meteohub.de

Hi folks, I wonder if anyone has tried a 4G USB dongle with MBP? As a keen windsurfer I have been using MBP and a Davis Vantage Vue with great success to upload data to Windfinder.com.

https://www.windfinder.com/report/fleet ... lway-firth

The location is a remote bay in SW Scotland where I have a caravan. There is mains electricity April to October but no broadband connection. At the moment I use mains powered satellite broadband for both my computer the MBP connection to the internet. In the winter I hope to use a 12 volt 100W solar panel and deep discharge lead acid battery to power the MBP/dongle. Until now the nearest 3G mast was by EE but with very sporadic connection. EE have just installed a new 4G mast with great reception but the 3G signal is still very weak and sporadic (my wife has a 3G only phone). I am not sure but I think that the new mast is 4G only and that the marginal 3G signal is still coming from the other mast.

At the moment the MBP is exchanging 6.4Mb/day (averaged over the last 44 days) and would be the only device to use the connection, so I do not need the download speed of 4G. However, I think I would be better trying to connect to the strong 4G signal than a weak 3G signal. Has anyone experience that they could use to advise me?

Many thanks,
Douglas

Well I went ahead and bought a 3G USB dongle. None of the recommended Huawei E160, Huawei E161, Huawei manufactured K3765 USB dongles were available in the UK but I bought a Huawei 3G/21 Mbps Unlocked E3531 High Speed USB Portable Dongle Modem for £21 which seemed a low enough price to take the risk of it not working.

So far it has worked faultlessly with my MBP transmitting data to Windfinder. It was very easy to set up as meteobridge recognised it as a USB Router: Huawei modem.

The only issue I have with it is that when connected, it causes the MBP to "act as access point with SSID "MBPRO-Cxxxxxxxxx" whether WLAN AP: is checked or not. This is a pity as I hope to run the MBP/3G dongle off solar/battery power over the winter and the activated MBP WiFi brings the average power consumption of the MBP/USB dongle up to 2.9W.

Douglas

Thanks for reporting that your dongle does fine. This is interesting for other readers I guess.

Regarding your observation that the WiFi access Point always being on, I will do some checks.

Thank you

Douglas