination you suggested perform well with a long antenna feed line?

I agree with you on the rest of the solution — you can’t beat SL for the $, provided that they don’t start enforcing the terms of service or make it costly or impossible to operate in the different parts of the world that we plan to visit. So the combination of SL plus cellular gives good redundancy. Only question is which cellular solution.

Thanks,

Adam

Originally Posted by chubby

take the same money and purchase:



peplink Maritime 20 or 40G antenna.. ~$500 or 700usd
the Peplink MAX BR1 that you posted previously.. ~$9-1100 usd

starlink RV dish ($600 or $2500)

ethernet adapter(or bypass router) (<$25)


mobile data challenge solved for harbor/marina/near shore and (often times)...well offshore


data sheet for 40G antenna..it is probably overkill if pairing local sims with starlink.
https://download.peplink.com/resourc..._datasheet.pdf

[rslifkin]

If you want to get the antennas up to the top of the mast, the dome is pretty much the only answer. If you go separate router and antennas, you'd want to keep them within a few feet of each other (so the antenna isn't going to be up all that high). Depending on your cruising grounds (and the gain of the dome antennas), the extra antenna height may or may not be worth the extra cost of the dome setup.

[bjornfb]

Originally Posted by SV-Spark

Do you use the sim injector? Is this also a switch with POE injection capabilities?

Yes, we have the SIM Injector and, yes it is a switch that does the POE. The POE works fine but we had reliability problems with the SIM Injector on the HD1 Dome. So we stopped used injected SIMs on the HD1 Dome and haven't tried with the HD1 Dome Pro. The reliability problem we had was the system just locking up for no apparent reason - never happened with the internal SIMs. Anyway, two SIMs ends up being just fine for our use: a Verizon SIM and a TMobile SIM.

Originally Posted by SV-Spark

Do you have another WAN source onboard (e.g., Starlink or another sat provider) and if so, how do you integrate the two? Seems like you need another router that has WAN prioritization?

Yes, we have a Starlink as well. With the HD1 Dome we had two separate Wifi networks in the boat and we would switch our devices between the two. It turned out to be a pretty good scheme because we didn't want to download HD movies over the Peplink (because we would rapidly run out of data with four people on board doing that). So the rule was "don't download on that wifi network, do all the downloading on the Starlink wifi". We only use the Starlink at anchor.

With the HD1 Dome Pro, it has a Wifi as WAN so we've set it up to bridge over to the Starlink Wifi, thus allows the Peplink network to be the primary network. There's a tiny bit more latency when using the Starlink through the bridge but it actually works quite well, we are happy with it.

Originally Posted by SV-Spark

Where is your dome pro mounted? I would need to decide between spreader (~30-40' off the water) or aft antenna mast (15' off water)

I wanted to put it on the spreaders but the logistics of running the wire up the mast, etc just turned out to be too much trouble (or rather, more than we wanted to do) so we have it on the solar arch at the back of the boat. Works fine even when anchored in a small bay surrounded by tall granite hills, much to our surprise.

Originally Posted by SV-Spark

And finally, does the fringe reception performance of the dome pro justify the additional cost over a discrete LTE router plus antenna? My concern with the discrete solution is that the signal loss over the 25 - 50' feed wire will wipe out any advantage from the higher gain discrete antenna.

That concern about running long antenna cables was one of my reasons for choosing the HD1 Dome: the discrete system seems better on a motor yacht where the electronics are right below the antennas. I really like the fact that the HD1 Dome has just a single CAT6 cable running to it.

We haven't had any reception problems with our HD1 Dome or Dome Pro in the Pacific Northwest. The only problem we have is that we can't buy a large data plan SIM in Canada which, honestly, stopped being a problem when we picked up the Starlink.

Cheers,
- Bjorn

[shimari]

You might want to give Doug Miller a call at onboard wireless, https://onboardwireless.com/.

I've had several conversations with Doug over the years from when he owned milltech marine and now at onboard. He's very knowledgeable and happy to help you find the best solution without pressure. Highly recommend.