After staying at a few different campgrounds right after purchasing our coach last winter in Tucson and having to redo my tablet, phone and laptop WiFi settings at each campground I started thinking about finding a better way to do it. I knew an internal access point was part of the solution but was thinking I probably needed something else to bring in signal from further away. I came across this solution, although not perfect the cost was incredibly low. Around $100 for everything. I picked up a Ubiquiti NanoStation M2 – Wireless Access Point – AirMax (NSM2US) for the external antenna/router and a Ubiquiti airGateway-LR airMAX WISP 2.4 GHz Wireless Access Point for inside the coach. I bought a couple of these cables, Cable Matters Cat6a Snagless Shielded (SSTP/SFTP) Ethernet Patch Cable in Black , one to power the Nanostation (NS) from the airGateway as it supplies POE and the other to facilitate setting the system up the first time.
The NS can pick up WiFi signals from a very long distance if you have Line of Sight to the transmitter. Its simple to pick up free WiFi from McDonald’s or Starbucks from a distance if you can see the building. I also use it in campgrounds no matter what the signal strength they have. It has a slider to change the output signal strength. Most issues I saw with connectivity prior to the NS was that my device could see them transmitting, but they couldn’t get my reply due to a low signal strength of the tablet, Phone or Laptop. The NS does away from that issue as it has a powerful transmitter. You need to set that transmitter strength depending on what you are connecting to. Sometimes I point it to one of my hotspots and you are so close I have to set the strength to 0 so I don’t overpower the hotspot.
I have been using this setup for over a year now. About 7 months of camping and it works flawlessly. I highly recommend. The only regret I have is neither of them are AC protocol compatible and are only one band, 2.4 Ghz. Hopefully they will make an AC Nanostation with 5 & 2.4 Ghz in one antenna..
I had set all this up the hard way as I had never worked with Ubiquity. A week later I found Davids post… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i8SmOf5ZTw I compared what he did to what I had kludged together, I like his config options better so I reconfigured it similar to what he posted in his video. I haven’t looked back. -Bill