WIFI offshore part two

[Anders]

Originally Posted by wingssail

That's about the right data volume, what does it cost?

£35 a month,that's ~48USD. I should go on a contract that would be a lot cheaper.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by MatthLE

Gain is a result of the directionality. Having to aim is the price you must pay unless you get an array of antennas and the electronics to support. Footprint of cell tower signals usually means fringe signals are strongest nearer the ground, weaker up high. They are typically not aimed at the horizon but at a spot on the ground at a distance determined by the quality of provider equipment and other tower coverag.

that router is just an example of what you could use.
Connection, unscrew one of the router LTE antennas, screw in the yagi lead. Usually these routers run on 12v.

You can always go for a marine satellite inet system, or something on the spectrum in between, if you are rich.

But that yagi is tuned for the 2.4ghz WIFI band, NOT for any of the many LTE, UMTS, GSM or other mobile phone bands, not one of which is on 2.4ghz. That antenna is completely useless for mobile phone signals. Furthermore, an LTE connection really needs a MIMO antenna.



You CAN use a single element yagi to connect to a wifi AP -- if you have a way to aim it -- but you need a multielement antenna or an antenna array to connect to mobile phone towers. Just in the U.S., just one carrier, AT&T, uses 5 different frequencies.



What people use on boats are OUTDOOR routers with the antenna array built in. OUTDOOR, not indoor, because you really want to avoid the cable between antenna and radio. Directional antennas for mobile phone routers exist, but they would be useless on a boat -- when you're tied up, you will just about always have a signal strong enough that you don't need the outdoor router at all, and at sea where you need the boost, the boat is moving around and changing course so not practical to aim anything. The exception might be if you spend a lot of time at a fixed marina berth where mobile phone signal is weak.

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

My pleasure. I've had it for 15 years.

In the days of open routers, and everyone trying to find a signal, we were sitting pretty. I routinely would be on line as much as 7 miles offshore, including one trip which had me picking up a router on a Cay several miles north of Staniel Cay, under which we were sailing at the time; it might even be that I posted here about the experience!

It was common, in places most couldn't even SEE, let alone connect to, a broadcast site, for us to have dozens to choose from.

As we kept our router open (very limited distance, of course, but in a fiberglass boat and open water environment, it was far enough), we commonly would have a half-dozen or so boats in a train behind us as we switched anchorages in George Town (Exuma, Bahamas).

I gave several seminars on the subject of Wireless Communications for Cruisers 10 and more years ago in George Town, which, in "season" had as many as 4-500 boats anchored within a few miles (typically off Stocking Island), so the announcements I made on the morning net drew a typical 70-80 folk of a morning beachfront gathering.

I'll post the segment about how to do better with WiFi separately, and apologize to others looking on for the bandwidth. Look a few down from here for it

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Anders

£35 a month,that's ~48USD. I should go on a contract that would be a lot cheaper.

Your deal is amazing to me.

I'm on a data-only plan of 100 GB at $50/mo with T-Mobile, and I approach it every month.

So far I don't need more but that time will come, I suspect, as internet stuff continues to be more and more data-rich.

Of course, this is the US, and our country is like the second world in the internet; our data speeds aren't nearly as fast, and all of it is much more expensive...

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

My pleasure. I've had it for 15 years.

In the days of open routers, and everyone trying to find a signal, we were sitting pretty. I routinely would be on line as much as 7 miles offshore, including one trip which had me picking up a router on a Cay several miles north of Staniel Cay, under which we were sailing at the time; it might even be that I posted here about the experience!

It was common, in places most couldn't even SEE, let alone connect to, a broadcast site, for us to have dozens to choose from.

As we kept our router open (very limited distance, of course, but in a fiberglass boat and open water environment, it was far enough), we commonly would have a half-dozen or so boats in a train behind us as we switched anchorages in George Town (Exuma, Bahamas).

I gave several seminars on the subject of Wireless Communications for Cruisers 10 and more years ago in George Town, which, in "season" had as many as 4-500 boats anchored within a few miles (typically off Stocking Island), so the announcements I made on the morning net drew a typical 70-80 folk of a morning beachfront gathering.

I'll post the segment about how to do better with WiFi separately, and apologize to others looking on for the bandwidth. Look a few down from here for it

Here it is, with apologies to all those here who already know this stuff, and for its being dated such that there are newer toys available, and for the necessary bandwidth needed to see it.

The WiFi portion of my seminar:

For those with a land-based operation (you still have a home to go to), in all likelihood other than in remote areas, you’ll either have cable, DSL (digital subscriber line), maybe fiber-optic or perhaps satellite providing your internet signal, unless you’re a mega user, in which case you may have a T1 or T3 line, or even more. As those last two are unlikely for most, and those who need them know what they are, I’ll leave those alone for now. In any case, however, those come from an ISP – Internet service provider – to your home or business. Those provide the gateway to the Internet.

