Wifi Range Extenders 2017

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Easier than that.

s = 1.06 * SQRT(h) with h in feet (height above water) and the result s in nautical miles.

Which doesn't work too well if you have an elevated point on the other end (for a math major, I'm pretty dumb/stupid; I know there's a simple calculation for that, too, but my presumption of adding the two results may not be correct).

At some point power and QOS has to enter the equation - but fixed-point WiFi is pretty good at going amazing distances with high quality throughput, if the examples I was reading WAAAAY back when I was trying to figure it out for the boat were true...

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Rorzech

Wouldn't the roaming charges be outrageous for data plans on your cell phone. My friend traveled across the pond for a week ,did some texting and got a $800.00 bill. There has to be a cheaper way. Please let us know.

$100 per month for two phones ($50 each) unlimited data and free texting, no international roaming charges, no need to switch out local SIM cards. We make 90% of our calls on facetime or whatsapp using the included data roaming. Your friend didn't do his homework and wasn't using T-Mobile.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

Which doesn't work too well if you have an elevated point on the other end (for a math major, I'm pretty dumb/stupid; I know there's a simple calculation for that, too, but my presumption of adding the two results may not be correct).

s1 + s2

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

$100 per month for two phones ($50 each) unlimited data and free texting, no international roaming charges, no need to switch out local SIM cards. We make 90% of our calls on facetime or whatsapp using the included data roaming. Your friend didn't do his homework and wasn't using T-Mobile.

See my earlier post as to why I went with my BTC sim on their $40/mo plan, data only.

We abandoned the 2g (128k) T-M unlimited roaming. Are you getting different bandwidth, or merely never access the web, so bandwidth is unimportant?

We'll reinstate ($10/mo keep-alive) when we return to the states; they allow two 90-day suspensions per year...

[bluewatervet]

OK Skip.... No argument that from the way you describe, yes, wifi can be usable a few miles out to sea. I did not tightly define that many harbours & marinas, let alone nearby outlets like Starbucks etc. that provide wifi as a free & open (unlocked) service to docked boaters, locate their equipment to optimize those users in-port, not those users way out to sea. Extenders and high-gain "directional" antenna arrangements can allow for miles of connectivity under certain conditions. As one member noted, most of that local stuff is now protected (encrypted & passworded) so is no longer readily available unless you are subscribed etc. That aside, I would be interested in just what hardware you were using to get wifi 15 miles at sea, and what was at those on-the-beach locations too if you can. Heights both ends too. It would be quite instructive. As one user also noted, some wifi he successfully used was projected seaward with a (quote) "...60 degree lobe." That clearly implies a fairly high gain Yagi style or similar antenna design, again intentionally oriented to seaward. BTW, all I was trying to do was inform the masses about typical run-of-the-mill shore located stuff, no exoctica added. Granted there clearly are some very successful workarounds here & there. Good show! My apologies for any miscommunication on my part.... George a.k.a. bluewatervet

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by bluewatervet

OK Skip.... No argument that from the way you describe, yes, wifi can be usable a few miles out to sea. I did not tightly define that many harbours & marinas, let alone nearby outlets like Starbucks etc. that provide wifi as a free & open (unlocked) service to docked boaters, locate their equipment to optimize those users in-port, not those users way out to sea. Extenders and high-gain "directional" antenna arrangements can allow for miles of connectivity under certain conditions. As one member noted, most of that local stuff is now protected (encrypted & passworded) so is no longer readily available unless you are subscribed etc. That aside, I would be interested in just what hardware you were using to get wifi 15 miles at sea, and what was at those on-the-beach locations too if you can. Heights both ends too. It would be quite instructive. As one user also noted, some wifi he successfully used was projected seaward with a (quote) "...60 degree lobe." That clearly implies a fairly high gain Yagi style or similar antenna design, again intentionally oriented to seaward. BTW, all I was trying to do was inform the masses about typical run-of-the-mill shore located stuff, no exoctica added. Granted there clearly are some very successful workarounds here & there. Good show! My apologies for any miscommunication on my part.... George a.k.a. bluewatervet

Hi, George!

The case in point (12 miles favorite) was Baker's Bay, which was at the top of Great Guana. My other two favorites (from inside Marsh Harbour, where there were LOTS of data collisions from multiple Out Island Internet signals) were north and south Scotland Cay, 6 and 8 miles respectively away.

Granted, my rig is superb (not blushing here, just the facts) and off the shelf. It's a system any geek could put together for under a couple hundred bux. I now could do it myself - but I choose/chose to give my business to Bob Stewart, of Marine PC's & WiFi by IslandTime PC, both for my WiFi and my 12V computer.

