CARAVAN INTERNET: Which device is right for you! - RV Wifi, Netgear Nighthawk M5, Telstra or Optus
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- This video is all about getting Internet in your Caravan. Which device is right for your needs! What speeds should you expect from each device! Telstra vs Optus!
I perform a speed test in Margret River on the following devices, please note that these speed tests are to be used as a guide only, and results vary depending on your location and time of day.
- Netgear Nighthawk M5 - www.telstra.com.au/internet/m...
- TELSTRA 4G Dongle - www.telstra.com.au/internet/m...
- OPTUS 4G Dongle - www.optus.com.au/prepaid/mobi...
- RV Wifi - Portable Caravan Wifi+4GX - www.mygenerator.com.au/rv-wif...
- RV WIFI Low Profile 3-in-1 Antenna - www.mygenerator.com.au/rv-wif...
- RV WIFI High Gain Antenna - www.mygenerator.com.au/rv-wif...
- Poynting Antennas XPOL-2 External MIMO Antenna - rfshop.com.au/product/high-ga...
VIDEO SECTIONS:
0:00 Intro
04:41 Telstra Speed Test
04:46 Telstra 4G Dongle
06:29 RV Wifi - Telstra SIM
13:35 Netgear Nighthawk M5 - Telstra SIM
16:10 Optus Speed Test
16:15 Optus 4G Dongle
17:28 RV Wifi - Telstra SIM
18:58 Netgear Nighthawk M5 - Telstra SIM
20:44 Summary
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Thank you For taking the time to do this video 😊 very helpful. We have the Nighthawk so pleased to know how it compares with the others. Thanks again 😊
Glad it was helpful, the Nighthawk is a great device, expensive but worth the money you pay for it.
The Netgear M5 or M6 are not locked to Telstra - they just have the Telstra APN in their config, but nothing stopping anyone from using an Optus SIM and changing the APN for Optus in order to get the unit working on the Optus network.
Thanks Bianca really good info for our next trip. Have been researching this also 😃
Thanks for watching Michelle, glad you found some value 😀
I run the Nighthawk and the same MIMO antenna, its superb signal and much better than the omnidirectional antennas, I'm not sure if you've touched on this, but a tower map and the DB signal indicator in the Nighthawk will allow you to get the bast signal. Great video 👍🏼
Im sure you have got it sorted but if you want to put your optus sim card in the nighthawk all you need to do is change the carrier settings, rf shop did a video on this awhile back and how to find the settings needed im pretty sure.
I just found your videos and have started watching them keep up the content it's good to watch
Thanks
Great video as are all uour videos actually. Ive been dissapointed with the RV Wifi product event with external antanae. fine around bigger towns but as we get more remote its no better than my phone.
Im now thinking of getting the Nighthawk.
Keep the great content coming
Thanks David, The Nighthawk M5 is a great product.
Thankyou for this it’s absolutely what I needed right now. You guys rock
Awww thank you 🥰
Good testing. When using an external aerial in most cases it's important to connect it to the first cellular external aerial socket or 1st and 2nd if connecting both cables of a MIMO aerial.
Recently I did some tests with a USB Huawei E8372 and a ZTE MF985T Telstra 4GX Hotspot. I used them on an outback trip connected to a RFI CDQ7194-B omni directional aerial mounted on the bull bar of my car.
The Huawei E8372 performed similar to my mobile and lost cellular connectivity at very close to the same point when travelling away from good mobile signals.
The ZTE MF985T appeared to have better sensitivity as it maintained mobile connections beyond where the mobile phone lost connection. On one occasion I got out of the car with the phone and moved around to try to regain a signal but it wasn't robust while the ZTE MF985T maintained a connection with the RFI CDQ7194-B aerial. The ZTE MF985T also connected on multiple bands and performed better than the E8372 in less demanding locations.
A very low cost solution would be a ZTE MF985T Telstra 4GX Hotspot in a bag on the end of a surf fishing rod high in the air. WiFi from most of these devices will be reasonable up to 20m in open air.
Thanks for all the info enjoying the channel. We have an American Staffy that loves people but absolutely hates other dogs. Outside that he is a lovable and gentle 7 year-old, so relate to the hole in the fence episode. Happy travels to you all including dogs.
Glad to hear Franks not the only dog like that.
Thank you for reviewing these, great to see those speeds, great information!
Just wanted to point out - Mbps is Mega per second, not Megabytes. There are 8 bits to a byte. Therefore, multiply your Mbps by 0.125 (or divide by 8) to get to Megabytes.
