Quote:
Originally Posted by SV-Spark
Do you use the sim injector? Is this also a switch with POE injection capabilities?
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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.
Quote:
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?
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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.
Quote:
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)
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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.
Quote:
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.
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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