Today was day one of the trials. Motor only, just to get familiar with
the
new prop setup, and see what we could break.
Nothing really broke, other than the forward bilge pump switch stuck
"on"
and the aft bilge pump switch wouldn't turn on, and some anomalies in
the
instruments (no speed on either unit, flaky until it settled down on
the new
depth gauge), there seems to be a bit of harmonic vibration in the
shaft
(putting my hand on it feels a bump on the opposite sides, and
depending on
the speed, it's different points on the clock) and the dripless packing
system isn't, yet.
However the point of this was to report on the wifi setup's first real
challenge. I got the bridge up on the mast (the end of the Dec06
gallery in
the refit section for any who are interested -
http://justpickone.org/skip/gallery/...c06&start=115),
and the line to it for the POE and data run through the mast (have yet
to
decide where to put it and some other downstairs gear, so it's
currently
just sitting in the Vee with the ethernet strung on the sole from the
mast).
The signal is so strong up there that it latches on to a pay site,
something
I was afraid would happen (the bridge, in open mode, vs a stated target
SSID, goes to the strongest site). No amount of fiddling in the way
I'd
become accustomed, which is to just type the URL of the bridge in my
browser, bringing up the setup pages, would do anything other than
bring a
signup page to the pay site. I grumbled but the other sites we had
been
using were a bit less than stellar, so we gave it a 30 day trial, by
which
time we fervently hope to be gone.
Initially it was great. Good download and upload, no problem logging
in,
great VoIP, and so on. However, lately, I've not been able to address
it
through the access point and router which were in between my wifi
laptop,
and the bridge.
Happily, however, before that failure, which happened as I went from
inverter power on return to the dock, to shore power (where it had been
functioning for the last many months), while we were anchored, and
rocking
and rolling in the swells, a few miles out in Tampa Bay, I picked up
the
phone and called Lydia's Mom in England and my Dad in New Hampshire,
both
over the Vonage system which is connected to the bridge (seeing its
data
stream as an IP feed).
So, assuming I can figure out what's going on with a system which
previously, for months, worked very effortlessly, but now is a real
pain,
and actually currently won't work at all other than as a
wired-to-my-computer bridge, internet only for me, no phone, no other
computers on wifi (because it somehow won't pass data through either of
them), it has proven my expectation:
I expect that I'll be able to see many stations from which to choose as
we
cruise, as many as 3-4 miles from shore. If those stations are
broadband as
I've been led to believe is usually the case, we'll have internet and
my
home number in most ports and anchorages in populated areas.
Now if I can only sort out what's going on to make it not as simple
(and for
that matter, not functional in other than a very simple way) as it's
been
for the last many months.
We'll probably put up some sails tomorrow; if I can get this working
before
then, that will be another test. That is, as one respondent on one
list
pointed out, a high gain antenna gets its strength by flattening the
donut
of the radiated signal. Our rocking and rolling wasn't enough to be
trouble
today; that far out, the donut disk gets pretty broad, I imagine - but
I
don't know about when we're heeled a bit...
Stay tuned (so to speak)...
L8R
Skip
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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