View Transcript

Hide Transcript

Transcript is auto-generated.

jeff cote here with boatingtechtalk.com

we've got a shakespeare super halo

and what we're going to be talking about

doing is doing an

unboxing this is a product that

our company pacific yacht system has

sold and roton industries have sold

at least probably 100 maybe more i have

one on my boat

it's a cell booster so uh

full disclosure cell boosters are not

miracle devices

if you don't have a cell connection this

will not create a cell connection for

you

and if the cell connection is really

really terrible this will not make it

great

i have to say having installed hundreds

of these devices

a lot of owners get frustrated and are

sometimes have maybe really high

expectations so

remember this is not a miracle device

does not create internet on your boat

magically it's a way for us to have a

better cell connection

for me on my boat as i'm trying to work

and extend and stay

longer or maybe take a afternoon off and

but still be able to do emails and do it

on my boat

this is a great way when you have a

reasonable cell connection

to boost the cell signal so that your

cellular devices

whatever that be right could be even in

a tablet or it's a cell phone

is going to have a better connection to

the cellular network

but again disclaimer this is uh

does not create internet itself and is

strictly a booster of cell phones

the shakespeare superhero has been

around for a few years i installed on my

boat a few years back

i'm glad i did because i wouldn't have

as much connectivity as i would have

wanted in a lot of different anchorages

here in british columbia

it's a coastal solution it works

on different bands it's going to do yeah

4g 3g 2g

so that's no problem let's start with

opening the box because

as i'm opening i can maybe show you a

few things

by the way also there are other products

that are called wi-fi extenders

and that is a separate product this the

super halo from shakespeare

is really a product to have a little bit

of mobility within a boat

so what it means is that you have an

external antenna which we're going to

talk about you have an internal antenna

and then you have the amplifier

but here's the catch

the further away you are from that

internal

directional antenna and i'm going to

emphasize that in a little bit

the signal does degrade quite a lot so

you can't

be putting this device in a really

really large boat and expect miracles

and be far away from it

to be honest on my boat i try to stay as

close to the directional antenna as

possible

and sometimes if my cell connection is

really important to me

and it's a really bad space or place

where i am

i'm actually going to have my cell phone

directly in front of that directional

antenna and i might have a bluetooth

headset for a phone call or what i'm

going to do

with this device is i might have my cell

phone in front created as a hotspot and

then my laptop is somewhere else so i'm

actually

going from laptop over wi-fi to cell

phone cell phone

conf is taking a wi-fi and it's hot

spotting

and then it's using this device to go

outside world so that's how i can be

able to work remotely

on my boat which is a dream um

and without it i wouldn't be able to do

that so again shakespeare is a huge

player in the marine

industry um they do antennas aglor

they've got a huge i mean their website

is pretty extensive

and we use their products all the time

so this is their

shakespeare super halo so the first

thing you'll notice when you open the

box you've got the instruction manual

also notice what they're in stock

they're giving you actually a lot of

stuff

they're giving you a mount now this

mount to install the

external antenna which we're going to

talk about is actually flush mounted so

it would be good on an arch

if you're a sailboater and you want to

install this

potentially on a bracket on a radar pole

or something like that or you want to

install the antenna

um on the side of the boat you're going

to need a different antenna mount so

this is a flush sort of

heavy duty low profile amount

there are other mounts it's a standard

one and a quarter inch mount

and again if this one doesn't work for

you you can buy other ones but they give

you one mount

because for most of us this is going to

be the amount we want

the other thing too um we've got a power

cable here um that is so 12 volt so

they're going to use as a shakespeare

superhero is powered by 12

which is important you'll notice

there's two cables that we've got here

and they've got both different purposes

and we'll talk about those so i'm going

to put them aside

this is the cell booster actually i'm

going to leave that to the side here

because i'm going to take everything

from the box

and then we can actually without the box

right in front of me i'm going to have a

little bit more space

because some of you know i like to use

my hands

to talk it's part of my latin

upbringing so i can't change that too

much

all right so the first thing i'm going

to open up is what's called the

directional antenna so this is the

antenna that's inside the boat

there's a lot of caveats when you

install this antenna uh you just can't

install where you want you've got to

install it where it needs to be

interesting sound all right so this is

the mounting bracket

to install this directional antenna and

this is the antenna that would be

mounted somewhere in your boat and

devices that are sort of

facing this antenna are going to have a

boosted sell signal so

the term omnidirectional means going in

all directions

this is actually directional so any

device that is behind that will not have

a boosted cell signal so

the trick is finding a place on a boat

where you can mount this

where most of the time most of the

devices that need cellular connectivity

are going to be in front

of it the challenge is that the

external antenna this antenna right here

um you want to mount that as high as

possible but not so high that the cable

can't reach so you can see the cable

there's a longer cable so you don't want

to have the cable

you know some cell boarders ask me oh

jeff can i install this at the top of my

mask well

you could but by the time you calculate

the loss of

signal along that cable you would

actually undo the benefit right because

you can't have a cable forever long and

expect the signal to not degrade until

it hits the amplifier which is this

right here so this is the external

antenna

and this is an omnidirectional antenna

so this antenna over here

