Anyone here doing this? What did you use for a Hotspot, another phone or ATT myfi?

How is it working for you? Any advice would be helpful.

Vern, based on the feedback of our friends and competitors when we first started using a trailer based weather station…Altalab and prediction software…iFamily in 2018, we have purposely not used text messaging and have opted to stick with a pager that has never failed us.

Hi Vern: I'm in the same page with Ed on this one, never tried to text message my cell phone just used the pager.

Bob

So we have one pager and also use text prediction on Racebase. We have a hotspot that we keep in the motorhome to watch TV so I just connect to that.

My son just uses Team Viewer and logs into the computer in the trailer using his phone

Texting works great for me, I use my watch to see the predictions...

I have been using CC Pro texting for years with great results.I have a MiFi hot spot that I use for my business, leave it on in the trailer when I am in the lanes.

IMO the advantage to texting over a pager is the range. The internet based texting doesn't care how far away you are.

I did like the Computech ability to turn off/on the texts while in the lanes but went back to CC Pro with a Altronics weather station. I was not happy with Computech customer service and will never use their products again.

Tony,

What is the monthly charge for the hotspot? I’m going to need a new iPhone before long but I’m thinking that using my existing phone for the hotspot might be cheaper.

I used to have paging with my Altalab weather station but it gave up the ghost and I switched to the Altacom 4X that uses text messages.

I can add a line for 15 bucks a month but it looks like the hotspot is 50? I’ll call Altalab today and see what they have to say.

Back when I bought my Altalab in 2015, mobile service was not a guarantee at many racetracks. For that reason, I went with paging and I've never regretted it.

I think using a second phone as a hotspot for only this purpose should be OK. The dedicated hotspot plans are much more expensive because the carriers allow a lot more data to run through those.

I have a hotspot from AT&T and it is $55 a month for 100gigs.

quote:

Originally posted by Lenny5160:
Back when I bought my Altalab in 2015, mobile service was not a guarantee at many racetracks. For that reason, I went with paging and I've never regretted it.

It’s still not, many tracks are in the middle of nowhere and to make matters worse, you have hundreds of racers, crew etc, all on their phones, computers, IPads and hot spots at the same time.

We’ll stay with paging, never fails. Don’t have any need for s hot spot either.

quote:

Originally posted by Cashflow:
Tony,

What is the monthly charge for the hotspot? I’m going to need a new iPhone before long but I’m thinking that using my existing phone for the hotspot might be cheaper.

I used to have paging with my Altalab weather station but it gave up the ghost and I switched to the Altacom 4X that uses text messages.

I can add a line for 15 bucks a month but it looks like the hotspot is 50? I’ll call Altalab today and see what they have to say.

Vern there’s a “cheaper” way to get a hotspot…

I did it with an air card for years. Was only an issue when there were no towers, for me that was Boise. So I eventually went to a pager.

quote:

Originally posted by 1320racer:

quote:

Originally posted by Lenny5160:
Back when I bought my Altalab in 2015, mobile service was not a guarantee at many racetracks. For that reason, I went with paging and I've never regretted it.

It’s still not, many tracks are in the middle of nowhere and to make matters worse, you have hundreds of racers, crew etc, all on their phones, computers, IPads and hot spots at the same time.

We’ll stay with paging, never fails. Don’t have any need for s hot spot either.

That’s actually a good point. I ran several national events last year, and the cell service was ALWAYS somewhere between terrible and non-existent once the crowds really filled in. That was with both my phone and my hotspot.

quote:

Originally posted by Al Alguire:
I did it with an air card for years. Was only an issue when there were no towers, for me that was Boise. So I eventually went to a pager.

Cash, I pay an extra $40 per month for mine but I need it for business purposes anyway.

Al, Boise is the reason I went to texting over the pager. We like to pit down in the hole instead of being shoe horned up top. Once we would start down the hill in the lanes, I would lose pager service. I don't have that problem with texting and Verizon has good service there.

Long story but I was probably the only person who had issues with my Altalab weather station.

They were great to work with but finally they gave me a smoking deal on a 4x weather station and it has worked flawlessly. It does not have paging so I want to use the texting feature.

I will call them again today and see what they have to say. My phone still works fine and I use it as a hotspot at the races for my iPad so I don’t see any problems using it to text me in the lanes.