From that signal point, you may distribute that signal through a router. It might be wired, with Ethernet cable, but, more likely, it will be a combination of a wired and wireless router. The router assigns an address to each computer, and directs the traffic, so that data goes to the right place. So, if you have more than one computer, all can get the right information that they need.

For those of you with such a facility – a home or business with a router – you have the choice of just plugging in the router, at which point it will usually work just fine. However, if you go into the setup instructions, you’ll find that you can change the default settings.

For example, you can name your router something meaningful, such as the one on our boat, which starts with Flying Pig. You could also limit the number of computers which could connect to the router, or block certain computers from connecting at all, or from accessing certain points on the internet, or, even, provide an encryption requiring someone to log in with a password.

With that as background on how the signal gets distributed once you have access to it, if you just plugged in your router, and you wanted a laptop to go on line, the wifi adapter (the thing in the laptop which sees the signal and interprets it) would show you the available places you could sign on to. If you named your router, it would show that name. If not, likely it would show the name of the manufacturer, such as Linksys, Netgear, Comtrend or Belkin or others. It might well, if you were in a crowded neighborhood, show you other points you could connect to. In fact, if you didn’t have your own Internet service provider, it might allow you to connect to someone else’ Internet connection!

Now, all this has assumed your having a home or business. However, here you are, out in the middle of the sound, and you “look around” – that is, your wifi adapter looks around – and depending on where you are, you may see Gaviota Bay, Harbour Wifi, Palm Bay Beach Club, Emerald Bay, linksys, or a bunch of others, all showing up as “open”. You may also see a bunch of others, which are shown as encrypted, typically with WEP or WPA protocols. If you have the passwords, you can sign in to those encrypted sites; everyone else is left outside drooling over the prospect of being able to connect to the Internet.

I want to talk a bit about ethics. Early on in the days of wifi, there were lots of discussions about “stealing signals” – using someone else’ Internet service provider, essentially, because if you signed on to someone else’ account, you were using their service. In addition to the ethics of that, the concern was that if many were using the service, bandwidth would suffer. I’m going to address the bandwidth issue later, as it’s very significant here in the Harbour, but for now, we’ll talk about ethics and open sites.

As time went on, knowledgeable folks frequently left their routers – the thing connected to the ISP – open intentionally. I’ve even got another buddy who built a “cantenna” – a home-made, very high gain, very directional, antenna, hung it high in a tree, and pointed it at the local air force base, to provide servicemen there a signal where there would otherwise be none. Other knowledgeable folks encrypted their routers in order to prevent anyone from using their signal, or out of concern for the ability to compromise one of their computers connected to their system. Whether or not they were likely to be vulnerable, they chose to limit access to their system.

With today’s broadband capacities, unless the owner was a major power user, in which case, it’s nearly certain they’d encrypt, anyway, there is bandwidth to spare. It’s pretty typical that the novice computer networker (for that’s what we’re talking about – you’re signing on to a network when you connect to a router) just plugs in their router, and that’s it. It’s those Linksys, Netgear and Belkins you see all over in highly populated areas, unless, like my buddy who built the cantenna, a MAJOR power user, you prefer not to identify yourself at all, and intentionally leave it that way. Then, there’s the Denny’s, Starbucks, McDonalds, Ihop, Day’s Inn, Holiday Inn, Pet’s Place here in George Town, and a host of other restaurants, hotels and other businesses who leave theirs open, just because it’s more trouble than it’s worth to deal with folks having difficulty signing on to their systems which are, of course, intended to benefit their customers and/or to attract business to them based on the ability to get a signal.

So, today’s ethics largely have folks signing on to whatever signal they can find. Whether you’re comfortable doing that is up to you. And, if you’re uncomfortable, you may not have a pay site, such as Gaviota Bay, Palm Bay Beach Club or Harbour Wifi, here, available. So, without getting into an ethics discussion, let’s talk about ways to increase your ability to communicate over wifi.

We have the same big mouth and big ears challenges with wifi as in the others. It’s complicated by the relatively short distance capabilities of the usual built-in adapters. I’m going to stop for a moment and do some definitions here.

A wifi adapter is a receiver and transmitter of wifi signals. It’s either built-in, or connects to, a computer for bringing Internet signals to the computer. It’s part of a network.

An access point is something that distributes wifi signals. It’s identified by the wifi adapter by an SSID – an identifier that shows which one it is, and it will have something called a mac address – something unique to each piece of network hardware. WiFi adapters have their own mac addresses too. Mac addresses assure that traffic goes to and from the intended points, and not somewhere else. An access point can be part of an internal network, or connected to an ISP.

