WiFi on the Boat?

[scottyt]

i am also running ddwrt at home and yes i know it can be changed. but most routers that i have been in the admin stuff defaulted to 2000 meters, not saying they all are. i have also gotten some long links before, but i also have had some long ones that i had good signal on that would not link. infact there is a coffee house near where i spend a lot of weekends that have theirs cut back to 100 meters... bastards

[LandLocked66c]

Originally Posted by scottyt

i am also running ddwrt at home and yes i know it can be changed. but most routers that i have been in the admin stuff defaulted to 2000 meters, not saying they all are. i have also gotten some long links before, but i also have had some long ones that i had good signal on that would not link. infact there is a coffee house near where i spend a lot of weekends that have theirs cut back to 100 meters... bastards

Most Buffalo routers have built in amplifiers that work GREAT!

[lostfiringpin]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

I seriously doubt that their equipment is 10x the power of a standard wifi card. The standard cards are 100 milliwatt, the legal limit AFAIK is 200 milliwatt, and there are a few cards that support the 200 milliwatt transmit power, but NONE that support a full WATT of transmit power.

Actually they don't just sell one that is a FULL WATT, they sell something even bigger, May I introduce you to the wifi hacker's best friend, the 2 watt Alfa wifi N adapter, add that with a 32 Db grid antenna an you have long range links with strong connections.
This is what I use
http://tinyurl.com/2wattwifi

[Zanshin]

I'm reading and posting aboard right now using a Ubiquiti Bullet antenna and accessing a WiFi point just over a half mile away. The Bullet works very well depending upon which antenna is used, the advantage is that it uses POE (Power Over Ethernet) which lets the antenna be very far away from the PC since there are no coax or other signal losses, the conversion from analog to digital happens at the antenna and the rest is just ethernet.

[Bene505]

Zashin,

How fas away is you Bullet from your POE injector (in wire length)?

The reason I ask is that I'm thinking about doubling-up the wires in the Cat5 cable for signal only (no power) and running a separate 14/2 wire up to the top of the mast for power. I want to make sure I'm not getting a low voltage at the Bullet2HP. At 90 feet from the nav station, the 24 gauge wire (doubled up inside the CAT5, from the POE) to the Bullet has a lot of loss.

I measured .66 amps to the bullet. For 90 x 2 (round trip) /2 (doubled-up wire) = 90 feet round trip, it really drops the 12v down.)

I may put the POE at the base of the keel-stepped mast.

Regards,
Brad

[TheHisway]

is anyone going to college online wile long distance cruising? if so please disribe how difficult this was and what gear was required.

[Zanshin]

Originally Posted by Bene505

...How far away is you Bullet from your POE injector (in wire length)?

I had them put in 70 feet of wire (one way) and they were supposed to mount the bullet at the top spreader but ended up using the same amount of cable and just putting the Bullet/Antenna on the aft pulpit. But I inject 24V so the power goes quite a bit further than if I were just doing 12V.

[capn_dave]

The Bullet will work just fine between 9 and 27 VDC. You should be ok without doing all the fancy wiring. Besides I am not sure I would really want to put a wifi antenna up really high. Believe it or not you, can be so high as to miss close signals.
The Bullet and the Nano station2 are both probably the best bang for the buck

Fair Winds

Dave

[StormBay]

Originally Posted by Bene505

Zashin,
How fas away is you Bullet from your POE injector (in wire length)?

We also have 75 feet of cable between our POE and the Bullet/Antenna. We run 12v and haven't had a problem with it yet.

[sea_hunter]

Originally Posted by Sailpilot

I am currently living aboard in Miami. I have a coffee shop near me that has WiFi that I use to check my emails. I have heard that there is equipment that allows you to receive the WiFi signal from long distances. Can anyone advise if they have used or seen anything that allows you to check the emails from the boat.

You can get a wifi booster, that works up to 5 miles. As cruisers we found this to be inadequate. We subscribe to Verizon with a MiFi for about $50.00 per month and hooks up to 5 devices at one time. It works wherever there's a cell signal and we've even streamed Netflix. We added a cell booster and now it works about 10 miles out.