"Geoff Schultz" wrote

OK, then maybe you can tell me where in the Bahama **Out Islands** you
found wireless. If you're talking Nassau or the Abacos, then yes,
wireless
is available.

Netstumbler was very useful on Exuma for finding signals. Found 3 usable
signals at Georgetown with weird radiation patterns. 200 yards made a lot
of difference in signal strength. Also at the Four Seasons Marina, Emerald
Bay, Staniel Cay and Cat Island.

Marina wifi antennas are aimed out over the slips and tend to fall off
rapidly near the edges of the pattern. If you can find the center of the
pattern you can be a fair ways off and still get a usable signal. The
problem with marina systems is that you have to go in and open an account
which cost a few bucks if you are not in a slip. A lot of villas along the
beach have unsecured APs too and they have very erratic patterns. Must
have something to do with the position of the AP to windows and metal in the
house. With a good wifi rig you can sometimes find them several hundred
yards off shore.

Coverage is hit and miss but with the right tools you can sniff out more
spots.

--
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

Netstumbler was very useful on Exuma for finding signals. Found 3 usable
signals at Georgetown with weird radiation patterns. 200 yards made a lot
of difference in signal strength. Also at the Four Seasons Marina,
Emerald
Bay, Staniel Cay and Cat Island.

Marina wifi antennas are aimed out over the slips and tend to fall off
rapidly near the edges of the pattern. If you can find the center of the
pattern you can be a fair ways off and still get a usable signal. The
problem with marina systems is that you have to go in and open an account
which cost a few bucks if you are not in a slip. A lot of villas along
the
beach have unsecured APs too and they have very erratic patterns. Must
have something to do with the position of the AP to windows and metal in
the
house. With a good wifi rig you can sometimes find them several hundred
yards off shore.

Coverage is hit and miss but with the right tools you can sniff out more
spots.

Excellent report Glenn. That's why having a tool like NetStumbler is
useful. The normal built-in wifi software doesn't usually give you signal
strength meters. And the few that do usually don't have a rolling log of
it. With stumbler you get a bar chart showing you the signal strengths of
all the networks it could see, logged for as long as you have stumbler
active. So you can fire up stumbler and use it to hunt around a bit looking
for a good signal.

You're also right about the windows and metal. Many modern windows have a
coating (either for UV or tint) that seems quite effective at blocking wifi
signals. That and the wire put up behind most stucco also serves as a
rudimentary Faraday cage also blocking signals.

If you REALLY want to geek out and see more detailed wifi info then get a
linux boot CD with a program called kismet on it. kismet is like stumbler
on steroids. But it's overkill for most folks.

-Bill Kearney

On Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:37:47 -0500, Bill Kearney wrote:


If you REALLY want to geek out and see more detailed wifi info then get a
linux boot CD with a program called kismet on it. kismet is like stumbler
on steroids. But it's overkill for most folks.

And WarLinux is like kismet on steroids. ;-)

https://sourceforge.net/project/show...group_id=57253

War Linux is a package of Kismet, nmap. wavemon and several other wifi
utilities that are way past anything you would need for finding a place to
get connected. That is unless you are into black hatting. You really don't
need to hack into an AP in the Caribbean as when there are APs around most
of them are not secure anyway.

--
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

"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:37:47 -0500, Bill Kearney wrote:


If you REALLY want to geek out and see more detailed wifi info then get a
linux boot CD with a program called kismet on it. kismet is like
stumbler
on steroids. But it's overkill for most folks.

And WarLinux is like kismet on steroids. ;-)

https://sourceforge.net/project/show...group_id=57253

"Bill Kearney" wkearney-99@hot-mail-com wrote in
t:

That's why having a tool like NetStumbler is
useful.

If you boys cruise up the Ashley River to look at the gardens, you'll
find SSID W4CSC in the middle of the river bend just upstream from
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens (http://www.magnoliaplantation.com/) about
400 yards upstream from the end of the no-wake zone that protects the
plantation's riverbank. It's unprotected, 50' up my tree and runs 200mw
so there's plenty of signal and bandwidth for all.

