Yet Another Trailer Antenna

Yes, another year, another trailer antenna project for our Jayco Jay Flight 28BHS ...

My first project was a WiFi access point mounted on an antenna mast. This worked well as a system but failed to be practical due to a lack of usable WiFi service in the parks we visit. My next attempt was to simply mount a passive Verizon LTE antenna on the mast and attach that to a MiFi mobile hotspot. This also worked but, since our cell service is AT&T, we were provisioning the Mifi on a pay-as-you-go basis, an expensive and frustrating process. Recently, we found that AT&T has started allowing iPhone tethering on its normal data plans so it would be much simpler to boost the iPhones and let them both access the network directly and use them as hotspots for the laptops.

I looked into setting up an AT&T voice and data cell booster. Reviewing available technology was encouraging as I found that multi-carrier voice and data systems are now available. I chose the weBoost Drive 4G-X amplifier from Wilson Electronics and combined this with a marine-grade multiband antenna and an internal ceiling patch antenna from the same manufacturer. The patch antenna is similar to the one we use in the house to boost voice signals. I opted for the marine grade antenna since we often camp on the coast. I ordered the parts from Wilson Amplifiers, a distributor here in Texas. I can recommend both of these companies, despite the confusion in names!

When I received the parts, the trailer was unfortunately in the shop getting repairs done. My tests were, therefore, initially attempted in the house and in the truck. I was plagued with feedback problems between the two antennas and had resigned myself to possibly using the mini personal patch antenna that comes with the booster, a unit intended to provide a signal only within a 2 foot radius. A call to technical support at Wilson Amplifiers which they escalated to Wilson Electronics after answering the basic questions proved helpful. They both patiently listened to my issues and gave me good information on how the booster works and what to expect. Fortunately, when we got the trailer back and I did some real tests, the feedback problems did not reoccur, perhaps due to reflective foil insulation in the roof which I had forgotten was part of our installation package.

The permanent installation started with the tedious task of figuring out where I could route cabling. I wanted the inside antenna centrally located on the ceiling near the kitchen table and I wanted to reuse the "electronics shelf" over the table for the booster unit.

I started by drilling a hole just large enough to pass a male N-connector of the patch antenna and placed so that one end of the antenna would line up with a ceiling joist. As I found out, my chosen location was clear of other ceiling fixtures for a good reason ... this is where the air conditioning duct passes in the "attic" space to feed the rear vents. There is about a 1" gap between the duct work and the ceiling panel. Enough room to pass a cable but hard to drill through without scoring the duct. Hey, at least I didn't end up drilling a hole into the duct.

I next removed the speaker from the ceiling (show circled below) to give myself a place to reach into the ceiling space to fish cable. The decorative trim and grille cover slides tightly over the metal speaker housing. I am not sure if there is a tool to remove it with but I managed to wedge it off with a flat head screwdriver. There are two joists between the speaker location and the hole I made for the antenna. These are not solid but are trusses and have space to route a cable through.

In the electronics shelf over the table, I drilled a smaller hole in the ceiling just large enough to pass a male SMA connector. This hole is just to the right of a joist and in the same joist space as the speaker. This made it easy to use fishing tape to pull some cord back to the speaker hole. However, pulling cord from the patch antenna hole to the speaker hole proved more difficult with the joists, AC duct, and miscellaneous wiring to navigate past.

In the electronics shelf, I drilled a second hole directly below the first (yellow cord) that leads down into the space behind the entertainment unit and which is already full of cabling. This photo below is of the wall separating the back bedroom from the entertainment shelf. From here, I drilled a hole back into the the entertainment cabinet below the DC power plug I had installed in a previous project.

Here is where the hole comes out inside the cabinet. The yellow cord continues up and to the left to the electronics shelf as described in the earlier picture.

With the holes completed, I routed a section of RG-58 coax with a male N-connector and male SMA connector along the shelf that I modified in a previous project situated in the rear sleeping area. This cable follows the yellow cord. All of the slack in the coax was tucked out of sight into the entertainment cabinet.

Along the shelf, I used stick-on cable trays to keep the coax from catching on things. This coax attaches to an N-connector bulk-head that I had installed as part of last year's Mifi project. The little frame outlines the section of wallboard that I had to remove to access the external siding of the trailer and to mount the bulkhead. Now, it is a removable panel. Ideally, I would have tried to route this section through the ceiling as well.

Here is where the bulk-head connector come out, behind the ladder and about 20" down from the roof-line. If I were doing the project from scratch, I would probably move the entry point further up and more central to reduce the cable slack. However, I already had the connection point installed.

I added a right-angle N-connector to protect the coax from getting bumped and connected another section of RG-58 enclosed in a protective split loom. This section has a male N-connector on one end (shown) and a female SMA connector on the other. By the way, the cables did not come with connector combinations as I am using. The antenna kits comes with a 20' extension cable with SMA-female and SMA-male connectors.  I cut this in two parts and crimped on male N-connectors on the two ends. I used the part with the SMA-female to route the the external antenna and used the other half to route from the booster to the patch antenna. I ordered an additional cable with N-male and SMA-male from Wilson and used it for the run along the shelf.  By the way, not all N-connector RG-58 crimp connectors are created equal. The ones sold by Wilson Amplifiers were of good quality and had a solderable center pin.

My adoption of marine parts continued on the roof. Shown here is a Shakespeare ratchet antenna mount, part 4187-HD, attached to a Shakespeare Galaxy 48" fiberglass mast section, part 5228-4. I found both of these locally at West Marine. I screwed the mount onto the roof using stainless screws and covered with the same Alpha Systems 1015 self-leveling sealant that I used on the solar panel project. The nylon mount that came with the antenna was not sturdy enough to use with an extension mast.

The ratchet mount is great. It allows the antenna to be folded down parallel with the roof and raised in seconds. Unfortunately, the antenna radials are very fragile (I already broke one) and are likely to puncture the roof covering if things rattle around while driving. To the rescue ... foam.  I sacrificed the end off of a therapeutic foam roller lying around the house.

I also screwed a stainless "top saddle" from the marine store to the roof and used it to strap the antenna and foam block down solidly. Notice from the inset picture that the radials are safely above the roof.

When in camp, I can simply unstrap the tie-down, release the ratchet, lift the antenna, and re-tighten ratchet. I can even slide the foam block down if desired. I still have to get on the roof but I don't have to carry any junk up there with me now.

Back inside the trailer, I mounted the patch antenna on the ceiling with the hole placed at the far end. The closer pair of screws go into a ceiling joist, the other pair only catch the ceiling plywood.

The booster amplifier gets screwed to the back wall of the electronics shelf. The upper coax goes to the patch antenna via the attic space while the lower coax goes to the external antenna via the entertainment cabinet an the bunk shelf. The third line is the DC power which either plugs into the AC outlet just to the right or into the DC cigarette light plug intended for the TV.

Wow, rarely do projects like this come out with all of the wires pointing in the right direction. The important test here is that all of the lights show green! This indicates that the booster is not reducing its gain to compensate for feedback between the antennas. In the end, there is about 4ft vertical and 10ft horizontal separation between the two antennas. This is about what I was testing earlier so I assume that the foil insulation is enough to block the potential feedback path.

The completed antenna extends well above the roof line, clearing all of the other junk up there. Running a test in the yard, the 4G data signal boosted from 1 bar to 4 bars.  Time for a real field test!

Dec 27 - Trip to Mustang Island State Park last week. The booster made the different between a reasonable LTE signal inside the trailer vs. nothing ... yay!

July 5 - After six months and several spring trips to the coast, the repeater has been well worth the effort and expense.

Summer Birds Davis Mountains

Here is a slide show of the birds we saw on our June trip to Davis Mountains State Park. We once again hoped to see the Montezuma Quail and were once again disappointed. We did, however, see a number of Phainopepla which were also on our target list.

Camping Cappuccino

Nothing says roughing it at the campground like a frothy cappuccino.  Edward at Mustang Island SP with Nespresso machine and Breville milk frother. Hey, even the ISS is going to get one.

Christmas Trip to Davis Mountains

Slide show of bird images taken to our trip to Davis Mountains SP, Lake Balmorhea, and Balmorhea SP.

Birding at Seminole Canyon State Park

Last Spring, we visited Seminole Canyon State Park to view comet C/2011 L4.  This year we returned and stayed for one day of hiking and birding along the new trail system. The Google map below shows the hike. We started in the campground mid morning with cool and misty weather, packing our binoculars and small small SX-50 cameras. We started down the original Rio Grande trail which follows the west boarder of the park as an old jeep road making for the scenic overlooks at the river which we missed last time. The fog cleared quickly around noon while we were at the end of the trail. On the way back, with the sun out, it was quite warm as we followed the new Canyon Rim trail which follows the contours of the Seminole Canyon. In all, a 9 mile hike.

The scenic overlooks were breath-taking. Unfortunately, our Labrador seemed to think he could get access to the "big swimming hole" so we had to keep him on a tight leash. The first view is looking down along the Seminole Canyon to the Rio Grande River. We were surprised to see so much water, especially after visiting Las Cruces and walking around in the Rio Grande basin where the water was about 2 inches deep. Nestled in the bend of the river at the left edge of the picture is the famous Panther Cave pictograph site. By tour only, no dogs allowed.

The second view is at the end of the trail looking upstream along the Rio Grande. We were able to see a number of water birds down in the shallow river as well as a small fishing boat.

We were pleasantly surprised by how many bird species we identified, without the use of any bird blinds or feeding stations. Below were the ones we got pictures of. All images taken with Canon SX-50 HS, most at full zoom.

Cactus Wren - A number of these were stationed in the area around the campground as well as the initial part of the hike. Seemed to be separated by 50 meters or so and positioned midway to top of tall bushes. Unmistakable sound of car starting with bad battery.

Western Meadowlark - Based on the song, more likely a western variety, both types might be found in Texas. Only saw one of these.

Northern Mockingbird - These were everywhere. Nice photo of one in the light of the setting sun.

Great Egret - Yellow bill, black legs ... this one is a great egret. Only saw one of these down in the reeds along the far side of the Rio Grande. It caught a few fish as we watched.

Female Bufflehead - Two of these swimming just upstream of Panther Cave. I was amazed that the water was transparent enough to see the movement of the feet underwater.

Black Phoebe - Perched on an Ocotillo overlooking the Rio Grande gorge below. Unlike at Balmorhea, this one did not show off its aerial hunting skills. We only saw one during our hike.

Canyon Towhee - Saw several in and around the campground at dusk. This was a challenging shot as I had to focus manually, a real pain using the Canon SX-50. The camera insisted on auto-focusing on the high-contrast bush in the far distance and not on the bird, despite setting the smallest AF point.

White-Crowned Sparrow - One of several sparrow species we identified in the park.  These were very numerous, especially in the campground. Here an adult and two immature birds foraged together behind the restrooms. This clinched our previous identification of the juvenile white-crowned.

Black-Throated Sparrow - Saw a few of these throughout the park but not nearly as numerous as the White-Crowned.

Possible Song Sparrow - Only photographed this species once and did not confirm the song.

Possible Cassin's Sparrow - This fluffed up sparrow caused us lots of consternation trying to identify it so not confident. We saw several and heard its song every 100 meters or so along the Rio Grande trail in the morning mist. I recorded a snippet of the song on my iPhone for later comparison. A whistle-like tee trrrrrrreh-ee  tee-tehhh tooo.  My tentative identification based mostly on this song pattern. However, we did not see any of these sparrows "skylarking" ... too early in the season?

Winter Lark Bunting - Saw several of these foraging in the distance. This bird stumped me for quite a bit. Initially assumed it was a sparrow and came up blank matching the wing bars and the heavy striping. Finally dawned on me that the bill was too heavy and tried buntings. Wing bar on the Lark Bunting was right but took some hunting to find a confirming illustration of a bird in winter plumage. This is a radical change in wardrobe!

House Finch - Numerous during the morning part of the hike. Moving in groups from the top of one bush to the next singing en-masse.  I like the shot on the yucca.

Say's Phoebe - I am now seeing this bird everywhere now that I have identified it once. This pair was particularly fun to watch. They were perched at the top of bushes and, in turn, they would fly up, hover, and then drop down. Almost looked like courtship but probably just finding bugs.  Interesting that they took turns, though.

Pyrrhuloxia - Finally, a real Pyrrhuloxia ... we saw two birds together. At Ft Davis SP, we saw a "strangely colored" cardinal which we had convinced ourselves might be a Pyrrhuloxia. Having seen this one, we think that what we had seen was an immature male cardinal in final molt. Only caught a few blurry shots of this one due to more camera focusing issues. However, the bright yellow, stubby bill is quite evident and clearly different from the narrower, orange-red cardinal bill.

Curve-Billed Thrasher - This was another birding highlight of this trip. I saw one of these in the fading light our first evening. I got a very blurry shot of it, enough to give me some confidence of the identification but really wanted to see it again more clearly. The next day, a fellow camper from the neighboring site approach me and explained his dilemma that a "bird with long curved bill" was repeatedly striking his trailer window and wondering why. I mentioned that I was hoping to see that very bird and joked that I would hang out at his trailer.

The next morning, as we were packing, he came by and said that the bird was back in action. He showed me a nice photo of it taken from inside the trailer. After waiting in vigil for a quarter hour, the bird came back. It was actually a pair of thrashers restoring a nest in the bush next to the trailer. After watching, I conjectured that the pecking was most likely the male fending off a phantom rival in the form of its own reflection. The photo shows the reflection but I should have taken a movie of its aggresive fencing moves! Many thanks to our neighbor for alerting us so we could get a closer look at this bird.