Cheers Henry, I’ll make sure to use the mega bits per second in the next video 😀
Thanks for the comparison tests, well worth it, With the long antenna you had the antennas horizontally polarized, test them with the antenna vertical I think you will get better reception
Hi Stephen, thanks for watching. When the high gain antenna (the long one) was plugged in, Grant was holding it vertically on top of the caravan.
Hello again guys, another informative video, that nighthawk thingy was way out infront of the others, one question...
Do you have any pictures of Grant leaning out the door with the hi gain antenna, that would be gold!!😂😂😂😂
Hope your all well, travel safe, Kezngaz x
Dam I knew I should have filmed that 🤣🤣
Great video and very interesting. I have bought a secondhand Nighthawk M2 and have mounted an extension painters pole on the rear of my van. It extends over 4m. I have the same antenna as you, so should be very interesting to do some tests on the road.
Great work and keep it up, look forward to your future tests with your antenna.
Thank you, so glad it was helpful. I haven’t purchased an extension pole for the Ariel yet. But looking forward to testing it.
Well Mac , also interested to learn about how you got your pole. ..Dennyboy
Meaning did you make it or purchase it. I have not looked at the aerial options yet
Nice work. I'm looking at using a window cleaners pole. 60 bucks from Bunnings and is 3.66m
Thanks Bianca great job you’re a natural. A very informative vid 👍 👍👍
Thanks Peter, so glad you enjoyed it
Very interesting I have been thinking of doing something besides the phone only thanks I have enjoyed all of your videos see you Ron
Thanks Ron, hopefully we’ve given you some info to think about. 😊
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ sure have thanks
Ok thanks a lot, appreciate the clarification
Another great video Grant and Bianca. Great to see an unbiased opinion on the wifi, was there a yearly sim you can get from Telstra etc.
Thanks Tom and Jenni, yes you can purchase a yearly prepaid sim from Telstra. Or you can go on a monthly plan, it depends on how much you want to use.
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ thanks for that Bianca and Grant.
Thanks for the video. We have the Netgear Nighthawk M5 with a Telstra Sim and the same external antenna that you have and it works perfectly along the West coast which is renowned for bad connection :-)
May I ask what website did u get it from?
G'day Guys and thanks for sharing,
funny how we were just discussing an internet option just this week, think google and Facebook was listening cos I'm now getting adds for it :) :) :) and now your post this up :) :) :) , interesting and thankyou for posting, we have just been using our hot spot for Utube and vids with no TV services but have been looking at the Nighthawk gear so again cheers for sharing :) :) :) Keep the good stuff coming.
cheers Andy
It’s a bit scary how your phone does that 😊
Thank you for the informative video. I was surprised that the Nighthawk was so powerful and it will be very interesting to see how the antenna performs?
I’m super interested to see how it goes.
Keen to see the testing from the Nighthawk M5 when you are say 50km from the nearest town and the phones drop out as we are looking for something in our new BT!
Nice when do you pick up the BT?
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ picked it up last friday (pre-loved)
Awesome 👏
thank you so much for a simple explanation
Glad you found it useful Leonie
Hi wish you would of shown the phone internet as well but great info and cant wait for the remote test
I can add that into the next vid. I have a iPhone 12 on a Telstra plan and grant has an iPhone 11 on a Boost plan. Can test both of those.
Thank you this helpt me alot 😊
Glad it helped!😁👍
Thanks for the comparo. I have the RV Wifi (installed during the van's construction). However, it is not a very good performer. I have a couple of comments about your test of it. The antennas really need to be placed outside on the roof. Unless your van is all fibreglass or composite then the aluminium cladding will act as a Faraday Cage and weaken the signal.
Also, I'm looking at getting the high gain antenna for the RV Wifi. At $100 it's not a cheap experiment to see if that will improve it. But I have the instructions here. When connecting it to the RV, the 4G lead from the other external "hockey puck" antenna is disconnected and the High Gain lead is connected to that. They say that the puck still needs to be connected via the second lead.
If you still have the gear I'd like to see it done again and with the antenna perched on the roof of the van to see if it does make a difference. Otherwise I'll give up on it and go with the Netgear M6 (if I can get one) and a suitable external antenna, of which there are many from which to choose.
Thanks again.
Hi 😁👋
Thanks for the feedback!
We no longer have the rvwifi so cannot do any further test’s.
When we tested our MIMO antenna, we ran a cable from the external antenna through the front of the tunnel boot into the van where we plugged the rvwifi in to the more powerful antenna and still got relatively low reception compared to the nighthawk. The frame of the caravan doesn’t affect the results with this method. If the modem was connecting to the antenna wirelessly then yes you’d be on the money!
I hope our vid was helpful, we may do others in the future so you’re comments will me helpful in making them better!
We did show that the rvwifi does work, and in towns and cities it performs fairly well, but it depends on your requirements!
