Cradlepoint! This Is So Cool!

I have the Virgin Broadband Internet stick and I have been very happy with it. It plugs into the side of the computer, you open a program and it connects to the Internet through a cell tower. It is a little difficult as we have two computers and only one of them can connect at a time and I tend to use the small one in the bedroom and the larger one in the living room so it means moving the card from one to the other all the time and there is danger of damaging the USB port.

There is a product called a Cradlepoint CTR35 that turns the Internet Modem (“stick”) into a limited range WIFI zone. It plugs into the wall or inverter and broadcasts a WIFI signal in and around the motorhome. It remains connected and ready all the time which is just what I need/want.

I mentioned it to our host, Paul, and he said he had just bought one at Best Buy on sale for $79 and he would take me down there. They were out of them but Paul saw the bigger, more powerful Cradlepoint 600 that he said he would like to upgrade to as he uses it as WIFI for his whole house and the smaller unit would not reach to where his motorhome is parked. I told him if he wanted the bigger one then I would buy the smaller one from him and that is what we did.

Yesterday we spent too many hours setting up the “Plug and Play” units! We got his working, started the setup on mine and a little later his new one stopped working. We played with the settings for a long time before he called Customer Support who emailed a long list of things to do to troubleshoot the problem. The women were now complaining because they wanted to go out for dinner and Paul and I were getting a little hungry and frustrated as well.

As we were packing things up we realized that I was hooked into the admin area of his router and not mine. We had the passwords and settings so screwed up that neither unit was working! When we got home I was too tired to work on it any more but Paul stayed with it. He reset everything, turned my router off and got his working again by one or two o’clock and then started on mine until he got too tired. This morning we tackled mine again, got into it, reset all the passwords and it worked!!

I velcro’d it to the inside of the passenger side cabover window and started testing. It has a range much less than the advertised 350 feet but I can get a usable signal about 100 feet away from the window (this is fixed now, I discovered a setting to increase power). Both computers can be on at the same time and it will actually handle up to 16 simultaneous connections! It draws hardly any current and can be left on all the time. It is password protected so no unauthorized users can hop on but I can give my password to anyone parked next to us to share. This is an RVers dream come true! Life is Good!