Jacqui & Neil PM
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Booked into Love2Stay, near Shrewsbury for 2 nights prior to Camperfest in Chester. The site is very new and modern and quite large. It is tight next to a Caravan and Van centre called Salop Leisure, it has a natural water pool outdoor, hot tubs, gyms and a small restaurant bar/cafe.
Dropped Mother in Law off in Northampton, then headed off to Wigrams Canalside, CS in Napton on the Hill near Southam.
Wigrams is at the end if a long track there are 2 camping fields one long and thin, the other quite large especially for only 5 vehicles, EHU scattered around the edge, water and waste available at the side of the field entrance, the toilet block has 1 toilet and sink, 1 shower toilet and sink and a single sink.
Paid 15 pounds for one night (Bank Holiday weekend), with EHU (although not needed), it is a great location at the junction of Oxford and Grand Union canals, also Locks, Cafe and a Marina nearby.  Short walk, 15 minutes, is the Kings Head, booked a table via OpenTable online for the evening, could not fault it had great food and quick service a very pleasant surprise.
It was the first time we have been away in the van without the dog, had decided to leave him at home as we were going to the Picnic Cinema, Cannock Chase the next evening and felt it was unfair to leave him in the van. Â Any way apart from the van seeming really spacious and quiet without him, we got on really well and enjoyed our first CS stop.
We liked the environment, facilities and location, the only sour point was the toilet drains were full or blocked as liquid waste was leaking out across the entrance road, not a major issue but not pleasant.
No internet, but the Wifi kit worked well and we had a solid connection via BT FON, really impressed with the new antenna.
Received all the various bits for the extended wifi access this morning, all looked as expected slightly better in fact although the 3 pin power adapter for the R36 was a bit odd, worked fine though.
Connected it all up each component worked but the R36 did not recognise the Alfa AWUS036NHR USB Wifi Network Adapter, upgraded the firmware for the R36 still no joy, so downgraded the R36 firmware to an earlier version (1.2.1.2 for AWUS036NH/NHR/TubeU(N)/UBDo-n series ) that specifically states NHR, rebooted everything suddenly blue power light appears on the Alfa AWUS036NHR and the Site Survey button rather than hanging brings up a big long list of all the Wifi networks within the vicinity.
Stuck the bigger antenna on and the same list appears so not sure whether that works any better but we shall see, when it is put into action this weekend at Malvern.  Seems quite straightforward to use and easy once the correct procedure is known.
Just purchased a wifi booster/range extender for the MH.  After looking at the offerings from the 2 main providers at the Rallies that we have been to, MotorhomeWifi and WifiOnBoard, decided to risk it and Do It Myself (DIM, hmmm!!).  Nothing wrong with either of the offerings I saw but the prices seemed quite high, a basic system would cost anything from 130 to 160 pounds for just wifi and that included compromises, could be up as high as 350.  Of the 2 options, WifiOnBoard is probably more flexible antennas, 3/4G etc.., but MotorhomeWifi is the easier to use and setup with a much better interface therefore possibly more reliable.
When I looked at what they did and how, basically they had combined the following:
So, I have just bought from Amazon:
How it Works
The AWUS036NHR via the supplied Antenna picks up the external Wifi connection, this plugs into the Alfa R36 via a USB cable, the Alfa R36 is powered either via 230v or 12v connection.  The Alfa R36 provides a wifi and lan cable connection for my devices in the MH.
In theory this should provide similar functionality to the WifiOnBoard and MotorhomeWifi systems and if necessary allow me to use any 3/4G dongle to replace the AWUS036NHR if wifi is not available and mobile data is.
There are YouTube videos to demonstrate the above setup and driver updates available, so it should be a easy enough.  Will be setting up at home and then testing at Malvern and Cannock.
We shall see?