You might try a EUB-362(EXT) high power (200mw) USB wireless adapter with an
8.5db marine antenna on the Shuttle, hard wire in the other PCs through a
workgroup switch and use the Windows ICS facility to share the connection.
The EUB-362 is especially attractive because you can run the USB cable up to
15' and locate the EUB362 close to the antenna. With a powered hub at the
end of the USB cable you can go another 15' and take the load off the
Shuttle all together.. At 2.4Ghz LMR200 coax will loose more than 50% of
the signal over 20' but only 15% over the 4' that comes with the antenna.
Also working off the USB port the Shuttle will own the adapter so you can
scan for access points and control which one it connects to using the
standard wifi utilities. You can't do that very easily with a wireless
router.
To give you an idea of the performance, using a 200mw Senao card connected
through 16' of LMR100 an 8.5db antenna I could get a usable signal from the
500mw BVI Marine Wifi access points out to about 900 yards. The thin LMR100
lost 75% of the signal so a shorter length of LMR200 should get you out to
1,500 yards or better.
--
Glenn Ashmore
I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at:
http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division:
http://www.spade-anchor-us.com
"Rusty" wrote in message
. ..
I have a non-laptop Shuttle computer on my sailboat. I would like to be
able to access marina and other WiFi points when available. I have talked
to some of the marine WiFi providers and they only provide hardware that
works with laptop computers. At the Oakland boat show the provider I talked
to wouldn't even look at me after I said I had a desktop computer instead
of a laptop!
I would like to set up an external antenna and the necessary hardware to
get WiFi access into the Ethernet port on my computer. I have no laptop
PCMCIA slots, no PCI bus slots, only a high-speed Ethernet port. I am not
looking to have secondary wireless access for other devices on the boat.
I would like to be able to install a wired router on the boat and share
the internet connection among more than one on-board wired computer. This
would eliminate USB wireless adapters that connect directly to the
computer.
Can I use a bridge, like the Linksys WET54G, for this application or is
there a better solution? Recommendations for an external antenna would
also be appreciated.
Thanks, Rusty