An ISP is an Internet Service Provider. Without the ISP, nothing happens between you and the Internet.

An antenna can be integral, or separate from, a wifi adapter. The higher gain the antenna has, with some limitations, which I’ll discuss later, the better you can hear.

An amplifier is something that allows the antenna to send the signals you put out further. Like in HF radio, the shorter the cable between the antenna and the amplifier, the better, because signal loss is severe in the 2.4 gigahertz band. No cable at all – that is, the antenna attached directly to the adapter – is the best, because even assuming the connectors are in perfect condition, just a foot of antenna cable will produce a measurable signal loss.

And, finally, a bit of tech-talk in non-technical terms, so you understand what’s happening when you’re communicating over the internet (or any network, for that matter): Traffic is passed in packets, which have headers and footers. The header tells where it’s heading (the mac address), as well as the number of the packet, and the footer tells the computer when that packet’s ended. The header allows your computer, or the receiving site (such as an email address), when you’re sending something, to get it – but it’s all over the Internet, and packet sniffers could see those packets. That’s why when you’re ordering stuff over the internet, or doing banking or other sensitive stuff, typically it will be on an encrypted site – to protect your information from prying eyes.

Those packets – thousands of them, sometimes – arrive, not necessarily in order, and not necessarily all successfully. The headers and footers allow the computer to be sure that all are received, and then puts them together in the order they belong. If they don’t all arrive, it keeps trying until they do, and then sends a completion message so the sender doesn’t keep trying.

It’s a little like someone tossing you a book. If it were bound, it’s easy – but it weighs a lot, and wouldn’t fit through a keyhole, either. Unbound, tossing it would make all the pages jumble, but any given page wouldn’t weigh very much. Because of the page numbers, you could gather up all the pages, assemble them, and read the book in proper page order. That’s essentially what your computer does for packets which then are interpreted as text, images, sound, or all three.

So, here we are. Is there anyone here who hasn’t logged into an SSID over a computer? Ok – so we’re all on the same page.

Now, how to get those elusive signals? It’s the same big mouth, alligators, sometimes, and big ears discussion, all over again. Unlike HF radio, you can’t use the atmosphere to send this information back and forth – it’s pretty much line-of-sight. And, due to the nature of the gear, the power levels are tiny by comparison to the other radio gear aboard. And… boats are moving targets, even if they’re just at anchor, making it more complicated due to the line of sight limitation and the antenna limitations we’ll discuss. Further, there are some limiting considerations for big mouths and big ears.

Let’s start with big ears, because if you can’t hear them, it won’t matter how big your mouth is. The Linksys, Belkin, Netgear and other household variety routers will have a low power transmitter built into it, typically under 70 milliwatts, and relatively low-gain antenna(s). That’s because it’s usually only used in a single building. However, signals usually leak out of it unless there’s a knowledgeable person behind it adjusting the power. It’s those signals that you’ll sometimes see as you travel or, for example, sitting in front of Exuma Markets or outside of Pet’s Place. The commercial systems, such as Gaviota Bay, Palm Bay Beach Club and Harbour WiFi will have powerful antennas and amplification to make their signals go further – so they can get you to sign up with them, even if you’re all the way on the other side of the harbor.

So, back to the big ears. Bigger is better, right? Not so fast. The antenna on your handheld VHF is pretty small in comparison to the one on top of the mast, right? Yet, it’s pretty good. The higher the gain, the flatter the pattern of the signal you both send and receive. If your handheld has an antenna of 4-6 inches, it’s likely a “rubber duck” antenna. In the wifi spectrum, a rubber duck will typically have a gain of about 5 dbi. The pattern of that gain is sort of like a donut. Pretty fat, and when you slice it, the inner part and outer part look sort of like an egg with the narrow part in. That pattern doesn’t miss much – but it’s not very powerful, either.

Moving up, a common next-step is about 8 dbi. Usually, those will be stand-alone antennas – that is, they won’t be directly connected to the router or built into the wifi adapter. In those, the donut’s squashed a bit – it goes out further, but doesn’t have the height. If you consider the donut as the area you can hear, and the middle of the donut body being the “sweet spot”, the higher gain antenna won’t paint as wide a pattern on the shore, where you might want to see someone on a hill, or, worse, not see someone close in, under your antenna.

Next typical would be in the 12-15 dbi range. Same song, different verse. Cats are better suited to this range, as they don’t rock around as much as monohulls, and thus don’t miss as much as the antenna moves. However, they’ve still got the problem of not getting the pattern (the area where the signals are seen or heard) up or down from where the antenna’s located.

If that’s not enough, you can also buy these with various levels of downtilt built into them. That is, rather than look like a flattened donut, they’re a little more like a fat Chinese umbrella. 7 degrees is pretty common, but you can find them at up to 12 degrees downtilt. If you’re offshore, you might be hitting the water, instead of the shoreline, so downtilt has its limitations. On the other hand, if you’re pretty close in, and you’ve got this at the top of a 60 or more foot mast, it might allow you to see a point you’d otherwise look right over, electronically speaking. Two cases in point will be mentioned later.

All of these have been omnidirectional antennas. That is, they see, relatively, as well in any direction. There are also directional antennas, which typically can have higher gain in a smaller footprint, because all of the effort is aimed in one direction. Other than in a marina situation, these aren’t much good for cruisers, but if you have the means to effectively keep a directional antenna on your target, they can be very effective.

All of these also require a point to connect to an adapter, not necessarily a simple thing on a laptop. So, that’s the “Big Ears” part.

Now, on to the big mouth part. The typical Linksys router has about a 69 milliwatt output. Put that together with a 5dbi rubber duck equivalent antenna and it won’t go very far. On your end, if you can hear it (with the high gain antenna we’ve just talked about), he won’t hear you unless you shout. The typical laptop puts out a very small amount of power – because it’s usually going to be used in a very close environment. Thus, you may be able to see a site, but not communicate with it. On top of that, anything between the antenna and the site you’re trying to reach will degrade the signal. In a forest of masts in the harbour, all with lots of volume around them and, worse, some of that bulk being either steel or aluminum, that’s a significant limiting factor.

What to do??

There are several options, and depending on your situation, any of them may work well for you. I’ll start with the simplest and work up. In any case, remember that height is your friend. The higher you can get your antenna, in general, the better. It’s the same as with a VHF antenna – height gets you distance, as WiFi is line-of-sight.

First is an externally mounted wifi adapter/antenna combo with a higher gain and more power. These will typically be connected to your computer by a USB cable. Here’s an example of a 6.5 dbi gain directional adapter/antenna (hold up the desktop Hawking 6.5dBi USB). I used it in the yard during our 3-year refit on Flying Pig, and it worked well, because I was able to orient it to the signal I was using. However, it’s not an external antenna, and it’s got a pretty short leash, so I was faced with making it not only go out my porthole, but protecting it from the weather and having a cable which could extend it.

External adapters will require something called an active USB cable. They amount to a single-point hub, and carry power as well as data. They come in 16-foot (5-meter) lengths and can be combined for up to 80 feet. While this one’s directional, there are others that are omnidirectional. Regardless, all require the power is provided by the USB connection – and thus the need for the “Active” cable - they aren’t just antennas, they’re adapters. Because they’re feeding data to the adapter, which has the antenna attached, you don’t have signal loss – but you do have a power consideration.

A step up from this is something that has become pretty common – a higher gain, USB-powered, omnidirectional stick antenna, with the adapter attached to it. Being attached directly to the antenna, even though it’s a high-gain antenna, you don’t have a signal loss due to cabling. One such, which has found fairly high usage in the cruising community, is the Radiolabs unit. You can find these at RV sites on the Internet, as well as at marine dealers. You can haul these up the mast or otherwise raise them above the deck – remember, height is your friend - to improve your signal reception as well as propagation. They come in a variety of strengths, both on mouth and ear considerations. 100 to 150 milliwatts and 8 dbi are common. The downsides to this sort of antenna include that, just like the HF antenna, if you’ve got it lashed to the shroud, the shroud will eat a lot of the signal output. Also, if it’s not all-weather, you’ll have to bring it inside every time it rains.

Likewise, you’ll have to deal with the USB cable, and it will attach only to one computer – not so good if you have more than one aboard. And, the power, while better, is relatively marginal if you’re a couple of miles or more out.

Another such device is an Alfa. It has a rubber duck antenna and connects by USB cable. Not an exterior device, but some cruisers have found them adequate to their needs.

Still others along the line of the Alfa have TWO USB connections. That’s due to the power demands of the higher output – and if you don’t have both hooked up, it won’t have the power for the “big mouth” part. Having two USB connections will mean two active USB extensions if you don’t have it right next to the computer. And, too, all of these are single-device units – they can’t be used on more than one computer at a time, a big deal with me for our setup.

Another way to skin the cat is an amplifier in the middle of an antenna cable between the antenna and a wifi adapter. These can be found anywhere between 200 and 1000 milliwatt, though the 1watt units usually carry some sort of restrictive stuff about licensing, because they’re such a big mouth. At that, consider that the highest I’ve mentioned is only one watt, compared to the VHF and HF marine radio outputs at 25 and 150 watts. That’s why distance is so hard to achieve in WiFi.

However, the cable length is the bigger issue. At 2.4 gigahertz, signal loss is significant over long distances such as up a mast. Therefore you’ll commonly see antenna cabling as big as your thumb to try to overcome that. Nonetheless, many people see this as an effective solution. The amplifiers are typically mounted in a weatherproof box, and attach to the mast, with the antenna mounted on the top of the mast. They have to be bi-directional in order to amplify the signal in both directions, and, to minimize the loss in either case, are best mounted midway between the antenna and adapter.

The next step up, the one we’ve chosen, is to put an adapter at the top of the mast. We used to have a board in a weatherproof box, with a high-gain omnidirectional external antenna connected to it by a 6” pigtail to minimize loss. We’ve since gone to a simpler installation, which has the weatherproof adapter connected directly to the antenna, so we don’t even have the minimal loss of the pigtail any more. It’s powered, and delivers data, over Ethernet cable. I’ll get into the specifics of this design in a bit, because there’s much more to it, but I want to stop a moment and take questions on what we’ve talked about so far.

So, back to our setup. We have a self-contained adapter at the top of the mast, which eliminates the problem of antenna cable length. There are mounts available for backstay mounting or mast, wall or pole mounting, but we put ours out on an aluminum L bracket with a lightning protector in between the antenna and the adapter. It’s also a 1000-milliwatt amplifier, so it has the capability to shout back to points a long way away. The power is adjustable in the user interface so that you don’t become an alligator, should that be an issue. In the case of WiFi, alligators can overwhelm other local traffic, making them unusable, or overdrive a household router, making the communication unreadable at the receiving end so, just like in HF radio, you should use only that amount of power needed to communicate. This particular one uses the half of the Ethernet cable not used for data to provide power. We have boat power on that non-data half of the cable, and the Ethernet cable plugs into a single jack in the amplifier/adapter unit, which is designed to accept both data and power there.

Our system is connected via Ethernet cable. That Ethernet cable comes down the mast and runs through an inexpensive power-over-Ethernet (POE) injector. Without being too technical about it, we put boat power to that unit, and it does the heavy lifting, putting the power up the non-data part of the cable. This unit can take 8 to 16 volts, so I don’t have to provide a special power supply for it – just straight boat house power. The other outlet on the POE is a standard Ethernet short cable, which could go straight to my computer.

However, I don’t have it run to my computer. Instead, I have it run to my Linksys router, which I’ve named with Flying Pig in the beginning of the SSID. Lydia, her mother, when she was here last year, and I, are commonly all on the same connection. Here on Volleyball Beach, that could be Gaviotta Bay, a very strong signal in this immediate area, or Harbour WiFi, or Palm Bay Beach Club, two other pay sites, and even Emerald Bay. In our case, since we’ve got the “ears” to pick it up, and the “mouth” to talk to it a few miles away, our choice could also be any one of Palm Bay Beach Resort’s several repeaters’ signals, or one of many open sites visible to us. I’ll talk more about repeaters in a moment. When we can’t find a usable free connection, we pay for it, so, here, we could have used Palm Bay, Harbour or Gaviotta’s pay services.

However, the strength of the signal isn’t the end of the story. Back to the discussion of ISPs, Batelco is the provider for all the bandwidth in the Bahamas, unless, like a megayacht, you have your own satellite system. Of necessity, the pipe, if you look at it like a water supply, is only so big. Therefore, when you have lots of users, the amount of data (water in the water pipe sense) available to any is limited. You’ve likely noticed that you get much better performance during the middle of the night than during the middle of the day. That’s because the businesses that use this same “pipe” as we do are no longer sucking it dry.

Worse, such as in the case of Harbour and Gaviotta, they have a single supply point. When a hundred or more try to use it at the same time, even if their bandwidth is good, individual bandwidth suffers. On top of that, most servers (the commercial version of your household router) have a limit on the number that can connect at any time. If they don’t clear off the inactive ones, eventually that limit is reached, and even if you can see them, nothing happens – because the server’s not accepting any more connections, regardless of the bandwidth that is available to those sucking on it. That’s why systems like Palm Bay Beach Club, with up to a dozen repeaters, may well work much better, as, no matter how many people they have using the system, it’s spread over many different repeaters.

On top of that, I want to speak to the challenges you get in highly populated areas, or ones with lots of access points. Depending on which part of the world you’re in, there are only either 11, 13 or 14 channels available for WiFi access points, including the one in your router you use to send the signal you worked so hard to get to your laptops aboard. In the US and the Bahamas, it’s 11.

If more than one station is using the same channel, you can get blanketing – that is, the stronger station will drown out a weaker one. A situation occurred here a couple of seasons ago, where Gaviotta Bay, in the course of a rebuild, had their transmitter on the same frequency as Harbour WiFi. People in this immediate area couldn’t get Harbour WiFi, yet, there was no problem in other locations up or down Stocking Island. It was a simple matter for me to ask Gaviotta to change their channel, and, suddenly, the problem disappeared.