allows you to actually get the cell

signal from

all directions so this is a directional

antenna on some boats we'll install this

on the spreaders

now yes there are blockage there but

again it's a sailboat you know it's all

about compromises there is no perfect

place

ideally you'd want this on a stick at

the top of the stick but a stick not so

high

that nothing is around it that's a hard

ask

right so the closest thing might be a

radar pole at the back of your boat and

maybe you have the ability to mount this

higher than the radar

then that would be an ideal location and

so installing this on a radar pole at

the aft of the sailboat would be good

or if you've got a power boat and um you

know it could be on the radar arch

it could be on the side no radar arch

and you have maybe a vhf antenna on one

side of the

flybridge you might install this on the

other side of the fly bridge

and you might be able to use an

extension mount to bring it up higher

right that's an option so this is the

omnidirectional outside antenna

and this is the directional antenna now

the challenge is

and when you read the instructions and

as you some of you know me quite well

i'm a big fan of reading instructions

i'll geek out and actually read

instructions prior to even buying

something

anticipating what i need to do because

when i do get a product i'm pretty

sort of stoked to get it installed so

i'm doing my homework

beforehand the challenge is that

this omnidirectional antenna cannot be

forward

of this antenna so if you have a boat

you couldn't have this sort of setup

this antenna the omnidirectional has to

be behind

it has to be behind you can't you don't

want the interference

from this antenna affecting this antenna

sending a signal back so this antenna

has to always be directly above

or behind and that's where it gets

complicated so for example

the the point i was saying before if you

have a sailboat and you have a radar

pole at the bass

if you've got this antenna you could not

have this antenna facing this way

that would not work you need to find a

bulkhead

and you have to face it like that so

always having the directional antenna

facing away from the omnidirectional

antenna

we sometimes install them on the side of

the boat that's possible again if this

is on one side and you have this on your

radar arch

and you have it on starboard then you

can have this on the starboard side of

your boat facing port

but again never have them face one

another okay so that's a big big

and that's a challenge on a lot of boats

not all of us can do that sometimes we

can't do it

i have voters that say jeff i want this

product how can we make it work and in

the end

we're not able to but in most cases

we're able to find a way and it's a

compromise right there's no

there's no perfect solution it's about

if you want perfect there is no perfect

on about might feel like perfect

but it's not perfect okay so the next

thing we're going to look at

is um i want to go slowly opening this

is that is what i'm opening right now is

actually the amplifier itself

so this is the amplifier you can see a

bunch of

a place where you can mount the screws

there's some screws here that come

now many of us are going to find that

these screws are too long so on most of

the boats where we install these screws

are not adequate

and so what we end up doing is actually

choosing other screws that are maybe a

little bit

not as long because there's not a lot of

places where you can mount that where

you've got a lot of room

and this is the power jack right here i

was going to show you the cable that we

had in our hand at the beginning

this is the power cable right here and

it would go in this slot right there

and this would be mounted on a vertical

bulkhead right somewhere

on the boat in between the

omnidirectional antenna right here and

the directional antenna right over here

so

they're showing you the different types

of signals the older models had

actually manual gains this one

automatically doesn't

it also uh will allow you probably

wondering well this work with multiple

cell phones or another question i get a

lot of time is like do i need a cell

phone subscription nope

nope no no so you can do multiple cell

phones yes you can do up to seven

cell phones on this system but

you do not need a cellular connectivity

plan with this device this is just a

booster so your cell phone

you you have one you have a sim card you

already have connectivity

with your carrier with that phone and so

you don't need to pay something else to

actually have this super halo

system work on your boat um again it's

worth noting you know like all of us

want connectivity or many of us do

connectivity in our vote not all of us

but some of us do

it's a challenge it's it's about being

realistic about our expectations

and remembering that it's not a perfect

device

it's it's a device that does what it can

it does it's

to in my opinion one of the best cell

boosters in the marketplace

no doubt but that being said and it's

the one i have on my boat

but that being said it's not gonna solve

all your problems and again if you're

in a place where there's no cellular

connectivity or really really bad

this might make it a little bit better

but it's not gonna

solve all your problems also worth

noting and i talked about this earlier

this directional antenna the further you

are away from this directional antenna

the more uh loss of signal cell signal

you're gonna have so if a cell

connection is really really important to

you

and like i said sometimes i'll have my

cell phone right here

i'll find a way to put my cell phone as

close as possible and then i'll

bluetooth to my cell phone

or a wi-fi to my cell phone for uh hot

spotting

but if you have a phone 20 30 feet from

this it might get a little bit of a

boost

but it's gonna be really minimal so

again keep your cell phone as close as

possible to this device

okay so that is the shakespeare

superhero

uh and is are probably one of our top

cellular booster devices if you've got

any further questions

post them down below remember we've got

a whole section on our website

at pacificoutsystems.ca just on this

product

and on this product category lots of

articles that we've written over the

years

also if you found this video interesting

please subscribe

um it honestly does it does help us to

know that all this time that we're

investing is actually we're reaching a

lot of voters

and i want to thank all of you for

watching thanks for spending some time

with me