Testing Wilson Sleek

The Wilson Sleek was reviewed in a previous post. That test was done in trees with times where there was no signal. Testing the Sleek under those compromised conditions may not have been fair. Since that test, I have been trying to find remote (poor signal) locations to repeat the test.

Today was the lucky day as I traveled the remote sections of highway 10 between Prescott and Skull Valley. Pulled off the road atop a ridge with not a tree or hill to block the Verizon cell tower digital signal -- where ever it may be coming from.

For this test, I used the four inch high antenna supplied with the Sleek. The antenna was placed on the roof of Silver Slug and attached to the Sleek. The Sleek was plugged into 12 volt power and the test began.

The cell phone.... The cell phone showed it had a 1X signal, but no bars. Put the cell phone in the Sleek. Still 1X, but one bar appeared. No phone call was made.

The Verizon MiFi card.... The MiFi display showed signal strength of no bars. Placed the MiFi card into the Sleek. One bar appeared. To continue the test, I turned on the iPad connected to the MiFi. Pointed the Safari browser to my Google Reader page. At 1X speeds it takes a while, but eventually the page was displayed.

As I wrote that, I realized I should have tested the MIFi and iPad without the Sleek. Oh well. What did you expect from a retired software guy.

If there was a Verizon EVDO signal, no doubt the testing results would have been similar -- except for faster loading of the page from the internet. When I find a situation with poor EVDO signal, more tests will be run.