However, that’s not the only problem in crowded areas. If there are several equal-strength channels operating, while you may see a strong connection indication, whether “bars” or the much more informative dbm number, you will get data collisions. Since data is flowing from more than one point on that channel, your throughput, or apparent bandwidth, seems very poor. Ironically, if you have the setup to allow you to move away from such clutter, even though you may have a much weaker signal in appearance on your meter, you’ll get much better bandwidth due to their being no data collisions.

A case in point was Marsh Harbour, and several other places in the Bahamas. You’d also find that situation in some of the highly populated areas back in the States or Canada. There are several pay providers there, most of which have a great number of repeaters so as to best serve those nearby any one of them. While we could easily connect to sites as much as 13 miles away, in the harbor, despite a strong connection, bandwidth really sucked. As soon as we got out of the harbor and into open spaces, bandwidth picked right up again. So, all of the big ears and big mouth won’t necessarily overcome environmental challenges completely. On the other hand, unless you wanted to connect to one of the pay sites’ repeaters right next to you, you COULD still be reliably on the internet with our setup.

Back to Georgetown, when we first arrived, we made a brief stop at each of the beaches. We found, typically, not less than 20 available signals, and usually more than 30. Up on Monument Beach, we had at least 6 usable open sites in addition to the pay sites. Close to town or the other populated areas, those numbers went up, with the increases coming from common household routers. Household routers typically have not more than 70 milliwatt output, so those won’t usually be as visible at a distance without something like our system – but when we were coming down the east coast, as well as under way in the vicinity of Staniel Cay, we reliably hooked into one or more at 6-7 miles out.

Skype worked through most of them, and some of them were good enough for Vonage, our Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), full-time number, which we also feed through our router. Skype, though, because it’s cheap enough, despite my not liking having to be tethered to the computer, is what we’ve used here most of the time, as it requires less bandwidth.

However, using this system, on the way south from Georgia last summer, 7 miles out, we had a working internet connection over a standard linksys home router’s access point; I was doing email and writing our internet log while we were under way and Lydia was on watch. My granddaughters who were aboard used Vonage to talk to their parents not less than 3 times a day! Later, we were able to connect to, but didn’t have a big enough mouth to talk effectively to, another open site, 12 miles out. Likely, those distances were achievable due to the 7* antenna downtilt as our point of sail had us tilted away from shore. With a level antenna pattern, likely the reception part of the “donut” would have been too high.

By contrast, relative to the sometimes-difficulty with height, when we were doing our refit, there was a site only a few hundred feet away – but our antenna looked right over it. On the other hand, before leaving on that trip, 3 miles out from Tampa, I was able to make Vonage voice over internet calls to England and New Hampshire, and Lydia received a call from her banker on the same trip. That would not have been possible without a very strong connection. Finally, we have been connected continuously since we entered the Bahamas, under way, from Spanish Cay through the bottom of Little Harbour’s channel in the Abacos, all through Eleuthera and the Exumas, and here. When we were in Marsh Harbour, our most common connection points were between 6 and 13 miles away. Needless to say, we like the way it works for us.

Now…

Having said all that, weather plays a part, too, in your success rate. Generally speaking, the drier the air is, the longer you can reach out and shout. When it’s raining, your performance will suffer. If the humidity is high, it won’t be as good as it is on a crisp day. This is just another example of “stuff” being in the way – and, weather aside, another reason why height is your friend…

There are rather more details than that, but it suffices to say that if you have enough antenna and enough power, you can connect to the internet over wifi at distances you’d never imagine. I’ll stop here for general questions, and then, if there’s interest, get into more specifics on our system as we have it installed.

And, before I forget, the source for this system on a plug-and-play basis is www.islandtimepc.com, at under $250. Bob Stewart’s the owner and extremely knowledgeable about cruisers, having been one until recently when he moved inland for family care reasons. You can write to him at (rstewart@islandtimepc.com). His unit is suited for mounting in several ways. There’s direct mast-top mounting, attaching it to the side of the mast, such as you can see on Serenity, a boat here in the harbor. Another is backstay (with an adapter) mounting, such as you can see on Nocturne, another boat here in the harbour. Another is powerboat or arch mounting, such as you can see on Dot’s Way, yet another boat here in the harbor. Or, as we have done, simply standing it off the mast with an L bracket. We’ve used an inexpensive, gas-tube, lightning arrestor to accommodate the thickness of the L-bracket, but I’d recommend you have one in any case. We got ours from L-com, www.lcom.com. At the time we got it, there were over 20,000 in stock. They were closing them out because it didn’t have the frequency range that they wanted, but it’s the right frequency for WiFi. Only about 10 bux at the time, they are now selling two different versions, which can be found at about $26, (http://www.l-com.com/productfamily.aspx?id=6196) you can find the same one elsewhere for about $30. We needed it to cover the depth of the bracket, but you can use it in any sort of mount, as it goes between the adapter and the antenna. If you care to, you can see pictures of our installation on IslandTimePC’s website, or in our own web photo gallery. See me after the seminar for the address and details on our photo gallery if you’re interested in that.