Barn Swallow - The area around the restrooms was grand central station for a dozen swallows, especially in morning and evening. I did not see evidence of nest building but the power lines above the restroom were a favorite perching point. The barn swallows were the most numerous.

This next video clip shows the swallow contorting itself to preen its feathers. Funny how stiff the wings remain during this operation.

Cave Swallow - I saw a couple of these mixed in, a bit smaller than the barn swallow and lacking the long forked tail.

Purple Martin - This was a surprise. A lone pair of purple martins that I only saw on one occasion at sunset. When I was a kid, my dad set up a purple martin house in our yard. One of those two-story aluminum condos with doors on both sides. The bird guide I had at that time indicated that purple martins were permanent residents in Las Cruces. However, we never saw a single martin, either in the bird house or anywhere else. Lots of house sparrows took up residence instead. My dad remembered that a roadrunner even tried to nest in it. In retrospect the thing was too low to the ground and too near the trees to have a hope of attracting martins. My current bird guide also indicates that Las Cruces has no purple martins anyway. To this day, my few sightings of purple martins have brought back memories of my anticipation that these birds would take up residence in our yard and delight us with their swooping about.

The second shot below of the male is rather humorous. It was not vocalizing at the time ... it looked like it was yawning ... do birds yawn? Maybe just waiting for the insects to fly into its mouth!  The picture does show how the seemingly small bill is really part of a big bug scoop. It almost looks like a frog's mouth.

In addition to the birds we were able to photograph, we also saw many Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures, a number of Common Ravens, a Great Blue Heron in the Rio Grande along with a half-dozen American Coot, and a flock of Sandhill Cranes traveling north along the Seminole Canyon.

The biggest surprise of this location ... no Kingfishers!

Visiting Las Cruces March 2014

Our visit to Las Cruces was primarily to attend my father-in-law's 80th birthday celebration. Congratulations Roy!  In addition, we also spent an afternoon visiting my father, recovering from surgery, and his wife, about to start chemo. While in town, we took the opportunity to do a little walking and birding. All images taken with Canon SX-50 HS, most at full zoom.

Saturday morning, we spent an hour at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park, a short walking loop near the Rio Grande. We didn't get any worthwhile pictures but we did see a Red-Tailed Hawk soaring overhead, a trio of Gambel's Quail ambling on a hill above use, several Western Meadowlark singing atop tall bushes, and a Say's Phoebe hanging out in front the park headquarters.

Sunday morning, we drove up Dripping Springs road towards La Cueva where we used to hike regularly as teens ... only to find a gate on the road with a "no pets allowed" sign.  Are you freaking kidding me, dogs banned in the middle of the desert?  We left in disgust refusing to give them any money for the new entrance fee.

Instead, we followed the Sierra Vista trail on BLM land further down slope.  Nice view of the Organ Mountains from here.

Vali appreciated the opportunity to stretch his legs as well

Birding in this area yielded a number of small brown birds hiding in the mesquite and creosote, mostly House Finches and White-Crowned Sparrows. We had hoped to see a roadrunner but no such luck.

We had a nice visit with my family during the afternoon ...

... and, as we drove out of the neighborhood, we finally saw our roadrunner, appropriately smack in the middle of the road.  We got a nice picture of this Greater Roadrunner in the landscaping once it left the road ... nicer picture that way.

We drove down to the Rio Grande for some more nature hiking.  Here is Danielle walking in the river basin. Not much irrigation water being released right now; the reservoirs up-river are almost empty this year. This is another part of the country that needs a lot of rain. There were a couple of water channels with a few inches of water flowing.

Nice assortment of birds as well. The most prevalent were crows. Not just a few, but thousands flying southward overhead. Wave after wave all evening ... worthy of a Hitchcock thriller!

Closer to earth, we saw several varieties of ducks including Mallards, Pinheads, and Northern Shovelers. We also saw American Coot and several Green-Winged Teal, a new one on our list

A couple of Great Blue Heron also flew by.  In the shallow water we also found several dozen Least Sandpipers probing in the smelly mud. They were easy to approach and I was surprised by how small they were.

We saw and heard a number of Red-Wing Blackbirds in the reeds and high in the trees. These seem to increase in quantity as sunset approached. A few even settled down near the water's edge making them easier to photograph.

As the sun set, a number of swallow-like birds began darting over the water hunting insects.  I listed them as probable Northern Rough-winged Swallows based on the region and the unmarked dusty colored bellies.

Finally, on a transmission line over the river, we saw a Belted Kingfisher. I couldn't believe it. Until a few months ago, I had never seen a kingfisher ... anywhere. Now I seem to be running into them everywhere we go and they have become a running joke.