[SOLVED] WIFI at year round camp trailer site

[faalin]

Hello everyone

My parents have a camping trailer that is parked at a year round site. The camp ground offers wifi for $100 (believe this is for the season) for 2 devices, and they wont let you swap devices in and out. So my guess is the are doing this by MAC address filtering.



So my thought..... and someone correct me if im wrong or just to far outside the box on this. ->wifi signal comes into an antenna, runs to a router/switch and then to an AP to rebroadcast their own secure signal.

Ideally i would want something simple for them so when they do start to travel with the camper they can they can set it up and any camp ground or free local wifi hot spots.

 

[bill001g]

Yes that will work but there are some issues. The main problem is you can run a repeater but then the camp ground sees all the mac addresses and may make each authenticate individually. It may not work at all since a repeater uses WDS and the camp grounds will not have that enabled when they want to restrict the number of devices.

What you need is a router that will take its wan signals as wifi. This way all the traffic comes form a single mac/ip of the router wan. Routers that can do this are kinda rare.

The best option is to use a wireless client-bridge and hook that to standard router wan port. You can use many repeaters/extenders in that mode but in your case I would look at ubiquiti outdoor bridge. Problem is these units are not dual band. They run either 2.4g or 5g but not both. You would have to by 2 different units and swap them. I guess the good news is they are pretty cheap A nanostation loco m2 or m5 is about $50.

Like most this type of equipment it is directional and needs clear line of sight to the camp ground antennas....unless you are very close.

 

[kanewolf]

Hello everyone

My parents have a camping trailer that is parked at a year round site. The camp ground offers wifi for $100 (believe this is for the season) for 2 devices, and they wont let you swap devices in and out. So my guess is the are doing this by MAC address filtering.



So my thought..... and someone correct me if im wrong or just to far outside the box on this. ->wifi signal comes into an antenna, runs to a router/switch and then to an AP to rebroadcast their own secure signal.

Ideally i would want something simple for them so when they do start to travel with the camper they can they can set it up and any camp ground or free local wifi hot spots.

Engenius still makes the ENS202EXT -- https://www.engeniustech.com/engenius-products/outdoor-wireless-access-point-ens202ext/ It is omnidirectional which is simpler than the directional units, but won't have as much range. For a "parent" installation, it might be a better choice. It will act as a wireless bridge + router.
You would bring the network into the trailer on the ethernet cable, which is also how you power the outdoor unit. You could then add an indoor WIFI access point for local connectivity.

 

[faalin]

Thanks for the info, im headed over to the camp ground tomorrow so ill scope out what the camp ground has and see what i might need.

Thanks for the recommendation on hardware as well.

 

[punkncat]

IDK if the 'rents already have cell phones? Assuming they already have a plan and according to their data needs it might be better to tether and/or cast.