On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 09:44:37 -0500, Larry wrote:

Wayne.B wrote in
:

What is needed is way to configure via an ethernet connection (at the
bottom of the mast of course).



Without the wireless router at the bottom of the mast becoming too friendly
with the bridge at the top of the mast...(c;

I'm guessing that the correct sequence of events would be to
disconnect the bottom router, connect a PC to the ethernet cable,
configure the top bridge, acquire an access point, unplug the PC and
replace with the bottom router. The bottom router could be
preconfigured to use a different channel than the connected access
point.

Hi, Tom, and group(s).

First, thanks for all the discussion. There have been developments, of
which more anon, but to Tom's question(s), first:

tlindly wrote:
Going back to the original question, Skip said:
"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..."

Do you mean to say that when you type in the "URL" [192.168.1.100 or
something like that] of the bridge into your web browser, you get the
paysite signup page rather than the bridge's setup page?? If so,
you're
going to have to climb back up and push a reset button.

Or do you mean that you Did get into the bridge's setup pages, but
cannot
figure out how to deny the offending paysite provider?

I meant that originally, with the Vonage router acting as referee, my
AP could communicate both to the outside world and enter the
configuration pages of the bridge. Before that time, all attempts to
have the two units directly connected failed producing IP conflicts
regardless of the IPs set in the setup pages, all of which were readily
available by connection to a NIC on the same IP class network. The way
I was able to communicate with the bridge through the AP/router chain
was to have the AP set to the same netclass as the router, which IP was
not adjustable; it got the DHCP connection from the bridge and passed
my URL access through. So far, so good. A nuisance to have to type in
the specified SSID each time there was a change, but manageable -
didn't have to take the ethernet to the computer - Vonage logged me
into the internet and I could make phone calls and surf/mail on however
many computers I wanted to connect to the AP, all was well with the
world

Once Beacon was the stronger signal (now that the bridge and antenna
were atop the mast), it redirected the bridge, forcing it to show the
signin page rather than allowing me to interrogate the bridge. Reset
would not change that - a power-off/on cycle will return me to the
basic setup, which is that without a specified SSID, it associates with
the strongest signal. Unfortunately, in Beacon's case, that signal is
a redirect, not either an open or encrypted site where I enter my
password. Accidentally I touched the factory reset button when I was
fiddling the setup in the NEMA box; I just typed in the factory URL,
reset it all to what I wanted, and it came back. However, that was when
we were breadboarding it, and the Beacon signal was visible (only) and
not dominant.

However...

I've spent yet another set of hours on the phone with a Vonage rep. We
wound up going through a DLink router, which solved the communication
problem for a while, and now it's back to plug-and-pray, as I can
interrogate the bridge just fine over a configured NIC (not DHCP but
the same netclass as the bridge), set it, and put it into a DHCP NIC
and make my connection (still through the redirected signup page) and
surf and mail (as I'm doing with this post) but not wirelessly.

As to the aiw bunch, I not only followed the given directions to the
letter, I had another offline relationship with someone who had the
exact same setup (Senao units in AP and Bridge mode doing what I
wanted, rather on a ski slope, than our mast-top); we could not kill
the IP conflict dragon. He and another offline correspondent
recommended either a switch or a router between the units. That,
indeed, solved the IP problem, and I was successful in making the
connectivity work.

That I can - from the top of the mast, before I closed it up, just
checking the setup - quote (from memory) the setup pages, and
manipulate them with my totally computer illiterate wife at the
keyboard below suggests I have a handle on how the unit works, despite
the chiding I get in aiw. What I don't know, of course, is why it
doesn't work later, after it's successfully worked - and I've very
easily manipulated the setup pages - before (and in fact can still do
so if connected over ethernet cable.

The conclusion, in any event, is that this unit is not suited to the
purpose, and more, is a "b " only vs b/g or others, which is one of the
gotchas which had me going nuts initially, as my b/g enabled unit could
see and communicate just fine with a station which the bridge could see
but not talk to. We presume they had their network set up as 'g' only
to increase connectivity or packet throughput or some other internal
reason, confusing me because of the success with the adapter and
failure with the bridge.

So, I'm on the hunt for a plug-and-play, moderately amplified (don't
want to be a bigmouth nuisance), point-and-click-to-associate
(required, not go to strongest signal, also a benefit in the cases
where there may be multiple iterations of the same SSID with different
MAC addresses), bridge (12V, as I've already spent the bux to have the
POE).


tom
=-==
p.s. Nice pics! Tampa at christmas time?