We work on the road so require higher performance. If you only require service for Facebook, emails and some streaming then it will certainly fit the bill!
Cheers 😁👍
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing 👍
Thanks for watching, so glad for got something from it.
Most informative, thank you for the time taken to do all the testing for us.
Any experience with cel-fi-go?
So happy you found value in it. We have a celfi-go on the car, I’ll try to remember to include that when I test in low service area. 😊
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ Thank you so much.
Perfect timing with this, We only want to be able to watch Netflix etc when the weather is bad. Just the $100 Optus unit is all we need then?
Great Eric, so you’ll be mostly using your phone as a hotspot. And then having the Optus dongle as a back up.
It’s hard to know how much you’ll really need internet until your out here. It’s also a great idea to have some movies etc download onto a hard drive for when you have no reception and it’s raining etc.
Great real persons perspective here.. Well done and thanks. Can you confirm that where you were you had a 5g service. If so it would be interesting to see how the nighthawk performs there with and without your new antenna.. Cheers.
Thanks Alan ,
Stay tuned 😉
I read on the internet that the issue with using the Nighthawk on Optus is that the router is not programmed for all of the Optus frequencies. These extra frequencies can be manually programmed into the router with a laptop. I haven’t done this so I’m not sure how hard it is to do. It may not make much difference unless you are in marginal coverage conditions.
I’ll be really interested to see how the directional antenna goes.
I’m keen to see what awning you go with. We have also broken the “Coolabah” awning on our BT, which we found difficult to pack away anyway, and are thinking about replacing it with an electric awning.
Yes I forgot about that, when I was waiting for Telstra to unlock the nighthawk I msg Optus and got the codes, I was pretty easy and you can do it on the device.
We are getting a new coolabah, it’s more work to set up but stronger and we don’t mind the set up, we don’t alway put it up anyway.
Hi thanks for posting this comparison . The Nighthawk M5 definitely looks the goods, however unfortunately it’s now not available to buy it shows as unavailable online, I spoke with someone at a Telstra store they said that there had been a lot of problems with the M5 so it’s been taken down …. So right now there’s only the M2 which is cheaper but 4G only …. Perhaps a new model M6 will be out soon so I’m just waiting to see , we don’t leave for our travels for a few months so I can wait.
That’s interesting I hadn’t heard that. I haven’t had any problems with ours at all. Hopefully the M6 is out soon
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ The Nighthawk M6 and M6 Pro is now out and Telstra stores have them in stock. Cheaper than the M5 too, which is a bonus!
I would like to know if you can use the mimo antenna here in Australia because of its functionality of grabbing bandwidth. Interested to know thanks
Thanks for the insight great info
Glad you found it helpful 😀
No one seems to have the nighthawk m5 in stock
Great video, thanks. So which ones work best in the deep bush where coverage is really low?
Thanks Dans. Watch this space 😀
Quick question - do you use a data only sim. We have a prepaid Telstra phone sim that we take with us if we need it as our main phones are Optus and like you said you can’t always get one or the other. . We have been looking at the nighthawk so I think this video has sold us on it.
We have a data sim for Telstra, but the Optus sim I was using was a phone sim, so I’d assume the Telstra phone sim would work as well. But I haven’t tried.
Awesome video. How you going with the external antenna test with the Nighthawk. I am in the same working situation and about to be purchasing the equipment. Zoom meetings, screen shares and VOIP calls. Any feedback would be greatfully appreciated.
Thanks Lachlan and Rosie, part 2 is coming out tomorrow. Hope you enjoy it
Great video! Were you guys in a 4G or 5G area?
Thanks Kenny it was a 4G area
Thanks for video. Do you have any recommendations for vanlifers who don't want to go anywhere too remote but just primarily want internet access for navigation, music, and WiFi calling?
Should I install an external antenna in case of emergencies?
My phone has Vodafone which doesn't have much coverage outside cities.
Hi Peter, in my opinion the cheapest option would be to change your phone plan to Telstra or Boost mobile. You can use your phone as a wifi hotspot as well. Not sure if they still have the deal, but I got a really good Telstra plan from the good guys. Go check them out
I'm nearly 150 yrs old , you lost me with all that tech talk, 😂😂, Back in my day a note on a carrier pigeon worked well, But I'm sure the information was good for the younger generation, Cheers Bevan 🤠❤️🇦🇺
I'm 63 and won't be getting rid of the pigeons just yet.... currently watching and Re-watching this video to get my head around it, will be calling our 11 yr old grandaughter later i think. 🤣 (or the Jaycar shop)
@@colinl9018 Ha Ha Ha , I actually called my son to watch this vid and comment :) :) :)
Haha 😂 you’re hilarious Bevan, 5 gold ⭐️s for sticking through it 😊
Since watching your vid, we've got a Nighthawk 2 and the RFI antenna and adaptors but only a fairly short mast (actually our TV mast which we otherwise don't use). I'm guessing the higher the mast the better chance of good reception? Our reception hasn't been as good as I'd hoped. Thanks!!
