Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM

Green tailed yucca, Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM, January 26, 2009

Partial success

First a comment about the modem. This tiny new USB760 modem (about the size of a thumb drive) is a much more substantial feeling piece of hardware than my old USB720. Nice.

In the "stuff we buy without expecting it to work category," if I hadn't spent two hours the other day with 3Gstore.com's tech support jumping through hoops uninstalling and reinstalling the Verizon VZAccess Manager software, and deleting old and adding new locations in Network Preferences and rebooting in various configurations in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get my old modem to connect to the strong EVDO signal I have here at Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM I never would have been able to get my MacBook Pro to recognize this thing without tech support. There are no instructions worthy of the name but I eventually got the MacBook to recognize the USB760. This is NOT a user friendly process.

That's only part of the setup task. I still had to activate the modem on my Verizon BroadbandAccess account and I couldn't seem to figure out how it's done. It turned out to be simple but it took a call to tech support to walk me through it. Bingo - it connects and it works and BroadbandAccess (now called Mobile Broadband by Verizon) is rocking! Yahoo - this moment has been a long time coming!

But of course I don't trust it not to quit, in part because in the midst of trying to figure this all out the old modem suddenly connected and stayed connected. What the....? Unsettling that was!

Now on to the Cradlepoint router. It took a while to decipher the tech jargon but I managed to get its WiFi up and running but I'll be darned if I can get it to recognize the modem. I can't seem to find any diagnostic info nor can I find my way through the new set of tech jargon in the inadequate user manual I downloaded from the net. I guess I'll have to get on the phone today with another call to tech support.

How does 3Gstore.com make a profit with the hours of tech support it takes to get a customer like me up & running? They spent at least two hours with me back when I bought the original system and more than two hours in the last few days diagnosing the old modem and helping me with the new one.They've been very patient and willing to spend the time.

It looks like this new modem won't cost me a nickel once I sign a new 2 year contract with Verizon and get their $50.00 rebate. The new contract extends the old one to expire two years from now AND leaves my old plan in place without the rather tight 5gig per month usage limit Verizon now puts on new Mobile Broadband contracts. I was afraid I'd lose that.

Well Gees John, who'da thunk it?

Later this morning with a major stroke of luck I discovered why the router wouldn't recognize the modem.

It's useful to have everything handily laid out for the call to tech support so I could easily run through whatever diagnostic routines the tech might want me to. Unplugging, resetting, rebooting - stuff like that. The router lives in the back of a cabinet in the kitchen and is not easily reached so I unhooked the it and moved it to my desk. Then found that the 12v adapter cord I was powering it with (the power cord to the old KR-1 router this new one replaces) wouldn't quite reach from the 12v socket under the desk. Remembering the router came with a 120v brick I plugged the router into that to run the router.

Bingo! - the router fired right up, recognized the modem and connected to the internet like any plug & play setup ought to.

What the.....? Plug it back in with the 12v cord - no modem. Back on the brick - modem. Huh?

It turns out the old router cable puts out 5v, not the 12v power the new router requires. It's not a straight pass through plug though it looks like one (and not marked either). Apparently the new MBR1000 router will run its WiFi on 5v but not the modem circuitry.

Want to hazard a guess as to how long it might take to diagnose that one online with a tech?

3Gstore offers a Cradlepoint 12v adapter cord for $24.99. Right now I have the thing running on the cord from my Wilson amp which is a straight 12v passthrough. I'm thinking I'll cut the plug off the old KR-1 cable and put a new cigarette lighter plug in its place and put the $24.99 toward the next new toy.

Night camp

Site 11 - Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM

• Verizon cell phone service - good signal
• Verizon EVDO service - good signal
• Go to Leasburg Dam State Park website
• Locate Leasburg Dam State Park on my Night Camps map
• Check the weather here