Yup - it was a real toad-strangler, as well as very high winds. We
were at family south, so only got to see it on TV. Glad you like the
pix. The electronics installations are nearly finished, with the
radar, chartplotter and other stuff working. Pix to follow, as well as
followup on the comms situation as I have something more than interim
reports to communicate.

The aiw and seven seas folks know that I'm more persistent than a
bulldog, so we *will* solve this challenge. The internet is perfectly
(well, acceptably) workable now, if I am willing to be connected to a
cable, and switch between NICs to make changes - which I'm not.

So, we'll have a new bridge, which will send down its static IP to the
telephone switch/router. That unit will be assigned an IP by the host,
and Vonage will then see the MAC of the base station to the two
wireless handsets, and log me into the world. The ISP (the local AP,
whether Beacon here, or something else elsewhere) signal will go on out
to the AP, which will provide us boatside wifi.

So, that's my current challenge. Just because there may be other
interest in phone connectivity, and this thread is pretty deep, I'm
also starting a new topic with this name. Informed, or experienced, or
knowledgeable, or otherwise contributions to this new thread
encouraged. This is the challenge:

A bridge connected to an antenna atop a mast. Light amplification to
get the signal back to whatever AP we're connected to ashore, whether
free public or subscription access. If we're a long way out, even
though we could hear them on the big antenna, we might not be able to
talk to them. That bridge is powered by, and sends data down to the
inside of the boat over, POE. We've proven that part of the system.

That data goes to a Vonage router/switch, via the WAN port. When it
sees an internet connection, the MAC is visible, so Vonage logs me in,
and I'm on the same telephone number as I've had for 30 years, having
taken advantage of the LNP to move it to Vonage several years ago.
That gives me a dial tone at the two wireless handheld phones. That
component has been proven. The above was proven, briefly, as we
successfully used the phone on two successive days when we were miles
out of the marina. It passes data out through the LAN port to a
computer or something else. That something else is

An AP which we set up to allow us to access the internet wirelessly.
It's the same as having a wireless router in your home, if you were
connected to the Vonage unit, and the Vonage unit were connected to
your cable or DSL modem. At least one iteration of that has been
proven. Whether I stick with the Senao unit is yet TBD; I'm pretty
soured on them currently, and there may well be better solutions for
our boatside stuff.

My objective is to 1) Use plug-and-play units which require nothing
other than perhaps entries of addresses to set up, and perhaps firmware
upgrades and 2) not have to mess with any wires (Lydia's absolutely
ballistic over visible wires; she's spiral wrapping all the engine room
and any other places where any exposed wiring might be visible) once
it's set up. A power cycling should be all that's needed to start over
in the event of challenges, but I'll make it so I can get to the cables
involved in case I have to do some direct manipulation of the various
units. Once I've made the shoreside connection, the telephone is
active, and I don't have to have the computer running to achieve
telephony; turning on my computer and the AP should provide me internet
access. (Perhaps that's objective 3, but I think that should be a
given; if the Vonage unit is receiving an outside signal and is logged
in, turning on the AP will be the equivalent to your turning on the
computer hooked to that LAN port at home.)

Thanks again to all who've contributed to the original thread, and for
those looking in, I'm glad you like the pictures. I hope to make it so
someone trying to do the same thing as I, later, will have a visual
guide to what I did...

L8R

Skip, clueless in St. Pete

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery!
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"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

p.p.s. I saw:
8 cranes abuilding;
7 gulls awinging;
6 slips aempty;
5...bosun's chair;safetyharness;halyardend;snapshackle Rings
4 stainless bolts;
3 copcars;
2 waterways;
and a partridge in a pear tree.
[video and imagination enhancing devices required for the last]

"Skip Gundlach" wrote in
ups.com:

So, I'm on the hunt for a plug-and-play, moderately amplified (don't
want to be a bigmouth nuisance), point-and-click-to-associate
(required, not go to strongest signal, also a benefit in the cases
where there may be multiple iterations of the same SSID with different
MAC addresses), bridge (12V, as I've already spent the bux to have the
POE).


I've taken AIW out of the group list for this message......(c;

Tried to call you, today, through the Linksys Mobile Repeater in my car
from Denny's, but Skype said you were unavailable....

Because you got my interest up with your bridge and its problems, I read
all about Linksys' little $99 WRE54G "Range Extender" completely wireless
repeater. There it sat on the shelf so I bought it at Best Buy so I can
take it back, easily, if it didn't "do".

Denny's has a marginal open wifi signal from "default" (a Netgear? router
somewhere), which I thought was coming from Denny's office, but evidently
not. Signals are 10% on the Skype phone or laptop inside the metal
restaurant through the windows, I suppose, now.

In the parking lot, I plugged the 110VAC Linkie into a little inverter
and pressed the Auto Configure button. It blinked a couple of times and
went solid blue. I looked at my Skype Phone and was connected to the
illusive "default" at FULL SCALE. Inside the restaurant about 200' away,
it was only half scale and fully functional! You just press the
button... It comes with control software so you can force it to connect
to what you want and you can set that up with Ethernet direct or over the
air. The software hunts it down on wireless....

Later, at the Dell kiosk inside Northwoods Mall where only one nearby
hotspot is open and all others WEP protected, we plugged it in and Auto
Configured and it hooked right up to the open system. All the laptops
connected through it, simultaneously to "linksys", the open system, with
big signals from close to them. They're gonna get one...(c;

If the Vonage box will use the AP box as a WAN input through this box,
might be interesting to try. You can always take it back within 30 days
for refund. It's only 20mw, though and I don't see how you'd reset it at
masthead. Put it in a plastic bag trailing a 115VAC dropcord and haul it
up on a lanyard??

Man it sure makes the Skype phone LONG RANGE! Now, I'm forced to keep
it!



--
http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/verichip.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeriChip
http://www.verichipcorp.com/
Tracked like a dog, every license/product/tax.
Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor,
free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads:
17 and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name...

Wayne.B wrote in
:

I'm guessing that the correct sequence of events would be to
disconnect the bottom router, connect a PC to the ethernet cable,
configure the top bridge, acquire an access point, unplug the PC and
replace with the bottom router. The bottom router could be
preconfigured to use a different channel than the connected access
point.



I'm going to take a dropcord to Lionheart, tomorrow, with a waterproof
ditty bag because it might rain. I'll take the Skype Phone and this
repeater and haul the repeater up the mast on a halyard trailing a 110VAC
drop cord to power it.

We'll see how that works. This box weighs nothing.



--
http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/verichip.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeriChip
http://www.verichipcorp.com/
Tracked like a dog, every license/product/tax.
Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor,
free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads:
17 and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name...

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:07:32 -0500, Larry wrote:

I'm going to take a dropcord to Lionheart, tomorrow, with a waterproof
ditty bag because it might rain. I'll take the Skype Phone and this
repeater and haul the repeater up the mast on a halyard trailing a 110VAC
drop cord to power it.

We'll see how that works. This box weighs nothing.

It doesn't look like it has an antenna jack. That could turn it into
a very useful device on my boat.

Wayne.B wrote in
:

It doesn't look like it has an antenna jack. That could turn it into
a very useful device on my boat.


It doesn't. The antenna is a swing up that goes from parallel with the
long side of the case for mounting vertically to perpendicular to the long
side for laying down on some surface. There is an ethernet port next to
the antenna connector, but that's for direct control through its software,
which I haven't found necessary, yet. I just push the button on the side
when I get to a new location, and it finds LIVE internet on open systems.



--
http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/verichip.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeriChip
http://www.verichipcorp.com/
Tracked like a dog, every license/product/tax.
Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor,
free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads:
17 and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name...

Hi, Ian, and group(s),

Would that it did - My reaction comes from merely typing in the URL
(the way I usually reach the bridge to configure it) in nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
format, whereupon the pay site(s? - I've not been in an area with more
than one at the moment, though the readout shows many presumed pay
sites as well, some of which have more strength, but not as good a
communications level)) redirects to their signin page.



If no DNS lookup is being done, there should be absolutely NO
oppertunity for a redirect. Its possible that the router you have put
in between your LAN and the bridge is causing this behaviour. You
*might* need to set up a static route.

The Bridge has a static IP (which I set to be outside the usual use
range so as to avoid IP conflicts) - and the Vonage unit IP can't be
changed - but, like the Bridge, the DLink can be set to whatever I
want, also static. I have used it in DHCP, though, so it will get me
on the air - and that on-the-air signal is what Vonage uses to find the
MAC address to connect me to the phone grid...