Yep the higher the better, but it’ll also depend if the location and how far the tower is and how big that tower is. Lots to factor in. I’ve been in places that we still haven’t been able to get reception, but overall our setup works for us. 😊
Also I don’t think the Nighthawk 2 is 5g enabled that could possibly impact the reception
Hi Bianca , Thankyou great job explaining ,I have the 4GX dongle Telstra but I think the Nighthawk would suit me more, hopefully can pay it of monthly ? Thanks again for your help Kind Regards Darrel
Thanks Darryll, you can definitely pay for it monthly on a plan, but the device will be locked to Telstra until it’s paid off. That might not be a problem for you though
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ Thanks Bianca , no should be ok I am happy to stay with Telstra, have a great week and enjoy 😊
Hi Bianca. The RV WIFI. Is that the 3/4G one ? That you tested ? As There is now a 4/5G one? Looking at buying this one. Thank yo7 for the info.
Yeah it was the 3/4g one, I haven’t used the new 5g one.
Hi with the Nighthawk, do you use it for TV internet as well? for watching Netflix and the sort?
Among other things yes we use it to stream 😁👍
Hi, Can the netgear nighthawk router run as normal on AC power with the battery remaining placed in the router? If yes would the battery automatically take over if the power cut out? Looking for a failsafe set up.
Hi 👋, I have our plugged into power all of the time, the cave is a usb, so can plug into 240v with an adapter. It doesn’t run out of power
Hi Bianca, thanks for the video.. like you guys we have tried many devices and have the RV Wifi.. work ok sort of.. however I have a question.. that Nighthawk is a rocket ship.. But ! You said it was a 5g unit and the others are all 4g.. so was the reason the Nighthawk was so fast.. was it using the 5g network at the time of testing thus able to use a higher speed network? And all the others were only able to use the 4g network..
Hi, I just double checked the Telstra coverage map and it shows that Margaret River doesn’t have 5g coverage yet.
@@Livin_Like_Kings_ Hi Bianca, wow.. well if they are all using 4G from the same tower, that nighthawk is very impressive indeed.
@@ktmman1503 I’ve definitely noticed the speed difference between the Nighthawk and the 4g dongle.
Have you experienced issues with your m5 not being able to find reception after using a high gain antenna? I’m having this very issue with ours
No I haven’t
I guess how could have been the speed to put the modem near the window...
Hi very informative video,
to get the nighthawk unlocked how did you do this & is there any cost involved cheers
Thanks Russell, if you purchase the device outright, then all you need to do is conte t the service team and ask for them to unlock it.
Also you need to contact Optus and get the settings and add them in the device
Is there another device called CelFiGo or similar? If so, how do they compare ?
There is, however celfi-go is not an internet dongle/modem etc. it is a mobile phone signal booster for phone calls and text messages. But I’m not an expert in this area.
How was the nighthawk unlocked? What service did you use?
Hey 👋, I purchased it outright with Telstra and I had to ring them up and get them to unlock it. I did have to ask a couple of times to get them to do it.
But we now have Starlink, and find it great, only issue is it uses power to run, while the nighthawk doesn’t.
How has your mimo antenna work
Great, watch the video on it here CARAVAN INTERNET: How to get internet in remote locations!
ua-cam.com/video/N_G4LgcpTN0/v-deo.html
its megabits. 8 bits to a byte. MBps is megabytes per second whereas Mbps is megabits per second. Conversion will be to divide mbps by 8 to get MBps
Thanks for watching 👍
anything with telstra and external antennas is going to work the best .
your speed tests domt mean anything tho between the carriers as telstra is based on coverage not speed . you should check in GUI of the device for the signal strength
you need to learn about antennas and the devices some more . good video though .
Agree I’m definitely no expert here 😀
Your connections all looked backward, most providers give higher download.
The real test for these devices is when mobile reception is poor, i can personally say that my iPhone 12 has better reception than the RVWifi. A complete waist of money, unfortunately its now impossible to buy a Nighhawk M5 through Telstra given the M6 is around the corner.
Where we were there was no reception without the antenna- with it we did, a big difference.
We found the same with the RVwifi.
I think it may be worth the wait for the Nighthawk
How much a month is it costing you?
We have a 400gb plan with Telstra for the nighthawk $75 pm
TPW4G is a TP-Link device