"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot
fishcatcher (net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote:

I'm looking for experience with external antenna solutions to very flaky
wifi access on the boat. There's every sort of hub range improver (get your
signal out to others better) but I don't see much, if anything of the other
way around.

Topsides, the range is only flaky, but at least I can pull and send stuff,
albeit I have to choose my moments. However, the screen is invisible in
anything between dawn and dusk and the keyboard is invisible in the dark,
limiting me severely in timing/scheduling.

It would be easier IMHO for you to learn to touch type for at night.
Since the screen is visible, you can see if you make a mistake. Or
clip a battery operated light onto the screen if touch typing is too
hard for you.

And put a hood over the screen for daytime. Our PC is in a box in
the cockpit (made of marine plywood and faced with that counter
material (melamine or something like that) which he had left over from
another project. We have it set up that way so we can use the
navigation software on it in lieu of a chart-plotter. I can't type
on it very well like that because it is awkwardly positioned, but your
box doesn't have to be made of plywood and installed permanently. A
cardboard box would do.

So, I'd like to be able to go below, where there's no reception, not to
mention, protection from the elements.

I have used wifi on the boat, and sometimes, after I've logged on the
first couple of times, and gotten the PC 'used to it', it will also
connect in the cabin. Places where I have connected in the cabin
include Deltaville and Charleston Harbor Marina. I just refuse to
accept that I can't be more comfortable.

It often says the signal is weak, but it doesn't seem to make any real
difference. I have my own wireless set-up for the house, and the
computer will tell me that the signal strength is low or that the
signal strength is very good at different times even though neither I
nor the wifi have moved. I don't know why.

You do have to have some kind of signal at the boat for this to work.
I've also been places where there was a wi-fi, but it was restricted
to the office of the marina and/or the deck outside, and I couldn't
get the signal at the dock, let alone the boat. This is the case at
the Bellhaven Waterway Marina, and the Oriental Marina.

Who's used what (up the mast isn't what I had in mind, though if it made
sense (I can't imagine it would, financially), I'd look at that) in the line
of plug-in remote antennas?

I've lost the link, but I saw something which was an antenna for those
laptops without wifi, on some unknown length of USB lead; one can buy
"active" USB extensions for not too much, which I assume would make it
feasible for me to put the antenna out the hatch while I'm at the nav, for
example...

Thanks for any real-world experience...

L8R

Skip

grandma Rosalie