I chose to put my rig at the top of my mast, a definite advantage (see his site, and look through his WiFi section for pix of our rig) as Dave discussed.

The east coast cruising happened to be 7 miles off. I am assuming that I was seeing some condo's signal - perhaps higher than ground level - and as far out as I was, had a usable signal for some time. Today, it would be Xfinity (not technically open, as you have to either have an account or know someone willing to share their login info; my MIL fits for me, but as ubiquitous - pardon the expression, as my adapter is a Ubiquiti - as Comcast is on the east coast, that should not be a challenge); where we were last, in Vero Beach's mooring field (no practical place to anchor and MIL lives 3 miles from there), there were many to choose from, all nearly certainly from condos nearby - and throughput on those easily spanked the much stronger signal from the marina, due to fewer (I have to believe I'm not the only one who knows about Xfinity, and has a bullet or groove based system) users.

It helps that the majority of the use my system got was in the days when a 200G drive was pretty big; the gigabyte rams were not yet common either. In the harbor in Vero, I have no issues with bandwidth, but I suspect that today I would have some difficulty doing all I do, in the web-intensive nature of things, using someone's open signal under way 7 miles out.

My comment, however, had to do with the feasibility of connection, not getting a 50GB throughput. Most of what I did was text-based (NNTP usenet rather than web based, or plain old email client), and I went to the web only to, in cases of marginal connectivity, temporarily delete a massive (by those standards) file in my gmail server, allow smaller files to come first; once all the typical mail was down, I undeleted the bad actor and it eventually came along as well.

And I agree that WiFi is less and less important, other than on an in-house basis (with all the gear which communicates that way, in a system such as printer, scanner, etc.), and a common router can handle it. But it sure made me popular to have my Linksys open and titled "FlyingPig-ComeOverAndSeeUs" - which was a way we had of meeting folks. There was a time in George Town (Exumas Bahamas) when we looked like the Pied Piper as we switched locations in the many anchorages available; a half dozen boats trailed us everywhere we went

I'm typing through my system now, but it's picking up my own cell (BTC) phone, and distributing it. In the US, if I'm somewhere with a usable signal, it's T-Mobile. But in Vero, the place Flying Pig is most in the US, T-M sucks, with either no or sometimes as much as one bar. And, there, I'm forever grateful that I have my 12-year-old IslandTimePC WiFi system installed and working.

So, to your original question: Bullet (Ubiquiti) or Groove adapter, connected (directly, as they both do, having no cable loss) to an 8bdi antenna. I happened to have bought it and some other totally useless gear in my quest to have a system all at mast top which would get, and then send to me, signals. Hashing around for almost two years to make it work, Bob Stewart (ITPC's owner, and an ex-cruiser) saw my flailing on one of the newsgroups and showed me the solution, and thus my devotion of all my network (and 12V computer) business. That antenna, after much consideration, has an 8° downtilt, the better to see a signal close to me (in the yard where I did my initial refit, there was a very strong restaurant signal nearby, but my mast 'looked over it' and I could not pick it up). Looking back on it, I think their tin roof had more to do with it - because my phone, here, is directly below my antenna, and it sees it just fine.

I also bought, but have yet to use, just to play around with, but it would have to be out of the US, and with no bridges, because it's too tall, a 12dbi omni (no downtilt) antenna. The motion, with (I'm sure you know what I mean here) the considerably flattened signal pattern, would make connectivity challenging, under way. At anchor, I might get away with the better signal.

So, summarizing: My offshore close-in cruising with connectivity probably were normal household routers. My at-anchor, very long distance connectivity, were to relatively higher powered stations (presumed by their nature of serving some wider area). Today, in the US, when I can't get a usable cell link, I'll use Xfinity or the occasional leftover Belkin/Linksys/etc., but otherwise, here in the Bahamas (see T-mobile discussions in this forum) it's BTC through my system, and in the US, T-Mobile (or choose your preference), ditto. And, while I have it, and can see various open sites from the various Abacos anchorages, I don't use my WiFi here other than to pick up and distribute my BTC cell hotspot. (I use a data-only plan; see other discussions in this forum WRT Google Voice and Hangouts for telephony.)

Was that responsive to your question?

