Errol Cain – Director of R Electronics

Marine electronics, desalination and navigation specialist Errol Cain has supervised the installation of marine electronic systems into thousands of Riviera luxury cruisers in his 29 years experience.

In this issue, we feature the latest release from antenna manufacturer Glomex.

Surfing at Sea

Internet is often required but seldom found at along the Australian seaboard with standard smartphones. It is generally only available 20Nm offshore if you are equipped with expensive but slow satellite equipment … until now!

Glomex, the Italian antenna manufacturer has just released the new weBBoat 4G / LTE WiFi antenna. The antenna is a little bulky at 250mm diameter and 300mm high but works a treat. So, how does this 4G / LTE antenna work and why such a better range?

All mobile phone towers have a built in sequence or “timeslot” for all their connected devices – as a device gets further away it begins to miss its timed spot in the sequence and if this happens too often, it is then booted to a lower and slower frequency (i.e. dropping from 4G to 3G because you moved too far away from a tower).

The Webboat4G uses smart programming of its diversity modem to stay in the sequence for greater distances. The antenna itself uses a high-gain dual diversity antenna system that is directly connected to the modem/gateway in the antenna which, in turn, eliminates any cable loss that conventional 3G or “cell phone” antenna systems have.

The maximum range of the antenna is still limited to the maximum range of the nearest tower however the above features enable the higher and faster frequencies to be used up to 50 per cent farther then its traditional limits

The Glomex weBBoat 4G / LTE antenna takes a standard service provider (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone etc.) sim data card. Telstra offers 15GB of data for AUD $105.00 per month

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Antenna dimensions (diam.x H): 250 x 300 mm / 10×12″
• Antenna weight: 1,2 kg / 2,65 lb
• Automatic switch Wi-FI registered networks to 4G.
• 4G backup WAN function
• LTE 4G up to 100 Mbps in download and 50 Mbps in upload
• DC- HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps in download and 5.76 Mbps in upload

Although there is no phone service available with the weBBoat, Skype and instant message service still are.

The unit costs AUD $1639.00 plus installation. We believe that it is worth every cent if you are a coastal cruiser and like having internet available. Additionally, multiple devices can be connected at once … so all on board can surf.

………

For further information on any of the above, please contact:

Errol Cain
R Electronics
p. +61 7 5561 7900
e. ecain@relectronics.com.au