Charleston City Marina, in the face of free internet with no restrictions
from The Harborage at Ashley Marina next door, easily in range of city
marina boats, gave up trying to boost revenues by selling internet and
now provides free internet to anyone with a wifi transceiver by simply
connecting. This goes along, also, with the City of Charleston's
peninsula-wide new free internet system that provides a throttled 110Kbps
wifi signal across the whole downtown area for anyone to use. The city
sells more bandwidth for a small fee to help pay for it and have a lot of
subscribers, locals like lawyers/doctors/business/real estate who buy the
wideband service with such mobility. It's been quite successful and self
supporting, I'm told.

Charleston is quite wifi friendly. My Netgear SPH101 Skype phone worked
at the tire dealer while I was waiting for them to replace the damned
Bridgestone super tire that couldn't stand the terrible pressure at 32psi
and bubbled the tread off the cord. That makes tire 3 with tread
separation from Goodyear and Bridgestone in the last 6 months....another
issue that needs fixing.

We Charlestonians WOULD appreciate it if you brought a little cash with
you and spent some while you're appreciating our free wifi hospitality,
however...(c;

Y'all come! Sit a spell! Have a Mint Julep on the veranda while the
kids play on the jogglin' board.
http://www.oldcharlestonjogglingboard.com/
Ship one home for later!
http://www.charlestonfavorites.com/

Y'all come! Sit a spell! Have a Mint Julep on the veranda while the
kids play on the jogglin' board.
http://www.oldcharlestonjogglingboard.com/
Ship one home for later!
http://www.charlestonfavorites.com/


Funny you should mention jogglin' boards. I just built one for my
grandchildren. Finding a serviceable clear 2x10 pine board was harder than
finding old growth teak. They sell junk at the big box stores these days.

--
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

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in
:

Funny you should mention jogglin' boards. I just built one for my
grandchildren. Finding a serviceable clear 2x10 pine board was harder
than finding old growth teak. They sell junk at the big box stores
these days.

--
Glenn Ashmore



Are there still TREES left that long?...(c;

I watched a guy come up to the checkouts at Home Depot with one of those
big carts that had two warped sheets of plywood on it, standing up in the
little channels. "They give you those warped up sheets?", I asked him.

He looked at me, oddly, looked at the plywood, whirled the cart around
and headed back down in the direction of the plywood department. It was
just awful what was on that cart! I wouldn't have used it to cover a
mudhole in the yard...(c;



--
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 Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:29:11 -0500, Glenn Ashmore wrote:

"Geoff Schultz" wrote

OK, then maybe you can tell me where in the Bahama **Out Islands** you
found wireless. If you're talking Nassau or the Abacos, then yes,
wireless
is available.

Netstumbler was very useful on Exuma for finding signals. Found 3
usable signals at Georgetown with weird radiation patterns. 200 yards
made a lot of difference in signal strength. Also at the Four Seasons
Marina, Emerald Bay, Staniel Cay and Cat Island.

Marina wifi antennas are aimed out over the slips and tend to fall off
rapidly near the edges of the pattern. If you can find the center of
the pattern you can be a fair ways off and still get a usable signal.
The problem with marina systems is that you have to go in and open an
account which cost a few bucks if you are not in a slip. A lot of
villas along the beach have unsecured APs too and they have very erratic
patterns. Must have something to do with the position of the AP to
windows and metal in the house. With a good wifi rig you can sometimes
find them several hundred yards off shore.

Coverage is hit and miss but with the right tools you can sniff out more
spots.

I've had pretty good luck finding networks all around lower British
Columbia. The household and small business ones are usually stronger than
the (expensive) marina ones provided by Broadband Express, etc. I've
even come across household networks with welcome screens! (Lotsa techies
with waterfront homes in BC.)

I even picked up a network from a large yacht once, wide open for anyone
to hop on an run up his satellite bill, or poke around his network,
hacking his personal computers and onboard systems! Of course I wouldn't
dare, but I hope he's fixed this!

Matt O.

On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:34:23 -0500, Matt O'Toole
wrote:

I even picked up a network from a large yacht once, wide open for anyone
to hop on an run up his satellite bill, or poke around his network,

Many of the large cruise ships have WiFi networks but I've never been
able to reach the public internet from one. They typically charge $1
per minute for that priviledge.

That's still cheaper than the casino. :-)