WiFi Extender

[Mara Mae]

Want to extend our connection distance to wifi hotspots with an antenna on the mast. Like to know what others are using. Like to keep the price under $500. Thanks

[pesarsten]

check out island time
https://www.islandtimepc.com/marinewifi

[Mara Mae]

Originally Posted by pesarsten

check out island time
https://www.islandtimepc.com/marinewifi

Thanks. I will call tomorrow. Are you using their equipment?

[wsmurdoch]

We have been using this https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Tube-UAC...8409598&sr=8-3 which is an Alfa USB device. It only feeds one computer, but that computer can be a hotspot. We either prop it up on deck or raise it to the spreaders on a flag halyard in which case we use a USB extension cord. That will be well under your $500 limit.

A similar set up with a router is the Alfa WIFI Network Camp Pro https://www.amazon.com/ALFA-Network-...8409598&sr=8-6 which is under half your budget.

We chose the UAC2 and are happy with it. It replaced a similar Alfa unit bought in 2014 which was mistreated and cracked at its base but still worked.

[Mara Mae]

Originally Posted by wsmurdoch

We have been using this https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Tube-UAC...8409598&sr=8-3 which is an Alfa USB device. It only feeds one computer, but that computer can be a hotspot. We either prop it up on deck or raise it to the spreaders on a flag halyard in which case we use a USB extension cord. That will be well under your $500 limit.

A similar set up with a router is the Alfa WIFI Network Camp Pro https://www.amazon.com/ALFA-Network-...8409598&sr=8-6 which is under half your budget.

We chose the UAC2 and are happy with it. It replaced a similar Alfa unit bought in 2014 which was mistreated and cracked at its base but still worked.

Thanks

[Marathon1150]

We use two products from MikroTik. The wireless hub will run on 12V which makes it easy to use at anchor (we plug it in through a cigarette 12V adaptor) and it has 4 POE outputs, one of which will power the antenna. It works very well.

BUT, setting it up initially is NOT user friendly. Once it is set up however, changing to a new provider is quite simple.

They are very cheap and the external antenna, which is also the router, is weatherproof. We have left it outside tied to a shroud, or at times hoisted on a convenient line. The cost of the hub which is similar to ours (more recent) is $59.95. The router/antenna is $79.95.

http://mikrotik.com/product/RB750UPr2

and

http://mikrotik.com/product/RBGrooveA-52HPnr2


We regularly have multiple devices (laptops, phones, tablets) connected wirelessly to the hub and there is little degradation of performance. But again, technical knowledge of ethernet devices is essential. The setup menus are not intuitive and require professional knowledge. They have now developed a phone app for setup but I have not tried it.

[CarlF]

We haven't used our $450 wifi extender for three years because almost all marina wifi is too slow for anything but email Except for a tiny handful of marinas with fancy systems - forget about streaming video on Netflix - especially in the evening when everyone else is on.

Just use your phone as a hotspot - or get one of the standalone mifi hotspots. We have a Verizon hotspot with a whopping 150GB plan that costs $70/month. Our phones, iPads, and the TV all connect to it when we're on the boat. This site explains it all: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/ver...y-plans-150gb/

[Mara Mae]

Originally Posted by Marathon1150

We use two products from MikroTik. The wireless hub will run on 12V which makes it easy to use at anchor (we plug it in through a cigarette 12V adaptor) and it has 4 POE outputs, one of which will power the antenna. It works very well.

BUT, setting it up initially is NOT user friendly. Once it is set up however, changing to a new provider is quite simple.

They are very cheap and the external antenna, which is also the router, is weatherproof. We have left it outside tied to a shroud, or at times hoisted on a convenient line. The cost of the hub which is similar to ours (more recent) is $59.95. The router/antenna is $79.95.

http://mikrotik.com/product/RB750UPr2

and

http://mikrotik.com/product/RBGrooveA-52HPnr2


We regularly have multiple devices (laptops, phones, tablets) connected wirelessly to the hub and there is little degradation of performance. But again, technical knowledge of ethernet devices is essential. The setup menus are not intuitive and require professional knowledge. They have now developed a phone app for setup but I have not tried it.

Thanks

[JBP]

I use this very cheap wifi extender. It does the job of letting me putting an antenna up higher. I use it with a USB extension cable.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZYWXB66...ing=UTF8&psc=1

[WilloCo]

My camper uses a raspberry pi with a LTE card in it. It uses cell data and acts as a wired/wireless access point. That's it. All contained, super low power. I'm not always impressed by the performance, but it works. However, when working, I usually have to switch to my phone hotspot for better speeds.

I'm making up a new system for my boat, and it's pretty much overkill. Disclosure: I am a network engineer and I need to be able to work remotely when on the boat.

Ubiquiti bullet mw-hp with a 9db antenna.
Pepwave BR1 (relegated to acting as a LTE uplink as I supremely dislike the assumptions made in the pepwave os. It's not very flexible.)
Fortigate 60E firewall - allows multiple wans, virtual routers, vlans, ipsec tunnels, etc.
Ubiquiti AC-AP-LR - same thing I use elsewhere and I can create seperate wireless nets.
Ubiquiti gear likes to use weirdo POE values at 12-24v dc, so I use passive poe power injectors with it and some screw terminal 2.1mm x 5.5mm male adapters to make cabling easy. I run the bullet radio off 12v no problem. I'll be testing the voltages to the AP when I'm back at my boat in a week.

Some justification:
I use ipsec tunnels, and the firewall makes that easy.
It also supports multiple wans in a sane way.
I can create separate wired and wifi nets that use each uplink for trivial testing.
The bullet has some interesting android apps and I want to be able to drop my phone into that wan uplink network via wireless to configure it.
The fortinet doesn't force function on a given port - they are just named. I can reconfigure another port on the device to be a third wan option, for example.
The pepwave was an experiment. Turns out that I don't like em.

Again, this is overkill for the average user. Since I actively work remotely, I've decided to replicate my home network along with options of wifi and LTE uplinks.

Fortinet does have a wifi version to avoid the extra AP expense. I happened to grab a spare that was wired only for the boat and opted to match my other networks. At home if we have a fiber outage I can connect it to my phone as a backup internet option using the built in wifi. (But I still run an actual AP for normal client access.)

[Mara Mae]

Originally Posted by WilloCo

My camper uses a raspberry pi with a LTE card in it. It uses cell data and acts as a wired/wireless access point. That's it. All contained, super low power. I'm not always impressed by the performance, but it works. However, when working, I usually have to switch to my phone hotspot for better speeds.

I'm making up a new system for my boat, and it's pretty much overkill. Disclosure: I am a network engineer and I need to be able to work remotely when on the boat.

Ubiquiti bullet mw-hp with a 9db antenna.
Pepwave BR1 (relegated to acting as a LTE uplink as I supremely dislike the assumptions made in the pepwave os. It's not very flexible.)
Fortigate 60E firewall - allows multiple wans, virtual routers, vlans, ipsec tunnels, etc.
Ubiquiti AC-AP-LR - same thing I use elsewhere and I can create seperate wireless nets.
Ubiquiti gear likes to use weirdo POE values at 12-24v dc, so I use passive poe power injectors with it and some screw terminal 2.1mm x 5.5mm male adapters to make cabling easy. I run the bullet radio off 12v no problem. I'll be testing the voltages to the AP when I'm back at my boat in a week.

Some justification:
I use ipsec tunnels, and the firewall makes that easy.
It also supports multiple wans in a sane way.
I can create separate wired and wifi nets that use each uplink for trivial testing.
The bullet has some interesting android apps and I want to be able to drop my phone into that wan uplink network via wireless to configure it.
The fortinet doesn't force function on a given port - they are just named. I can reconfigure another port on the device to be a third wan option, for example.
The pepwave was an experiment. Turns out that I don't like em.

Again, this is overkill for the average user. Since I actively work remotely, I've decided to replicate my home network along with options of wifi and LTE uplinks.

Fortinet does have a wifi version to avoid the extra AP expense. I happened to grab a spare that was wired only for the boat and opted to match my other networks. At home if we have a fiber outage I can connect it to my phone as a backup internet option using the built in wifi. (But I still run an actual AP for normal client access.)

I need it for work too. So not overkill for me. But I failed to mention that I am an Apple user. Thanks

[Mara Mae]

Originally Posted by JBP

I use this very cheap wifi extender. It does the job of letting me putting an antenna up higher. I use it with a USB extension cable.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZYWXB66...ing=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks