Yuku free message boards

Hi Sandy

Here are a few things I've learned over the past year or so of trying to connect into my yacht club's hotspot. I work from my boat during the summer months, so it was pretty important that I get decent internet connectivity.

1. WiFi is a form of 2 way radio communication between your wifi card/adapter and a wireless router connected to the internet. It isn't just enough to receive distant signals, your equipment also has to also be able to transmit at a power high enough for the wireless router to receive and acknowledge your signal. Is the equipment used to create the hotspot you are connecting to, of sufficent quality to support comms at the distances you require? If not, there may not be a lot you can do to improve matters. I've been in a few marina's this summer where no way no how was I able to connect, when upon fiurther investigation the hotspot was created by a no-name wireless router hooked up to the marina manger's DSL.

2. Are you going to be using your WiFi rig from the same location? or are you looking to be more mobile? Some of the very high gain antennas tend to be very directional and while their ability to haul in signals is pretty good, they don't work very well on a boat. I once borrowed a friend's D-link Yagi antenna to try once and found it hard to keep a steady signal to my IBM X41. The signal varied between excellent to poor depending on exactly how my boat was lying at the slip.

3. Wifi boosters, at least the Link-Sys model that I tried have proven to be pretty ineffective. Maybe the refurbished unit I bought on line wasn't representative, but I saw absolutely no improvement in signal, at the distances I needed. Maybe others have had better experiences.

I have stumbled on a combination of wifi components that is working well for me. I use a Buffalo Ethernet Converter, which acts as very powerful WiFi card, connected to an Omni-12 12dB gain antenna from Radio Labs. http://www.radiolabs.com/ (n.b. the Buffalo in actually widely available for a bit less money, but I elected to buy everything from the same place) With this combination, I can get clean stable maximum bandwidth connections at my slip, which is ~ 1000ft away from the nearest antenna, in all atmospheric conditions. At the moment I have the Omni-12 clamped on my stern rail which is a nuisance because it is about 48" long, but I will mount it up on my radar pole, once I get the proper mounting hardware.

The setup will actually work without the Omni12, as the Buffalo comes with a small antenna, but the Omni seems to keep things more stable. I rarely have signal drops when I am using the antenna, and I do IP confernece calls from my PC!

There are a couple of minor downsides to the setup. First is the fact that the Buffalo Ethernet converter requires an external power source. It doesn't seem to draw much power, but it will require a small inverter to be operating which may be a problem if the batteries are down. (I have a 300 watt unit for charging little stuff, and 900Ah of house,so it shouldn't be a major problem)

Secondly, the Buffalo converter looks like a regular ethernet network connection to my notebook, so there is no simple way to gauge signal strength.

Thirdly, the setup of the Buffalo, requires messing around with TCP/IP settings, which isn't difficult, but is still a pain to do if you are moving around constantly. If you are in one place, or at least connecting to the same HotSpot, you won't need to change.

It took a fair bit of trial and error to get to this stage, and I think at next spring's dock sale, there will be a few WiFi doodads of questionable effectivness for sale.

Good Luck
Addison