Everyone seems to have the need to "stay in touch," these days. Sadly, the traveling RV writer is no exception. We need to be "connected" no matter where we go. A friend of ours describes his cell phone as, "My electronic leash." If you too, have the real need (even if not the desire) to stay in cellular phone range, you’ve no doubt suffered the woes of spotty cellular coverage.

Cell phones are low powered, high frequency devices, and hence subject to blinking out when you most need them. We discovered early on that if our cell phone was really going to be of much help, the standard-equipment antenna just wouldn’t cut it. To make our phone far more reliable, we had to use an external antenna. Mind you, not all cell phones offer this capability--check your owner manual.

For us, we first started parking the cell phone antenna on the roof of our tow vehicle -- which was fine when we were in the truck or near enough to grab the phone when it rang. But when inside the RV it wasn’t always possible to hear--much less reach--the insistent little device. We had plenty of "missed call" legends appear on our phone’s display. Finally, the light came on. There are ways to hitch up a cell antenna to your RV.

Our fifth wheel came equipped with a roof vent over the bed area. This was handy, as our traveling office is located there. The roof vent was not your typical, plastic-dome variety, but rather, a flat galvanized metal lid. It didn’t take long to discover that we could perch our magnetic mount cell antenna on the roof vent, and route the lead wire down into the rig by removing the bug screen, installing the cable, and replacing the screen. As far as the cell phone was concerned this was great. The number of signal "bars" increased from a non-usable one to a clear signal rating five bars.

The drawbacks? In hot weather, when we needed to fully open the roof vent to clear the air, the orientation of the cell antenna went from a useable vertical to a useless horizontal. We did our best to work around the situation, until the day came when the roof vent started to leak and needed replacing. The Queen declared that a "tin roof" over her bedchamber was just too noisy in the rain, and so a plastic dome vent was called in for duty. This left us with no handy magnetic surface on which to affix our cellular antenna.

Our rig roof is aluminum. This makes for a great expanse of metal for a "ground plane" which helps with the transmission of cellular signals--but the external antenna requires a surface to which a magnet is attracted. Aluminum and magnets are about as compatible as my cousin Bumblemeir and his wife, so something more was needed.

Enter the antenna plate. A piece of thin, galvanized sheet metal was acquired. With the help of friendly tin bender, the sharp edges of the plate (in itself, about 6" x 12") were carefully bent over on the sheet, leaving a smooth edge on all four sides.

Next, we located a suitable piece of roof real estate, essentially above my desk area. Strips of butyl tape were affixed to the edges of the antenna plate on its "ugly" side. The plate was then pressed into the roof, sandwiching the butyl tape to the roof. One inch sheet metal screws firmly moored the plate to the roof, at 2" intervals on center. As a final step against weather problems, each of the screw heads was "dabbed" with acrylic caulk.

Next, we carefully figured where to blast a hole through the roof into the coach. In locating the hole, we took into account likely wire runs for lighting circuits so as to avoid drilling through ceiling-routed wiring. We also located the hole as close to the area of phone use as we could. We also attempted to account for wall thickness--so that our hole would actually blast all the way through the ceiling, and not wind up somewhere inside a wall. Here is where the tech tumbled--our hole could have been much closer to the exterior wall. Live and learn. The hole size was determined by drilling the smallest hole that would allow the passing through of the phone connector on the end of the antenna lead.

I gritted my teeth as I bored the hole down through the roof and into the coach--but nothing exploded and everything seemed intact. We then passed the phone connector from the roof into the coach, and then finished off the installation of the cable by placing an appropriately sized rubber grommet around the hole in the ceiling. We later plan on painting the ceiling, and the grommet will be camouflaged with the new paint.

At the roof top level, we plunked the magnetic base of the antenna down in the center of the antenna plate. The acrylic caulk was trotted out to seal the lead wire hole. Yes, we used plenty of it, and when we did, we tried to make sure it didn’t leak down into the coach. It’s best NOT to use "self leveling" caulk for this part of the game. We then hooked up the phone, and viola, the signal was good and solid--actually even a bit better than with our roof vent mount.

Better measurement of the wall thickness would have kept the Queen happier--having the lead sticking down from the inside ceiling dead above the center of the desk is a bit disconcerting. Had we not been concerned about boring into a roof-mounted solar panel, we would have drilled from inside the coach to the roof. Part of this dislocation problem was overcome by using adhesive backed "cable clamps" from Radio Shack to route the antenna lead wire more appropriately.

For folks with EPDM rubber roofs, you’d probably need to use a larger chunk of metal for your antenna plate. You’d also want to use approved EPDM lap cement to cover your screws, just in case you slip and get any of the stuff on your roof.

If you don’t have the appropriate tools to work with sheet metal, hiring the cutting and bending out to a sheet metal worker is not an expensive proposition. Check under "sheet metal" or "heating contractors" in the yellow pages.

So far, with several weeks behind us, the antenna has worked out well. We did have one problem with a low-hung tree branch knocking the antenna off the plate. That required dragging out the ladder to gain roof access to stick it back in place. It didn’t take long to figure we had a problem--with the antenna lead plugged in we didn’t get any "gain" in signal strength, prompting a quick "look-see" from ground level to spot the knocked over signal helper.

With our new external antenna plate in place, our trips into "cellular hell" are fewer and fewer. Whether that’s a gain is best measured by who’s calling.