Although I have not tried this myself, it looks interesting and I may
order one. Basically it's a 9 db omnidirectional antenna integrated
with a high powered USB adapter. The advantage is that coax losses
are eliminated and you have a smaller cable coming into the boat.

http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...ne-antenna.php

Although I have not tried this myself, it looks interesting and I may
order one. Basically it's a 9 db omnidirectional antenna integrated
with a high powered USB adapter. The advantage is that coax losses
are eliminated and you have a smaller cable coming into the boat.

Which is useless as USB is limited, at best, to 15 feet. Just getting
across a cabin, up a bulkhead and to an opening will take that much length.
And that only gets you to the deck. It's been my experience you need to get
at least 8 feet off the deck to get any sort of decent signal. At least in
anything other than a close proximity to the base situation. If you're in
the marina and it's got good coverage then the above gadget might be useful.
But if the coverage was that good you wouldn't need that gadget anyway. And
that unit is limited to USB 1.1. Too slow for wifi, but then for ****ty
coverage it might be "enough".

In short, no thanks.

There is a way around that limit. A USB extender will get you out to 150'.
http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cabl...37%2C140%2C120

I ran one to the webcam in the boat shed and it worked fine until the camera
fell into a pot of epoxy. :-(

--
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

"Bill Kearney" wrote in message
...
Although I have not tried this myself, it looks interesting and I may
order one. Basically it's a 9 db omnidirectional antenna integrated
with a high powered USB adapter. The advantage is that coax losses
are eliminated and you have a smaller cable coming into the boat.

Which is useless as USB is limited, at best, to 15 feet. Just getting
across a cabin, up a bulkhead and to an opening will take that much
length.
And that only gets you to the deck. It's been my experience you need to
get
at least 8 feet off the deck to get any sort of decent signal. At least
in
anything other than a close proximity to the base situation. If you're in
the marina and it's got good coverage then the above gadget might be
useful.
But if the coverage was that good you wouldn't need that gadget anyway.
And
that unit is limited to USB 1.1. Too slow for wifi, but then for ****ty
coverage it might be "enough".

In short, no thanks.

"Bill Kearney" wrote in news:ra2dnTjSdP-
:

Which is useless as USB is limited, at best, to 15 feet.

Bosun's Chair with builtin laptop?.....(c;

(We'll need power winches for many of us....(d^

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

In article 9t%Lg.42829$ok5.6997@dukeread01,
Glenn Ashmore wrote:
There is a way around that limit. A USB extender will get you out to 150'.
http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cabl...37%2C140%2C120

I ran one to the webcam in the boat shed and it worked fine until the camera
fell into a pot of epoxy. :-(

Glenn, next time use clear epoxy. :-)



--
Capt. JG @@
www.sailnow.com

Apologies to this (rbc) group if this thread isn't present in full here
-
it's getting rather more attention than I see here via google, over in
rb.electronics - in which case you might like to look into it over
there...

Hi, Bill (You're familiar with my situation from other fora...), and
group,

Bill Kearney wrote:

I've had great success this season using a setup with two WRT54GS routers.
One's up inside the radar arch connected to a single 8db omni antenna.
It's
then wired via ethernet to another WRT54GS acting as an access point. The
laptops onboard connect to the "boat" ssid and the arch router then
handles
connecting them to shore. No cables to the laptops save for a power cord
when they need recharging. This lets me connection mine, my wife's and
anyone else 'nearby' to the access point and share connectivity. I've
tuned
the power level on the access point to provide coverage to a very small
area.

Does your setup let you identify and select from shore points, or do
you have to somehow first configure the arch unit? If you can identify
and select from shore points, how is it done? Web interface? (I'm
assuming that would require transparency to the IP of either or both
units.) WZC or some other configuration tool which is a
point-and-click? ((I'm assuming the functionality there to be like a
repeater, where you don't address it, but directly see all the shore
points on your laptop antenna.)

And, if you tuned the power, what power is available in these units?
And, speaking of power, how did you power them? Are they in the same
place, or is the bridge in the arch and the AP somewhere below?

Thanks.

For those (others) reading, my setup is different equipment, and
apparently not for the faint of heart, as it took over a year and
hundreds of failed hours to kill various bugs which generated IP
conflicts and inoperability while I was trying to do essentially the
same setup as Bill's. However, I have another wrinkle which, curiously
and fortuitously, made it all work. I have a Vonage router in between
my units. Vonage is a VoIP provider, and the router is a very simple
device which has its own IP which, once connected to the internet
(through the bridge), is recognized as my phone. The other end
connects to the access point which lets us use our laptops in the same
fashion as Bill. That router, though, puts me on the phone network
anywhere I have a wifi signal, whether my computer's even on or not.
It connects with a regular phone line, just like at home, to any
regular phone.

