geeksontour

Is it possible to power the hotspot with 12V and remove the battery. That's what I do with our Netgear hotspot.

We do this with a Samsung phone and an adapter (USB C to HDMI) in our van. Works great! It does not work with all phones, though. My Pixel does not work with the cable, for instance. There are adapters for iPhones and iPads as well.

I understand frustration and confusion. What are you trying to do? What is working and what is not? What's connected to what and how? A router takes a wired connection (UTP,Coax,Fiber) or a 3rd party WiFi signal and creates and connects devices on a unique local network (your stuff.) It often has the ability to repeat a WiFi signal to "extend" or "repeat" the effective coverage of an existing wireless network. An extender is a simpler device used to extend a local WAN signal.

Did you see our article in the January Family RVing Magazine? It is titled Five Steps to Planning an RV Trip and it's on page 68. We like RVParky.com for simple trip planning, but there are lots more ideas as well. Here is our companion page on our website where all the links are shown.

It has been our experience that Verizon has the best overall Nationwide coverage. The Verizon plan offered by FMCA does require a 2-year contract while the Sprint plan does not. Much depends on where you plan on traveling. I recommend checking out MobileInternetInfo.com for the most comprehensive information.

We figured out that this year was our 26th time presenting seminars at the FMCA national conventions. Back in 2004 we were there presenting seminars for Coach Connect, a company who installed WiFi in RV parks. After they went out of business we were invited back to FMCA on our own and Geeks on Tour was born in 2006. See this blog post for more history. This year, the convention was held at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, Georgia. Here was our seminar line up this year: Technology for Travelers Smartphones: What does this button do? Google Photos: What to do with all those photos? Smartphone Photography Create your online travelogue See descriptions of all our seminars on this web page. We got off to a bad start waking up at 6am to a freezing 29 degrees. We had always needed to be at our table by 7am on the first day to take registrations. We were there by 6:45 only to find the building wouldn't open till 8 ... grrrr, I mean brrrrr. We survived that and gave our first seminar to nearly 400 people. We had to squeeze our normal 90 minutes of material into a new 60 minute format ... I talked fast! But we got some great feedback. FMCA has always been limited to motorhomes, but they just recently opened up membership to trailers as well. I had a brilliant idea to convince my friend Alex, to join FMCA with her Casita trailer and come with us to the rally and help out at our table.To my surprise, she said yes! And, she was great help. We stayed at her place near Gainesville the night before and then followed each other up the road to Perry the next day. Alex with her Casita and our Roadtrek on the way to Perry. Alex helping out at our table It was a very busy week, and lots of fun seeing old friends and making new ones. Sometimes it's both old and new! One woman attended several of our classes and she came up to me more than once saying, "How do I know you?" "You look SO familiar." We couldn't come up with anything, but on the last day, she gave it another try and asked, did you go to high school at Nova?OMG - Yes, I sure did. And so did she. Nancy was the captain of our drill team, the Titanaires, and I was co-captain - way back in 1970. Will wonders never cease? She now lives in Georgia and enjoys traveling by RV - and learning more about using her smartphone! FMCA makes it a small world!

The Great Lakes Area rally (Glamarama) is scheduled for Allegan, Michigan June 6-9 this year. We'll be there. http://glamaramarally.blogspot.com/ And, I hear that next year's summer convention is set for Madison, WI

The experts on connectivity and equipment are our friends at MobileInternetInfo.com. They cover both cellular and wifi and do extensive testing with published results. We trust their info. The bottom line is that boosters and antennas do improve signal. You can buy turn-key solutions or build your own.

I hear it will be a new exclusive Cellular plan with a hotspot for FMCA members. You may remember a failed plan earlier this year that was too good to be true.

I think it is a brilliant way to get new members. I contend there will be ubiquitous high-speed connectivity in the not too distant future. Not soon enough for most of us here.

We highly recommend the information from our friends at rvmobileinternet.com. They keep up with the changes and trends of mobile technology. You need to determine how much you are using now and how much you think you will need in the future.

I recommend checking with RVMobileInternet.com. You are the one who can determine how much you need boosting and how much you wish to spend.

We use a combination of Verizon and AT&T cellular Internet. We are lucky that our Verizon data is grandfathered in unlimited. The AT&T is a 5G plan. Speeds in excess of 25G down and 10G up are spoiling us. We typically have more than 5 devices connected, so we connect our WiFi Ranger Go to one of those signals. The WFR also can connect to public WiFi when it is better than cellular (rarely!) To extend our reach to public WiFi, we connect our WFR Go to an external WFR Mobile on a mast. Our friends at Technomadia have updated their excellent Mobile Internet Handbook. I don't think there is a better resource out there for this information. http://www.technomadia.com/2013/06/announcing-the-mobile-internet-handbook-now-available/

Just ran into Charlie this morning at the INTO rally in Lebanon, TN. I mentioned this animated picture of him talking at the Roadtrek rally in Kissimmee, FL. Everyone loved him. Here's the picture: