Update, original left below for reference:

I bought a Hawking USB directional antenna along with an active USB cable,
which has allowed me to sit at the nav, with the antenna topsides, and enjoy
full connectivity, including my Vonage Softphone (drop me a line if you'd
like a referral; we'd both get a free month). Unfortunately, as it's not my
ISP, I don't have convenient (I consider anything web-based to be extremely
inconvenient, so googlegroups is a last resort) access to this group - thus
my long disappearances, as I am on the boat, refitting, now, the vast
majority of the time.

On order, now, is a wireless access point feeding a wireless amplifier, both
with pigtails to externally mounted antennas on the NEMA box. The rubber
duck from the hub goes down; there's a pigtail of Cat5 communicating with
the amplifier which has a bulkhead mounted pigtail onto which the external
big-stick 8.5dBi antenna screws. Here's the specs:

Special Order Custom Built
Dual Radio

2611CB3+D w/ HGV-2409U Antenna

D-link 900AP w/rubber duck Antenna

Aluminum NEMA Enclusure

lightning protection

Powering the whole thing with 12V, I'm going to test it out here at home,
first, and, assuming all goes well, mount it to the mast the next trip
(Monday). All indications are that wherever there's an open wifi signal
within a few miles of my anchorage, we'll be on the internet, and on the
telephone, transparently as though we were here at home (which is under
option contract to sell, so "home" is more a landside term than an abode).
This will greatly relieve Lydia's need to be in constant contact with her
children, and encourage me, who expected to have only sailmail/winlink and
cafe access to minibits of emails.

The refit process is coming along very slowly, but it appears that we may be
able to bring many things together at the same time. When anything's
finished, I'll post about it and provide picture links. In the meantime,
for any who may have an interest, clicking on the URL in the sig, and going
to the home portion of the gallery will let you see the projects section.

L8R

Skip, refitting as fast as I can


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot fishcatcher
(net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote in message
...
I'm looking for experience with external antenna solutions to very flaky
wifi access on the boat. There's every sort of hub range improver (get
your
signal out to others better) but I don't see much, if anything of the
other
way around.

Topsides, the range is only flaky, but at least I can pull and send stuff,
albeit I have to choose my moments. However, the screen is invisible in
anything between dawn and dusk and the keyboard is invisible in the dark,
limiting me severely in timing/scheduling.

So, I'd like to be able to go below, where there's no reception, not to
mention, protection from the elements.

Who's used what (up the mast isn't what I had in mind, though if it made
sense (I can't imagine it would, financially), I'd look at that) in the
line
of plug-in remote antennas?

I've lost the link, but I saw something which was an antenna for those
laptops without wifi, on some unknown length of USB lead; one can buy
"active" USB extensions for not too much, which I assume would make it
feasible for me to put the antenna out the hatch while I'm at the nav, for
example...

Thanks for any real-world experience...

L8R

Skip

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain