This little bit of paradise is beautiful, whether it is at sunrise or through fog. Here we are overlooking the marsh on the east end of the property. I love it! However for me there was one really big problem, no cell service. Initially we would go out, spend the day and come home. It was hard to believe we could be so close to the city and have no cell service! It was also terrifing to imagine something happening and not being able to call for help. Initially we were there many times and did not see another person. Thankfully, more people are around now.
Fortunately we would occasionally hear our phones ping. There didn’t seem to be any specific time or location, just random pings. That meant there had to be service close by….right?
Apart from laughing our heads off over how silly we looked, with visions of “can you hear me now?” running around in my head, we dragged that ladder all over the property to see what worked.
We found if a phone was high up we could actually send a message. So we found a tent pole and a plastic bag, and put it as high up in a tree as we could. We could hear the phone ring ‘way up there’, and we could receive messages. WhatsApp and Messenger worked better than anything else. We could also send a message by writing it and then putting the phone ‘up a tree’. Not functional but gave us hope a booster might work.
Initially this was our table and chairs, with a phone ‘way up’ in the tree. it was totally weird to sit there and hear a message coming in above our heads.
Our first booster was from SureCall. Placement was limited by the amount of cable, maximum 40 feet, from the exterior antenna to the interior antenna.
We attached the booster to a 2×2, then to the top of the ladder.
It worked….kind of. You literally had to be in a one foot radius from the interior antenna to get a signal. But it worked! We could make a phone call (sometimes successfully) and surf the web (remember dial up?).
The second booster we tried was weBoost and it came with a telescoping 25 foot pole, or 8 meters. It is the top one in the picture. This one worked somewhat better than the first. We were actually able to sit inside and use our phones. Video chat was hit and miss, and web surfing was still as slow as dial up.
Daryl knew that SureCall had a different model of booster, it was time to give that one a try. We ordered it while we still had the weBoost. It arrived, but without a telescoping pole. We were able to attach both antennas to the same pole and do a comparison. The SureCall won hands down. We returned the weBoost, and sadly the telescoping pole.
Out in the bush we go to find the straightest, tallest aspen possible. We ended up putting the antenna at the very top of the tree and it worked!
We weren’t just boosting a signal in our home, first we had to make sure we had something to work with. This SureCall has increased my comfort level when we are at el parque. We don’t have any pictures inside the trailer, however there were lots of cables going to the booster (the picture on the box) and the inside antenna (a big square white plastic box). While we were testing the different boosters, cables were draped and taped ‘everywhere’. Now that we have settled on this one, we have been able to hide the cables under the couch.
Next year we need to find a telescoping pole. The aspen works, however since we will be taking it down when we are not at the trailer, the pole is so much more convenient.
Cheers
Ruth
ruthkennedysretirementblog 
The wonders of living in the bush. Reading this, I was thinking about the life of our ancestors, and the TV series The Little House On The Prairies.
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