Internet while Cruising

[JazzyO]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

When you head out to remote locations next year.... you won't be laughing. Especially when you begin paying for internet by the GB in foreign countries.

This is all dependent on your view of the world. I have a satlink which works almost anywhere, also mid-ocean. It costs $500 for 1 Gb/month. For a cruiser living off a pension, that is shockingly high. For someone running a business, it is a no-brainer.

Don't assume everyone is the same as you.


Onno

[dlymn]

We sail in the Ionian around the Greek Islands. We buy a Wind data card; summer deal 4 gig for 15 euros for 3 months and that has been fine for emails, weather checks and some skyping home to the family even when we're in the middle of the inland sea (total usage 10 minute per diem)

In the past, when we tied up, we bought a coffee from a nearby taverna with wifi and then went back to the boat to relink with a fairly powerful antenna.

We don't do that anymore. In the marinas we read or just watch the world go by. In Syvota we watch the Ramblas and wave to the waiter to bring a coffee over. On the hook we do a lot of sitting and looking. I'm more interested in trying to catch those fish that hang around under the hull (but never in marinas). Have you considered giving up with the internet and just relaxing.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by JazzyO

This is all dependent on your view of the world. I have a satlink which works almost anywhere, also mid-ocean. It costs $500 for 1 Gb/month. For a cruiser living off a pension, that is shockingly high. For someone running a business, it is a no-brainer.

Don't assume everyone is the same as you.


Onno

My post was addressed to the OP.... Not you. He appears to be looking for cheap or free internet in remote locations BEFORE EVEN BUYING A BOAT. His method is to purchase $300 worth of toys on Amazon and play with them at home... Not subscribe to a reliable service or listen to people living on boats in those remote locations.

[JazzyO]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

My post was addressed to the OP.... Not you. He appears to be looking for cheap or free internet in remote locations BEFORE EVEN BUYING A BOAT. His method is to purchase $300 worth of toys on Amazon and play with them at home... Not subscribe to a reliable service or listen to people living on boats in those remote locations.

OK. Well, your posts seem a little bit on the judgemental side. Fair winds!


Onno

[DeborahLee]

The original internet.

[bdbcat]

travellerW...

Can you tell us more about your VPS solution? I do WiFi in the sticks, and am often staring at a blank screen while big images load.

Including CF here.

Thanks
Dave

[bgallinger]

Have you looked at this? Unlimited data for $125/month....

Iridium GO! - PredictWind.com

[bdbcat]

bgallinger...

From Iridium Go system website:

" data speed is 2.4 Kbits/s"

LEO satellite systems will not cut it...

Dave

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

travellerW...

Can you tell us more about your VPS solution? I do WiFi in the sticks, and am often staring at a blank screen while big images load.

Including CF here.

Thanks
Dave

Absolutely.. I use RamNode for my VPS provider (costs $10/month) for the server. You choose what flavour of Linux for it to run.

After that I installed and configured ZipProxy. ZipProxy does a fantastic job or re-compressing images and generally streamlining the web pages.

Finally I use MIMEDefang for e-mail processing. MIMEDefang is an e-mail filtering tool. It isn't just a Yes/No filter, but can actually filter contents from messages. It has tons of options making it super flexible.

Like I mentioned earlier.. You can get the exact same functionality from commercial services (Ocens or MailASail). For me, I would rather have my own server (that I can use for other things) and save 1/2 the cost. Thats why I built the VPS.

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by dlymn

We sail in the Ionian around the Greek Islands. We buy a Wind data card; summer deal 4 gig for 15 euros for 3 months and that has been fine for emails, weather checks and some skyping home to the family even when we're in the middle of the inland sea (total usage 10 minute per diem)

In the past, when we tied up, we bought a coffee from a nearby taverna with wifi and then went back to the boat to relink with a fairly powerful antenna.

We don't do that anymore. In the marinas we read or just watch the world go by. In Syvota we watch the Ramblas and wave to the waiter to bring a coffee over. On the hook we do a lot of sitting and looking. I'm more interested in trying to catch those fish that hang around under the hull (but never in marinas). Have you considered giving up with the internet and just relaxing.

I don't want to change the theme of this thread, but your post really highlights something I have noticed lately. There really is a big divide in the cruising community. New age and old age cruisers. I'm not saying its a bad thing, in fact I think both sides can to learn from each other (the new age can learn to slow down, the old age can learn new tools and methods).

For us, the Internet is simply another tool (a luxury one). It provides a fantastic link to the outside world that can help ease the transition into cruising life. Although its not required, its a tool that we both agree is too valuable to completely "give up".

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by travellerw

I don't want to change the theme of this thread, but your post really highlights something I have noticed lately. There really is a big divide in the cruising community. New age and old age cruisers. I'm not saying its a bad thing, in fact I think both sides can to learn from each other (the new age can learn to slow down, the old age can learn new tools and methods).

ROLFMAO.

Dude, you have purchased 50 feet of coax to use at cell frequency's, from a low transmit power cell wifi device into an external antenna that at 2100 mhz has zero net gain. To it's credit the wilson attenna does provide 3dB of gain at many frequencies.

At 800 mhz to 2100 mhz that coax will attenuate the signal quite a bit. This as there is only about ~200mW of transmit power driving the signal. The cable loss even being low loss is not no loss. So if you calculate the loss in mW/foot, you will find that your set up in engineering speak, is sub-optimal.

You will find that the hotspot will work better without the external antenna with 50 foot of cable. That cable is low loss at VHF frequency's <-200mhz. It alas will have quite high loss when used at cell frequencies. But you probably know that being younger and all...

With a cell device, you really don't want more then say 6 feet of cable and that may only give you a 1.5 dB increase or 50% maybe, because there is still cable losses.

[weavis]

Originally Posted by travellerw

I don't want to change the theme of this thread, but your post really highlights something I have noticed lately. There really is a big divide in the cruising community. New age and old age cruisers. I'm not saying its a bad thing, in fact I think both sides can to learn from each other (the new age can learn to slow down, the old age can learn new tools and methods).

For us, the Internet is simply another tool (a luxury one). It provides a fantastic link to the outside world that can help ease the transition into cruising life. Although its not required, its a tool that we both agree is too valuable to completely "give up".

I deleted my response to this comment when I saw Sailorchic34 offered her observations.

A lot of us on here, be us young or older, hold interest in different subjects. Some of us here are actually professional in certain fields. You just happened to get a top engineer to offer her professional advice.

For those of us that have licences for marine radio, some of us have interest in Ham radio too........ and electronics in general. I have a passing interest in antenna and wave propagation simply because I needed to set up field stations from time to time.

We are very lucky on CF to have these people and I find in the main that they are very helpful, sometimes they even know more than us.....

[travellerw]

Sigh.. Sometime I wish people offered their opinion in a different way.. Sailing is supposed to relax people!

Yes I know all about attenuation and I realize I cannot plug 50 feet of low loss cable into a low power device... I bought the stuff months ago and couldn't find the link to the cable I bought (actually too lazy to log into amazon). So I posted the first one I found. The cable I bought is actually 30 feet, but I only plan to use a small amount for this install. It will all depend on the boat and where/how I decide to do the install. I will probably mount the MIFI device in a weatherproof enclosure close to the antenna.

[NorthernIsland]

Take it easy and read again what sailorchick wrote.

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Coops]

Sailing can, and does, relax people. Folks asking for advice and then, after getting good advice from folks who know, start making disparaging comments about it, sometimes does not.

Coops.