Islandtimepc’s also the one who built our 12V-computer system for us. You’ll find information about both computers and Internet systems for boaters on his site – www.IslandtimePC.com. I recommend him most strongly – his direct help, before we were even a customer, was the one who enabled me to abandon my over-2-year beating my head against the wall with something another vendor had sold me with very firm assurances that it would work, perfectly – but it never did…

Almost done, but I just wanted to say that as a result of my seminars the last couple of years, I’ve heard, both here and over the internet, from many who’ve also installed IslandTimePC’s WiFi system. Hands, please, for those of you here who also have his gear? If any of those need some help in tweaking, I’m happy to provide it, but the others of you may also want to talk to those folks, as I’m no longer the lone ranger with his setup here (smiley) – again, hands of those who have installed IslandTimePC WiFi setups? And, one last comment about Bob Stewart and IslandTimePC – I have no financial interest in his business whatsover. I’m just a totally over-the-top thrilled customer. I believe you’ll find a similar attitude among those who held up their hands here.

Finally, if you want the best of both worlds, aren’t put off by the costs involved, and don’t mind getting a bit more technical, current EVDO routers can accept broadband cell cards AND a WAN input such as powers our system. Recall that the EVDO setup allows multiple computers just as we use, but over cellular – but with a WAN input from a WiFi setup, you could avoid the cell costs if you have a good WiFi connection.

Therefore, you could use cellular where there wasn’t any good wifi, but if you’re in a marina where WiFi is provided, or in Charleston, where it’s all free, or any other good-reception WiFi area, and/or someplace where there’s no cell signal but there IS a good WiFi signal, you can feed my setup to the router instead of using the cell time.

Ok, questions:

That was the end of that seminar.

I also have - but can't currently lay my hands on - pictures of a multi-point cell-sim router, with standard and 5G antennas, as well as dual inbound cell antennas. I was doing some beta testing, and these are in the area of $400 bux, but did a marvelous job as we traveled both on land and on sea.

Typical bandwidth was in the 10-30 down, and similar up rates. Of course the presumption is that you'd have a cell sim which would provide the data, not free as WiFi could be, but cellular data is our norm today, with our phone as the hotspot (data only plan; my phone in/out is under Google Voice, a free plan for all but international calls).

Hope this is helpful...

L8R

Skip

[goboatingnow]

When I’m in Greece even though there’s Wi-Fi in some places , I find much more consistent throughput on my cellular 4G connection , I find the free WiFi from most cafes to be quite poor and typically password protected.

I pay €25 a month to Vodafone at home and i get unlimited EU data roaming ( free voice and text )

I typically get 4G upwards of 20 miles off shore

I have an upgraded WiFi setup ready to install but haven’t bothered as the 4G is better

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

Your deal is amazing to me.

I'm on a data-only plan of 100 GB at $50/mo with T-Mobile, and I approach it every month.

So far I don't need more but that time will come, I suspect, as internet stuff continues to be more and more data-rich.

Of course, this is the US, and our country is like the second world in the internet; our data speeds aren't nearly as fast, and all of it is much more expensive...

Yes, we've discussed this a few times. I'm amazed at the difference between all kinds of Internet services between Europe and the U.S.

At home I have a gigabit fiber optic connection for €21 per month. Don't always get gigabit speeds, but normally at least 600 -- 700 mbs. I splurged on this one; the "normal" nominally 500mbs connection is €10.

In Finland, a 100mbs connection at home is free. A broadband connection is considered like a basic human right or something.

My moble phone contract gives me really unlimited data (no fair use restriction at all, no throttling) for €23/mo. Including VAT. And not only in Finland but in the entire Nordic and Baltic region. In the rest of the EU I get 20gb per month free; after that it's €2 per gigabyte or something like that. The speed of the connection is usually at least 100mbs, sometimes several hundred, on an LTE connection (which is 90% of the time).

Why it's so different in the U.S. which is supposedly at the forefront of the digital age, is beyond my understanding.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But that yagi is tuned for the 2.4ghz WIFI band, NOT for any of the many LTE, UMTS, GSM or other mobile phone bands, not one of which is on 2.4ghz. That antenna is completely useless for mobile phone signals. Furthermore, an LTE connection really needs a MIMO antenna.



You CAN use a single element yagi to connect to a wifi AP -- if you have a way to aim it -- but you need a multielement antenna or an antenna array to connect to mobile phone towers. Just in the U.S., just one carrier, AT&T, uses 5 different frequencies.



What people use on boats are OUTDOOR routers with the antenna array built in. OUTDOOR, not indoor, because you really want to avoid the cable between antenna and radio. Directional antennas for mobile phone routers exist, but they would be useless on a boat -- when you're tied up, you will just about always have a signal strong enough that you don't need the outdoor router at all, and at sea where you need the boost, the boat is moving around and changing course so not practical to aim anything. The exception might be if you spend a lot of time at a fixed marina berth where mobile phone signal is weak.

I was going to substitute an omni antenna, and add a cell phone modem later.

[shimari]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That looks fine, but it costs $1500! There are plenty of outdoor mobile phone routers which have the same functionality for a fraction of that cost.

Ethernet is FAR easier to run up the mast than LMR400, and I already have two Ethernet cables I put in there when I had the mast down last time. So this would work for me and pretty easily.

I just haven't bothered because the improement would be only incremental and I have means to get at least weather at any distance from shore.

But for others this could be a great solution. Cheaper and possibly better however are outdoor routers from the big router brands, compared to this one. One should shop around.

This one, for example: https://www.zyxel.com/products_servi...-LTE7460-M608/ has two radios (like the $3500 version of the Pepwave dome), AND can be used as a wifi bridge (so replaces the Ubiquiti). Costs 310 GBP in the UK including VAT.

This one looks good: https://yifanwireless.com/outdoor-4g...lan-port-.html Really robust and industrial looking, made for industrial use, and costs less than $200, actually less than $100 if you order it directly https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3282...c63a3199oxv2fd

Yes - the Max HD1 dome is expensive. You don't need to run coax to it as it uses ethernet and PoE. The nicest thing about it though is that it is a cat 18 modem which with a 1,174 Mb/s downlink. The Zyxel is a cat 6 modem rated with a 301.5 Mb/s downlink. The yifan is a cat 4 at 150.8 Mb/s down. Granted you won't see those speeds without a strong signal.

It doesn't make sense for everyone. It does make sense for myself and others that are working fully remote these days and want to spend more time on the boat.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

I'm telling you - they are ethernet out, not USB. Links please if you still say otherwise.

Sorry, I was looking at Bearify, Tuoshi, Alpha, and C crane, all of which have USB out.

You either need to find one of maybe two out of the thousands of wifi routers that can accept USB WAN, or use software to turn your windows computer into a wifi router.

The kits usually contain a special programmed router that works ONLY with their system, and can only connect to one or two devices.

I would rather use ethernet as almost every router accepts ethernet WAN.

The ethernet POE repeaters are substantially more expensive, but maybe unavoidable as the USB repeaters seem to be a problem finding a compatible router.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

The ethernet POE repeaters are substantially more expensive [than USB wifi], but maybe unavoidable as the USB repeaters seem to be a problem finding a compatible router.

For a permanently-mounted boat wifi radio solution, ethernet with PoE is the only way to go, and they're not hideously expensive. And as you know you can plug them into just about any ole wifi router in the cabin.

[MatthLE]

Ah, we are talking about an LTE install. Wifi totally seperate from cell cignals but most people, especially sales, muck them up. And yes an earlier reply mentioned marine satellite.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by shimari

Yes - the Max HD1 dome is expensive. You don't need to run coax to it as it uses ethernet and PoE. The nicest thing about it though is that it is a cat 18 modem which with a 1,174 Mb/s downlink. The Zyxel is a cat 6 modem rated with a 301.5 Mb/s downlink. The yifan is a cat 4 at 150.8 Mb/s down. Granted you won't see those speeds without a strong signal.

It doesn't make sense for everyone. It does make sense for myself and others that are working fully remote these days and want to spend more time on the boat.

Do you see gigabit speeds on mobile phone connections?


Don't know about the U.S., but mobile phone connections in Europe are all throttled. My provider's plans are all unlimited data (no fair use) but with different degrees of throttling. When roaming, there is usually more throttling, and sometimes a lot. So I would not personally have any problem with a cat 4 router. All the more since the time I really need the router is with weak signals. When I have a strong signal, I just use my phone.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by MatthLE

Ah, we are talking about an LTE install. Wifi totally seperate from cell cignals but most people, especially sales, muck them up. And yes an earlier reply mentioned marine satellite.

You suggested connecting a Wifi tuned yagi to one of the LTE connections on the router:

Originally Posted by MatthLE

. . . that router is just an example of what you could use. Connection, unscrew one of the router LTE antennas, screw in the yagi lead. . .

For the sake of those reading this who might be led astray -- that won't work.

[Anders]

For full speed in LTE cat 18 you need 5 Carrier Aggregation (5 x 20Mhz if my memory is correct) and i would be surprised if any operator has that much available bandwith.