Rogue Wave and Wifi systems

[JimmyJames303]

I recently bought a boat that has a Rogue Wave device on the top of the mast. I was able to get into it, upgrade it to the latest firmware (not terribly new due to being an older board). On the boat at the marina I'm getting about 3MB download speed on my laptop and devices on their wifi, where the Rogue Wave is getting about 1Mbit and it's very inconsistent (randomly dropping off the wifi, etc).

I contacted their support and was told it was too high and needs to be brought to a lower point on the boat. My top mast height is 67 feet. They are suggesting the POE injector degrades with longer than 50 feet of CAT5 cable. Their suggestion was to bring it down and test at a lower height. Obviously not a super easy option.

Any thoughts or suggestion on a path forward? Should I try and get this thing brought down and test it? It's a 3 year old model that can't get new firmware upgrades. Should I go pick up a Ubiquity Bullet and antenna and mount it on the spreader? Is the "too high a problem" a fair statement? Usually on boats you don't hear too high for an antenna being a problem.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Jim

[Scotty_P]

Network Engineer here. I looked at their Quick Start Guide and they do say not to go over 60 feet of cable, so they must be aware of some limitations of their product. I see that it is only a 12v device, so that is likely where the limitation lies. You're pretty much stuck with only being able to validate that issue by pulling it down from your mast. They are recommending to bring it lower only to shorten the cable length. If you got the Ubiquiti Bullet with the 24v POE adapter, you should be able to get 300ft cable length and put it at the top of your mast if you want. Or put it somewhere more accessible and see how it works out for you. Any external antenna would yield better results than your internal laptop antenna, so you definitely have an issue with your Rogue setup.

Scott

[seadago]

Originally Posted by JimmyJames303

I recently bought a boat that has a Rogue Wave device on the top of the mast. I was able to get into it, upgrade it to the latest firmware (not terribly new due to being an older board). On the boat at the marina I'm getting about 3MB download speed on my laptop and devices on their wifi, where the Rogue Wave is getting about 1Mbit and it's very inconsistent (randomly dropping off the wifi, etc).

I contacted their support and was told it was too high and needs to be brought to a lower point on the boat. My top mast height is 67 feet. They are suggesting the POE injector degrades with longer than 50 feet of CAT5 cable. Their suggestion was to bring it down and test at a lower height. Obviously not a super easy option.

Any thoughts or suggestion on a path forward? Should I try and get this thing brought down and test it? It's a 3 year old model that can't get new firmware upgrades. Should I go pick up a Ubiquity Bullet and antenna and mount it on the spreader? Is the "too high a problem" a fair statement? Usually on boats you don't hear too high for an antenna being a problem.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Jim

You can try upgrading to CAT6 cabling. Still well within tolerance in terms of span, and you will get a significant perfomance (frequency) improvement. If you find poor connectivity and slow speed at the same tiime, the problem could be in different places, or in more than one place. A network engineer/technician will be able to diagnose it for you.

[ohgary]

Originally Posted by seadago

You can try upgrading to CAT6 cabling. Still well within tolerance in terms of span, and you will get a significant perfomance (frequency) improvement. If you find poor connectivity and slow speed at the same tiime, the problem could be in different places, or in more than one place. A network engineer/technician will be able to diagnose it for you.

I suspect the issue is not freq but voltage from the POE. Most POE devices are 24v, a 22 guage wire and a 12v poe device over 60ft is going to be a large voltage drop that the device most likley cant handle causing the device to be flakey

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Jim.

[seadago]

Originally Posted by ohgary

I suspect the issue is not freq but voltage from the POE. Most POE devices are 24v, a 22 guage wire and a 12v poe device over 60ft is going to be a large voltage drop that the device most likley cant handle causing the device to be flakey

Yep. Concur. Get the problem diagnosed by a pro as a first step.

[JayH]

Height doesn't necessarily benefit a Wi-Fi antenna the same way it does other applications, especially in a marina environment. The effective range of most access points is pretty short and their antennas are generally low. Depending on the beam width of the respective antennas, the antenna on your mast could fail to get a good signal from one on the dock next to the boat. But the masthead antenna will definitely get more 2.4GHz noise from faraway transmitters than it would at deck level. My Wi-Fi antenna is 12 feet off the water, while my VHF and cellular antennas are at the top of the mast.

If you do get a new unit, make sure you get a dual band one that can do 5GHz as well.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by JayH

Height doesn't necessarily benefit a Wi-Fi antenna the same way it does other applications, especially in a marina environment. The effective range of most access points is pretty short and their antennas are generally low. Depending on the beam width of the respective antennas, the antenna on your mast could fail to get a good signal from one on the dock next to the boat. But the masthead antenna will definitely get more 2.4GHz noise from faraway transmitters than it would at deck level. My Wi-Fi antenna is 12 feet off the water, while my VHF and cellular antennas are at the top of the mast.