Think of it - my local phone number is following me around the world,
once I splash, and in the yard while I've been working on the boat.
Today I should receive the new router and double cordless phones (just
like you'd have at home) I ordered from eCost. (The only reason for
this was we have only a single instrument currently - this gives us
two, and it came with a router included for less than other
dual-cordless deals - two units lets us both be on line at the same
time.) We regularly pick up the phone and call Lydia's mother in
England (free calling to there and 4 other European countries), and
because it's the same number I've had for about 30 years, anyone who
wants to call (her kids, e.g., lots, suppliers and contractors, etc.)
just dials us up. Can you tell I like Vonage? Please drop me a line
if you'd like to investigate, and I'll "invite" you - that way if you
sign up we both get a free month.

So, back to the story, while it's a great deal more expensive than a
simple USB dongle, if you *really* want wifi at anchor or in the
marina, do it as Bill has done. Get a bridge, connected to a high-gain
antenna, weatherproof-enclose it, mount it as high as you can get it (a
sailboat mast is pretty high!). The ethernet connection out of that
bridge is your gateway to the internet. Connect it to an access point
instead of to your computer, and you can use yours, and your mates,
theirs, wirelessly. I've done the USB bit. I can tell you for sure I
like this better - and one of the chief reasons for my sticking with a
project which looked entirely fruitless for over a year is that it
gives me local (home, USA) telephone service anywhere I can get a wifi
signal. You can't do that with a USB setup, unless you use Skype or
Vonage's softphone, both of which require headsets and the computer to
be turned on...

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery!
Follow us at and



"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

Does your setup let you identify and select from shore points, or do
you have to somehow first configure the arch unit?

When I get to where I need wifi it's a simple matter of surfing to the arch
unit's web configuration page, selecting a site survey and picking an SSID.
Works pretty well.

And, if you tuned the power, what power is available in these units?

Turned down the radio's transmission mW setting until it just barely covers
more than the cockpit region of the boat. Ended up being about 9mW.

And, speaking of power, how did you power them? Are they in the same
place, or is the bridge in the arch and the AP somewhere below?

One unit's in the arch, the other's in a cabinet belowdecks. Both are
powered off the boat's 12vdc. They're on the same breaker so I can cut
power to them when they're not needed. I just ran 14ga wire directly to
them instead of screwing around with power-over-ethernet.

So, back to the story, while it's a great deal more expensive than a
simple USB dongle, if you *really* want wifi at anchor or in the
marina, do it as Bill has done. Get a bridge, connected to a high-gain
antenna, weatherproof-enclose it, mount it as high as you can get it (a
sailboat mast is pretty high!). The ethernet connection out of that
bridge is your gateway to the internet. Connect it to an access point
instead of to your computer, and you can use yours, and your mates,
theirs, wirelessly.

An important point is to keep the radio that's talking to the shore as close
as possible to the antenna. There's no sense in having this sort of setup
if you're going to just go and lose gain by running a long length of coax.
I've got about 30" of cabling total from the antenna to the router mounted
inside the arch. Then I run wired ethernet to the second router belowdecks.
Wired ethernet can run upward of 100 meters, a much better deal than RF coax
dB loss.

The only downside is if you're really close to the shore antenna the signal
can fluctuate with boat rocking motion. The further you're away from the
shore the 'spread' from the antenna will cover a larger area and be less
affected by wave motion. Think of it as a donut shape radiating outward,
with a vertical angle of typically around 15 degrees. Close in that pattern
is "too tight" with something like only 7 feet of vertical coverage. But
get a bit further out and the end coverage area spans a much taller
distance.

The single biggest advantage to this is all the admiral has to do is fire up
her laptop and use the 'boat' ssid. No extra config hassles on her machine.
This alone is worth the effort. Sure, I have to manually select the shore
ssid but that's a trivial process.

-Bill Kearney

This is not currently a project for me but I'm keeping an eye on the
posts because I'm sure there will be a point in time in future at which
my immediate interest will be greater. Anyway, I stumbled across the
link below while searching for something else, remembered you guys, and
thought to offer it to you. (Billed as a "mobile wifi solution".) If
it's not of interest to you, nothing lost. If it helps, great.

http://www.geosatsolutions.com/Merch...gory_Code=WIFI



Wayne.B wrote:
Although I have not tried this myself, it looks interesting and I may
order one. Basically it's a 9 db omnidirectional antenna integrated
with a high powered USB adapter. The advantage is that coax losses
are eliminated and you have a smaller cable coming into the boat.

http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...ne-antenna.php

Hi ,Bill, and groups,

My apologies if this is a duplication - I tried to respond some time
ago, but had a crash, or just, perhaps, Googlegroups, where I do this
because I don't have a news feed, doesn't show it?

Bill Kearney wrote:
Does your setup let you identify and select from shore points, or do
you have to somehow first configure the arch unit?

When I get to where I need wifi it's a simple matter of surfing to the arch
unit's web configuration page, selecting a site survey and picking an SSID.
Works pretty well.

From that I infer that you do your surfing from the AP to the bridge.
Or, do you have to unhook the ethernet and do it by hooking it to your
NIC? Either way, do you have to make your interface the same IP
family, or can it do it over dhcp?

