John Navas wrote in
:

Wi-Fi on a Boat:
http://wireless.navas.us/wiki/Wi-Fi_on_a_Boat

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Best regards,
John Navas, publisher of Navas' Sailing & Racing in
the San Francisco Bay Area http://sail.navas.us/



Hey, John. I've dumped dispicable Verizon after they screwed the Alltel
EVDO across the country, trying to get rid of us I suppose.

Cricket has a nice presence in Charleston so I got their CalComp A600
modem/flash drive for my netbook. I'm getting 800-1200Kbps down and
about 450-550Kbps up when there's more than zero bars showing, which is
only in a couple of places I've found.

Of course, I can't bluetooth to it without creating a lan on the netbook
so I ordered:
http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_pa..._info&cPath=35
&products_id=610
from the 3G store for $99. This turns the USB modem into a hotspot
anywhere the USB modem has a usable signal, which lets my Netgear Skype
Phone and Nokia Linux tablets and the Linux netbook get access to
Cricket's broadband that doesn't support any of them.

ON TOPIC:
I'd think a better carrier than Cricket that has nationwide service,
like Verizon for $60, and this setup with the portable hotspot's tiny
router would work great on a boat. You could have internet to the wifi
devices aboard without straining, no matter what the damned marina had,
VoIP or Skype phone service to a wifi handset phone, even some miles
offshore if you were to put the modem and router in a weatherproof
plastic enclosure up the mast where the range of the cellphone data
would be great with the router spraying its RF across the boat below.

Unlike the wifi repeater that jams itself with crashing packets if the
wifi hotspot can't be heard by the laptop in the cabin, the cellphone
circuit and wifi circuits won't interfere with each other. You should
have wifi internet 5-10 miles offshore of the USA, without roaming
nonsense.

The little Cradlepoint router uses 5VDC, but I'm told it will run
portable just fine off a cheap 6V gelcell or 4 NiMh rechargeables. I've
got some 2.5AH NiMh cells in a Radio Shack battery holder I'm going to
use to power it portable when it gets here. Should run a few hours, but
I may go to a more powerful 6V gelCell in my netbook case if necessary.
With its wifi range, I may just leave it in the car and use it from
there....


--
Larry