On 2008-09-20 16:10:11 -0400, Wayne.B said:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:04:48 GMT, Jere Lull wrote:

And I'm looking for a wifi booster, so am very interested in figuring
this sort of thing out.

I have something similar to this package from Keenan Systems:

http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...roducts_id=226

The

EnGenius USB device seems to require a serial port, which I haven't had
for most of a decade, a serious drawback. The Ethernet version is
seriously expensive in comparison to the others I found.

While we were out for a few weeks, we met up with a friend had a system
with (what he thought was) a 15 db antenna with a usb cable sticking
out, nothing else. No 110 vac needed. They got a good connection about
3-5 miles from our home port.

I'm an old QRP sort of guy, preferring to work on the antenna side of
the equation first, as that improves both receive and transmit.

I don't remember what the name of their stick is, but was able to d/l a
Mac driver for it (as well as Windoze and Linux pmes) that seemed to
connect to the stick, though we were miles away from civilization;
neither laptop could get a connection. Looks like it uses a
ZyDAS/Atheros chipset.

OH! This looks like it, though it's 8 db and 400 mw:
http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/wireless-marine-antenna.php

Now home and doing some searches, it seems a 8 db antenna is the best
all-around choice. Nice evaluation of various systems, including the
drawbacks of a 15 db antenna at
http://www.svsoggypaws.com/electronics.htm

Looking further, EnGenius's 362 with 8 db external antenna might work
well for about half the price, but it looks like there aren't any
UNIX/Linex drivers except for a reverse-engineered one from uath, and
that site doesn't give me a good feeling.

All that found and given, I'm leaning towards the RadioLabs WaveRV. Any
suggestions from your end? Heard any good or bad reviews of the WaveRV,
other similarly simple systems?

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/