Turned down the radio's transmission mW setting until it just barely covers
more than the cockpit region of the boat. Ended up being about 9mW.

Pretty cool. I assume that's also done on web interface, with a mouse
click or perhaps direct entry? Are these the usual 40mw or something
else?

One unit's in the arch, the other's in a cabinet belowdecks. Both are
powered off the boat's 12vdc. They're on the same breaker so I can cut
power to them when they're not needed. I just ran 14ga wire directly to
them instead of screwing around with power-over-ethernet.

I'd had the same idea - but don't know how much power they take. In my
case, it will be up the mast; if I have both units in that NEMA, it
would take two POE units. OTOH, what would both of them draw (so I
could figure out what size wire I'd have to run to them)?

An important point is to keep the radio that's talking to the shore as close
as possible to the antenna. There's no sense in having this sort of setup
if you're going to just go and lose gain by running a long length of coax.
I've got about 30" of cabling total from the antenna to the router mounted
inside the arch. Then I run wired ethernet to the second router belowdecks.
Wired ethernet can run upward of 100 meters, a much better deal than RF coax
dB loss.

My antenna coax is about 6" so I think I'll be ok on that :{)) In my
case, up at the top of the mast, with the lightning arrestor as the
mount point of the antenna (pigtail to the bridge inside connects to
the arrestor), I didn't have to elevate the antenna more than the
bridge.

The single biggest advantage to this is all the admiral has to do is fire up
her laptop and use the 'boat' ssid. No extra config hassles on her machine.
This alone is worth the effort. Sure, I have to manually select the shore
ssid but that's a trivial process.

Ditto - but mine has the other item in spades, where she can call her
kids and her mother, and for that matter, as she did Sunday, her twin
in Hong Kong and her sister in England, on a three-way, all over wifi.
I have yet to hook up the new Vonage router and double phone set, but I
expect it will do just fine - and it's another 12v item :{))

L8R

Skip, reinstalling the tranny and other driveline excitement tomorrow

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery!
Follow us at and


"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely
nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing,
messing-about-in-boats; messing about in boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter,
that's the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never
get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to
do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."


-Bill Kearney

From that I infer that you do your surfing from the AP to the bridge.
Or, do you have to unhook the ethernet and do it by hooking it to your
NIC? Either way, do you have to make your interface the same IP
family, or can it do it over dhcp?

The shore link client is running DHCP. The in boat device is not, just as
an access point. So when a laptop connects it's getting it's IP address
through the access point from the router. This means there's nothing to do
on the laptops other than select the 'boat' SSID. I never have to connect
any wires to the laptops to handle configuring anything.

The wiring runs from the device in the arch, wired ethernet to a 5 port
switch belowdecks. The in boat device (access point) is also wired into
this. I could've just connected the two directly together but having this
switch gives me some expansion options. Actually, two other ports are
already connected to the Raymarine E-80 and Sirius weather interfaces.
Works great. At some point I'll be connected a 'permanent' PC into the boat
for engine data, logging and web cam and that'll go in the 5th remaining
port. The access point has 4 of it's own switch ports but I chose not to
use them as it would've meant running more and longer wires from the
raymarine gear (Hassle and $$$). So if I really needed 'more' wired ports I
could just use the ones on the access point. And the device in the arch
also has 4 more ports free but again, wiring hassles make it unlikely I'll
bother with them.

Turned down the radio's transmission mW setting until it just barely
covers
more than the cockpit region of the boat. Ended up being about 9mW.

Pretty cool. I assume that's also done on web interface, with a mouse
click or perhaps direct entry? Are these the usual 40mw or something
else?

28mW is the usual. I've tuned the in-boat device to about 8mW and that
seems to work nicely. Simple web page selection, and not one that gets
changed for typical use.

I'd had the same idea - but don't know how much power they take.

I'm in a twin engined powerboat. I don't know, nor care about their power
consumption. I only run them when I actually need to use them.

In my
case, it will be up the mast; if I have both units in that NEMA, it
would take two POE units. OTOH, what would both of them draw (so I
could figure out what size wire I'd have to run to them)?

I'm not the one to task as I've run a separate power line for each of them.
I believe it was 14 gauge wire I used to avoid voltage drop. I've no idea
what Power Over Ethernet would require but I'm sure a web search would be
enlightening.

Ditto - but mine has the other item in spades, where she can call her
kids and her mother, and for that matter, as she did Sunday, her twin
in Hong Kong and her sister in England, on a three-way, all over wifi.
I have yet to hook up the new Vonage router and double phone set, but I
expect it will do just fine - and it's another 12v item :{))

Yeah, the VOIP thing would certainly be interesting and should we need it
the network's there to support it. But our cell phone coverage and plans
are more than sufficient to handle our calling needs here on the Chesapeake.
Were we calling or travelling internationally we'd certainly look into it.
I've heard plenty of horror stories about Vonage and other lowball VOIP
providers. Mainly that their voice quality sucks (even with excellent
connectivity). Along with that it's easier to get rid of a venereal disease
than to unsubscribe from their services.

-Bill Kearney