If you do get a new unit, make sure you get a dual band one that can do 5GHz as well.

Agreed height is beneficial for VHF but not typically for wifi. I had a similar issue when attending one of my company's Board of Director meetings in New York a couple of years ago. It was held at the private condominium of one of the board members, which was very near the top of Trump Tower and covered about half the floor of the building, the side overlooking Central Park. Because we were so high up, none of our cell phones could obtain reception because all of the cell phone towers are oriented towards the nearby ground and towards the streets in the urban canyons, where the vast majority of the people are going about their daily business. So we were all caused to be effectively out of touch for the day, even though we were in the heart of NYC. Albeit, we enjoyed the great views while we walked around the perimeter formed of ceiling to floor windows of the massive condo trying to get reception. "Can you hear me now? No. [Shift location, try again] Okay, can you hear me now? Nope." Technologically, the worst issue was that we could not hook up to the condo's private wifi network as we did not have the access password, even though it showed five bar reception, because the owner of the condo did not attend the meeting and we could not call him because we did not have mobile phone service and he was traveling and out of connectivity once we discovered his landline. The founder of our company and I being from Montana, not having cell phone or wifi reception was more like the norm, but the investor types on the board being hedge fund managers were freaking out by being disconnected. Speaking of technology challenge, each time I typed in "Wifi" in this reply, my computer's auto correction software or this forum's software kept substituting in the word "Wife". I have been blessed with only one wife, hence no Wife network to contend with, which challenge I would not be capable of.

[smac999]

pretty sure all POE is 48v. the 12/24v would just be the power input for the POE inserting device.

the issue is cat 5/6 cable is so small. voltage drop is going to happen. so max lenghes make sense. if you need to go longer. the only option would be move the POE inserter closer to ant and feed it with larger power wire itself. of course you can't put the POE inserter part way up the mast so that is Likely not an option.

[Otia]

Originally Posted by smac999

pretty sure all POE is 48v.

802.3af/at Active PoE is typically 48V. Specs allow for 100m cable length, well over 300ft.

Passive PoE is a non standard implementation that uses a 24V power supply typically. Typically good with 50 meters or 150 feet cable run. Typically used with devices such as cameras and radio antennas.

So Rogue, with their 60ft limitation, is doing something non-typical to their device. What is the power of the source? Try a more powerful source (same V, more As capable). Careful, passive PoE don't negotiate V so use same V or you'll kill your device.

[CarinaPDX]

I'm pretty certain the height is a big problem. The higher the gain of the Rogue Wave antenna the more narrow (vertically) the signal transmit/reception will be. At 67 feet up, if the marina wifi were at 17 feet then the 50 foot drop would result in significant signal loss. Ideally your wifi antenna should be at the same height as the marina wifi antenna.


Greg

[hzcruiser]

Originally Posted by JimmyJames303

I recently bought a boat that has a Rogue Wave device on the top of the mast. I was able to get into it, upgrade it to the latest firmware (not terribly new due to being an older board). On the boat at the marina I'm getting about 3MB download speed on my laptop and devices on their wifi, where the Rogue Wave is getting about 1Mbit and it's very inconsistent (randomly dropping off the wifi, etc).


Thanks in advance for any help!
Jim

Other than following their advice to shorten the cable you could only ignore the problem by not using the Rogue Wave in the marina, since the laptop is giving you better results anyway.
Then, if you're in a different anchorage the Rogue Wave might be your only option to get any wifi at all, being that high up.

[KeelMe]

I'm sure the manufacturer knows what they are talking about.

Don't just throw money at a problem. Figure it out and make it right.

[JimmyJames303]

Thanks all for the responses. Lot of really good information. I definitely don't disagree that the height may ultimately be the culprit with not having good line of sight to the AP at the marina. The POE injector I'm currently using is a 12V DC unit (cigarette adapter type). Since Rogue Wave is rebranding a Bullet device, I've decided to try throwing a 24v POE injector at this and see if that helps with the cable length I'm using.

Since I don't really want to go up my mast and the Rogue Wave device is kind of old tech at this point with extremely limited capabilities around troubleshooting signal strength, etc, if this doesn't fix the problem, I'll grab a new Ubiquiti Bullet device. I'll also locate it on the spreader vs. the top of the mast.

I'll report back on how things work out.

[SeaKing]

try a temp antenna on the wave device. I use a omni and a directional at different times. Sometimes the directional is inside the salon. I am using an old bullet device.