UPDATE – after a comment by starlink on motorhome fun i was made aware of this deal – 350gb a month until December 2026. All in £57 quid but…..

We do all like our data don’t we? When on our travels, we do not often sit down to watch a movie, or even just the TV – Jo likes to read, and i like to watch the world pass by, often through the bottom of a glass of ale…. But – as most of our travels are in the Uk, the weather can sometimes lead to the need for a distraction. (I am of course not commentating on my religious fervour – my church is Elland Road and it matters that i get my regular pain. As this post will appear in a public forum I won’t say exactly how I get to watch matches live but….

So, this year i started to look at data plans, and plotting – last year we paid 35 quid for the CAMC unlimited WiFi, but found that it was patchy, and often couldn’t stream what we wanted – it was also limited to just CAMC sites – but we don’t just use those and we will be in Europe as well. Our friend and neighbour Steve – on my level of Platinum Anorak Geek – told me about Smarty Jo has a rolling contract with Vodafone at 20 odd quid a month and i pay about the same with O2 – knowing that i can roll multiple accounts into one family bundle, and get discounts started to make a lot of sense…

So – what about the hardware? I had thought of using a battery based system, which would allow usage off grid, but as the main reason for the data usage would be the odd footie match or movie, that seemed pointless – though i may revisit that idea later this year! So i started looking around and realised that being a very careful Red Sea Pedestrian, what are considered the best Mi-Fi routers were more than i wanted to spend; then i stumbled on this – and i do like TP Link gear. One thing that brought me to this specific device was the support of an external antenna – which everything that i had read had stated that performance was markedly improved with an external antenna.

Again, being tighter than a gnats chuff, and having seen my wallet runaway screaming after reading some highly rated kit reviews and prices, i started really looking at some video reviews – especially Gadget John’s excellent review of stuff. Now the Netgear was not in my budget, but that Bingfu Antenna…. £16 very well spent!

So, kit was all delivered and time to start installing – and this was going to be straight forward. I knew i had space on the roof bar to mount the antenna and could then run the antenna cable inside through the old cooker vent – the same way i had done the Solar Panel fit, but the mounting kit was not right….. but i love hammers, and Jo will tell you i am familiar with all sorts of vices 😉

Now I slipped the coach bolt head into the T Track of the roof bar – yes Mr Dremel did just trim the edges to allow a smooth slide, then attached a lock nut and washer – nipped tight to hold the antenna firmly in place. I am pissed that i put the cables on the wrong side, but it’s no biggie! Antenna cables the fed down through the grill into the space above our microwave.

So, we now had the antenna mounted and cables led into the space above the microwave. There is a decorative surround that hides the retaining system for the microwave, and that is where i wanted to fit and mount the Mi-Fi router. I had some L brackets that – following a visit from Mr Hacksaw, the right size for the aperture and the router. I marked and drilled through the “foot” of the router and secured it in place with small nuts and bolts – note, I didn’t want to make a shelf that would have been aesthetically better – i wanted easy access to the sim slot for making swift sim swaps viable if needed in the future.

Behind the microwave was the 240v sockets, so power etc was all to hand. I then put the facade back on, powered up the TP Link Tether app, and set the details up – i then connected the TV and a slightly dodgy Firestick up to connect to the Mi-Fi. All good and getting speeds that were better than I expected. On our first Trip to Skegness – it will also be our last – we sat down and streamed a FHD movie from BBC iPlayer – in one evening we used 7.3gb data so – very worth while, and economic i think – I know Jo already has her iPad connected and she loves her YouTube channel… overall, a nice little fettle – its not obtrusive and has worked well.