Another possibility is you have one of the many varieties of 'search
assistant' or internet 'booster' malware on your PC that is trying to
reach its homepage and is therefore triggering the wireless ISP login
redirect. A full scan with a number of different spyware and virus
scanners is probably a good idea at this point.

That's possible, but highly unlikely, as I have more than one current,
up to date, tool which checks weekly, and also notifies me of any
attempt to intrude (very few) or insert malware (even fewer). Full
virus and malware scans are done weekly. Oversight (active scanning)
is on full time.


Do you ever get this redirection when trying to access the Router config
page?

No. My router is easily accessible through my AP, which is set to the
198.162.(whatever the router uses).xxx class

Further, we are now at the point where only a direct connection (NIC)
will allow any communication with the top of the mast or beyond.

We briefly had connectivity to the Vonage router by going to a DLink
DI-614 (ancient tech, left over from my landside home) router WAN port
with the bridge, and putting the Vonage unit on one of the LAN ports.
I connected to the DLink over wifi and was able to interrogate it and
the Vonage unit.

For whatever reasons, those abilities (vonage and bridge - I can still
look at and configure the DLink) have gone away. Worse, and supportive
of the thought that either the Senao is simply junk, or perhaps, also,
just unsuited to the purpose, direct (over either configured NIC for
setting up the bridge, or DHCP NIC for access to the internet)
connection is currently the only way I can communicate.

That's not acceptable to me, but it does, at least, after lots of
fiddling, as the Senao unit is becoming slow to respond in the main
Beacon page (there are more than one; I can connect to lesser strength
ones and get a login page more readily than the close, very high [100%
link, 89% signal] one which got me started down this road) I've been
using, allow me to be on the air, as it's how I'm posting this...

Thus, as mentioned elsewhere, I'm ready to replace it; finding a
lightly amplified client bridge's - with my specification about how one
connects - challenges have been described in other responses.

About to take all the yard folks out for a sail today in reward for all
the assistance they've rendered in the past; 85, mostly sunny, 2-3
chop, 10-15S should make for a glorious trip to nowhere (we're coming
back!) :{))

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery!
Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog

"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

In article ,
Larry wrote:

Wayne.B wrote in
:

I'm guessing that the correct sequence of events would be to
disconnect the bottom router, connect a PC to the ethernet cable,
configure the top bridge, acquire an access point, unplug the PC and
replace with the bottom router. The bottom router could be
preconfigured to use a different channel than the connected access
point.



I'm going to take a dropcord to Lionheart, tomorrow, with a waterproof
ditty bag because it might rain. I'll take the Skype Phone and this
repeater and haul the repeater up the mast on a halyard trailing a 110VAC
drop cord to power it.

We'll see how that works. This box weighs nothing.

Hey Larry, why not take it apart, and see what the internal DC
Powersupply runs at? Maybe you could adapt it to 12Vdc or some
Low Voltage Dc Powered system, and while your in there, look and
see it you could adapt an external antenna, or connector to the
antenna port.

Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:bruceg-
:

Hey Larry, why not take it apart, and see what the internal DC
Powersupply runs at? Maybe you could adapt it to 12Vdc or some
Low Voltage Dc Powered system, and while your in there, look and
see it you could adapt an external antenna, or connector to the
antenna port.

Bruce in alaska
-

After I figure out whether I'm going to keep it, or not...(c;

The little 6dB (guessing colinear) that's on it is quite well. I DO see
the feeding coax which bends in the joint when the antenna is rotated, so
I assume it has a connector on the other end that plugs into one of the
RF boxes you can see inside through the little cooling holes.

Great service at Denny's where signal was really low and marginal. It
connects to the hotel across the street, I surmised driving around with
the Skype phone to find where the signal on "default" was best... The
repeater makes it over half scale anywhere inside Denny's from almost no
signal at all.

What is curious is how the box simply assumes the identity of the station
it's repeating. It even clones the MAC of the master station, its SSID,
etc. But, it's not just an RF repeater because it DOES have to connect
itself to the master station before it assumes repeater status. Once
both lights are blue, you can see you're using it because the Activity
light blinks every time data goes through the repeater...either way.



--
http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/verichip.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeriChip
http://www.verichipcorp.com/
Tracked like a dog, every license/product/tax.
Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor,
free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads:
17 and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name...

The conclusion, in any event, is that this unit is not suited to the
purpose

This conclusion was drawn for you MONTHS AGO. You just refused to listen.