L8R

Skip

[bluewatervet]

Excellent series of descriptions, Skip..! Hauling a wireless router 'up the mast' is a terrific way to get around cable loss when just extendinng an antenna outside. With a CAT5E cable for data, along with a correct size pair of wires for routed DC power. I would offer that even stock supplied omni whips will have a down lobe sufficient for most in-harbor use, and when underway with mast heeled over, still be somewhat adequate. Great chat Skip, and truly appreciate the technical discussion.... George

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by bluewatervet

Excellent series of descriptions, Skip..! Hauling a wireless router 'up the mast' is a terrific way to get around cable loss when just extendinng an antenna outside. With a CAT5E cable for data, along with a correct size pair of wires for routed DC power. I would offer that even stock supplied omni whips will have a down lobe sufficient for most in-harbor use, and when underway with mast heeled over, still be somewhat adequate. Great chat Skip, and truly appreciate the technical discussion.... George

My pleasure.

One technical note, however:

POE (power over ethernet) makes a separate power cord unneeded. You can run it off boat power, or use a buck-boost to provide 19V filtered, which will overcome longer wire runs.

Outdoor C5, along with aggressive attention to detail when making the gland and sealing the antenna connection points should allow you years of trouble-free use without touching it again. The setup I have now (burned up a bullet and had used standard C5) has been in placed for many years - so long that I don't actually remember; it might have been 2009 (aha. Mentally reviewing my picture gallery says that indeed is when it was redone, to allow my aluminum Ell standoff placing the VHF and WiFi 36" apart, with the tricolor and wind stuff in the middle, the better to remove any metallic reflection/deflection from the signals).

But, I'm mostly hotspot other than as discussed, now. Certain applications can benefit from the setup, but aside from in Vero with its crummy cell signal, I use it to repeat my cell hotspot - just for convenience and a stronger signal than the hotspot can provide for most places on the boat.

L8R

Skip

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

My pleasure.

One technical note, however:

POE (power over ethernet) makes a separate power cord unneeded. You can run it off boat power, or use a buck-boost to provide 19V filtered, which will overcome longer wire runs.

Outdoor C5, along with aggressive attention to detail when making the gland and sealing the antenna connection points should allow you years of trouble-free use without touching it again. The setup I have now (burned up a bullet and had used standard C5) has been in placed for many years - so long that I don't actually remember; it might have been 2009 (aha. Mentally reviewing my picture gallery says that indeed is when it was redone, to allow my aluminum Ell standoff placing the VHF and WiFi 36" apart, with the tricolor and wind stuff in the middle, the better to remove any metallic reflection/deflection from the signals).

But, I'm mostly hotspot other than as discussed, now. Certain applications can benefit from the setup, but aside from in Vero with its crummy cell signal, I use it to repeat my cell hotspot - just for convenience and a stronger signal than the hotspot can provide for most places on the boat.

L8R

Skip

Are you saying that you use your masthead, high power WiFi router to repeat your in-boat hotspot? That's not very considerate of the other WiFi users in the local.

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Are you saying that you use your masthead, high power WiFi router to repeat your in-boat hotspot? That's not very considerate of the other WiFi users in the local.

No, the adapter is high power.

The WiFi distribution is done over a plain-jane DDWRT Linksys router. And I put it on a channel no distribution node is using for belt and suspenders.

[skipgundlach]

Pix of that upgrade (new bullet with outdoor cable, and my standoff aluminum ell) start (apologies for the other stuff interspersed - and, you could go backward to see what it was I replaced) here:

Pictures: Flying Pig Refit 2009/Repairs_And_Upgrades/Electronics

L8R

Skip

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

No, the adapter is high power.

The WiFi distribution is done over a plain-jane DDWRT Linksys router. And I put it on a channel no distribution node is using for belt and suspenders.

Is the router and antenna below deck?

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Is the router and antenna below deck?

See my pix to see adapter and omni antenna topsides.

Router is inside; it has the usual two antennas.

Signal between my boat and the world is by antenna/adapter on mastop.

Signal in and out of my boat to and from the adapter is by router.

[hpeer]

Bumping an old thread. We have been using a Wirie Pro for several years and it has worked well. We have not used the cell side of it, so I guess I don’t need that.

Anyway today it went down. It keeps telling me my password is incorrect. It would do that once in a while but now it’s constant.

BIG SUPRISE - Wife is outnof business. Help email, which was always answered promptly brought back an automated Out Of Business Thank You for last support message.

We are cruising the Carribean and still have our Verizon accounts. But with us moving country to country so much I don’t know about trying to go strictly with cell. And I need to make a decision quick so I can get something shipped to St Martin while I’m still here.

So I see the Island Time set up. I’m tempted by there package. Can someone tell me about the user interface? I’m not interested in getting all techy.

Is there any reasonable alternative?

[sailorboy1]

I have had the island time setup for 2.5 years now. The interface has worked fine and my non tech brain has worked it without problem. So if are you are worried about is the interface I would say that’s not an issue