Hi, David, and group(s),

The solution I described will not use the wifi receiver internal to your
laptop due to the limitations I described in my earlier post. Instead will
use your laptop's Ethernet connection, which runs into a simple POE
interface box. (See the following url for the POE wiring instructions
http://www.nycwireless.net/poe/ ).

Thanks for the link. Below, you may see why this might not be needed for my
setup.

The input to this POE box is dc power and the Ethernet connection from
your
computer. The DC power comes from the AP or Bridge supplied power adapter.
The output of the POE box is a cat-5 Ethernet cable spanning up to 300
feet
in length. This cable runs to your nema enclosure and now combines the DC
power and Ethernet.



If your access point or bridge is compatible with the IEEE 802.3af
standard
one simply plugs the cat-5 cable into the AP or Bridge Ethernet connector.
If you do not have a compatible AP or Bridge one simply splits off the DC
power and wires it directly to the PCB's dc input power terminals.



This solution works equally well irrespective of the use of a desktop (
http://www.fantasia35.com/images/nav-1-03.jpg ) or laptop computer within
your vessel.



I hope this clarifies my wifi implementation strategy.

Indeed. Are you up and running with it? Do you have an antenna stick
mounted on the mast?

You may not recall, but the F35s were on our short list. I recall seeing
your setup in the website until we actually got aboard one and found that we
were unable to adequately address the stern berth (see the forum archives
for discussion). Your boat looks to be an absolutely marvelous example of
the type.

As much as might be achieved, I'm even, now, considering doing up-the-mast
with a cat5 (or any other 12V) feed to a bridge in a waterproof (NEMA) box,
thence to an external antenna
http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...1401cfa1d316d4

and

http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...1401cfa1d316d4
an 8.5 dB gain antenna atop the mast just above the box.

There's some potential for a couple of miles, and the added enhancement of
our ability to use our laptop ashore, communicating with the boat, or, of
course, both the nav and topsides (the one we'd carry ashore, if we had to)
computers on at the same time if we cared to do so.

I'm also looking into fab-corp.com products as potentially having more gain
in the antenna portions. They may also have some bridge solutions, but I
have not yet had a response to my query about their total solution ideas.

However, as attractive as cat5 is for getting signal up the mast, it makes
me tied to the boat as I understand your setup. For that reason, I don't
know that I'd pursue that. *IF* - maybe a big "if" - I can make this work,
I'd be able to see that bridge from anywhere on or even pretty far away from
the boat, with either of the two laptops (one "shoreside use" and other "nav
use" we expect to have aboard. So, aboard could be in communication with
shoreside via IM, for example, or, better (for our circumstances), we could
be in communication with anyone in the world via VOiP. My current carrier,
Vonage, has a "softphone" feature which is in the computer; tying in with a
headset/mike combo makes for better sound than the speaker and built-in
mike. If we had a reliable connection, we could be on the phone anywhere we
had access, something which is *very* attractive to Lydia, who has 4"
Stainless Steel Hawsers for apron strings...

Back to the cat5, though, if you look at the URLs for Keenan, I'm wondering
if what you're saying is that one uses cat5 to get signal to the masthead,
and powering the bridge is a coincidence of the cat5 connection from the
comptuter. Might one power a wireless bridge (which would then see my
laptop sitting on the boat somewhere) and put the signal up the mast to the
antenna at the top? I'd sure rather have the bridge below than in a NEMA
box at the top...

Thanks again for the input (all who have contributed, too!).

L8R

Skip, refitting as fast as I can...

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain