Thor Forums

[Greybear]

Originally Posted by mpinva

Crater: Just ordered Google Fi service/phone/and data only Sim as an experiment for alternatives to VZ here in the mid atlantic. Travel mainly in the southeast but planning a trip out west (MT, SD,ND) I have the Winegard unit and plan to install a google Sim in it. Before I start climbing on the roof of the RV, do you have any other tips/tricks for setting up the Winegard for Google Fi? Have you been happy with the service and coverage? Thanks

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the answer from Crater, however I just finished installing a Google Fi sim in my unit yesterday, and I think I have some tips for you...

Crater's instructions are spot on. I don't have a power switch for the Wineguard in my unit, so I just hit the master disconnect to pull the power.

Just locate the little clear protector window over the SIM slot and remove the two screws. You can then pop the SIM out by pushing it in and letting go. Pull it out.

Interestingly, in the Wineguard unit the SIM contacts face *down*. That's a bit unusual in my experience. Because the Google Fi SIMs are nano SIMs and the Wineguard wants a standard, you'll need an adapter as Crater said.

My problem was that the adapter kits I could find expect the SIM to be facing UP. This meant the the Fi SIM was going to fall out when I tried to put it in. Perhaps there's an adapter kit out there that works, but I couldn't find one. You could probably use a bit of scotch tape to tape the SIM into the type of adapter I found, but I decided to make a SIM adapter that holds the SIM card in and allows to card to face down at the same time. As I'm paranoid, I used some tape to hold the SIM in anyway.

Once the SIM is in, power up or reboot your unit and wait a few minutes. Then follow Crater's instructions. As he said, the towers that pop up with the Fi SIM are indeed T-Mobile towers. Once I entered the right APN (h2g2), it connected, and Dunzo.

The connection strength and speed have been great for me, although we haven't gone anywhere yet. I'm in Utah, so when you come out west I think you'll be fine as long as you don't get too far off grid.

As a side note, if anyone wants a copy of the file to print their own SIM adapter, drop me a line and I'll happily send it to you. Takes about 4 minutes to print.

Hope that helps!