I need some help identifying the type of gear I need to do what I want
to accomplish.

I am building a wired network in my boat, using off the shelf components
designed for home use, such as simple wired routers (Netgear, Belkin,
Lynksys, etc).

But I want to be able to access WiFi Internet service, such as available
through the companies that are offering WiFi at marina's, and I want to
be able to access this from any pc on my wired boat-network.

This is the opposite of what is now common in many homes. There we see
the internet (via cable tv or DSL) hardwired into a wireless router,
which then b'casts to outlying pc's. In my case I want wireless
broadcast _into_ my boat-net, and then hardwired to pc's around the
boat.

What is the name of the device I need at the furthest upstream point
(i.e. the receiving unit from the wireless ISP) that the antenna is
connected to? Whatever it is, from there I want to route to 4 locations
in my boat by cable.

I asked this on a wireless usenet group and they got completely
confused, thinking I was trying to do the common household internal
wireless from wired DSL/cable and wondering why I wasn't "getting it."
Finally one guy understood what I wanted and explained it to the others,
but then nobody had any answers. I am hoping my fellow boaters
understand what I am trying to do.

TIA

Mark

wrote in
:

But I want to be able to access WiFi Internet service, such as available
through the companies that are offering WiFi at marina's, and I want to
be able to access this from any pc on my wired boat-network.


The device you are looking for is a wireless router with point-to-
multipoint access, such as:
http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...roducts_id=24&
osCsid=10e3853817a6eb3903e357bb5714a47e

The point to multipoint bridge acts as a wireless repeater to connect your
little notebook's pitiful low-powered PCMCIA wireless card to any area wifi
nodes within its range. This particular unit runs the full FCC limit of
200 milliwatts of power and can be configured to an external high gain
antenna, such as:
http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...roducts_id=19&
osCsid=10e3853817a6eb3903e357bb5714a47e
an 8.5 dBi (about 6.5 dB stronger than a simple vertical dipole) that
remotely mounts to a 2" pipe atop your mast, if you're so inclined. At 50'
this should give you 5 miles of coverage area from your repeater to a wifi
node ashore....quite a bit further than the 300' you can get from the
notebook.

The unit has a single RJ-45 10/100 Ethernet LAN port which you would hook
to your system router's WAN port, similar to connecting a router to cable
or DSL modem at home. This will light up all your wired computers aboard
with access to the repeater via Ethernet, while simultaneously and
independently hooking up your wireless devices through the repeater to the
wifi, without being wired to the boat LAN.

As 2400 Mhz is NOT coax cable friendly at such a high frequency, it's best
to wire Ethernet up to the top of the mast where the antenna is and mount
this repeater in a weatherproof enclosure right under the antenna stick.
This nearly eliminates RF losses between the unit and its external antenna.
The Ethernet cabling to your router can be very long, indeed, with no loss
you can measure. There is also an Ethernet power injector that will
provide 48VDC to the mast-mounted repeater right through the Ethernet cable
the data comes through:
http://www.keenansystems.com/store/c...Path=3&product
s_id=16
As the use of this injector runs off 115VAC, you'll have to provide some
kind of inverter power if you want to run it away from the dock off your
house batteries. If you have 12VDC atop the mast you can switch on
independently from the nav lighting, using a 3A 12V IC regulator bolted to
the metal weatherproof box off your DC boat power will provide direct DC
power to the 11V port on the repeater without inverter or Ethernet
injector.....

As of 2 days ago, there seems to be an out-of-stock situation at this
vendor, but you can hunt around the net for the model number and buy it
from whomever you like.....

One of the regular posters here and I have been emailing each other in
plans to simply put the repeater and 8.5 dBi antenna atop his mast with no
Ethernet wiring to extend the range of his laptops on the boat, wirelessly.
It's a great idea because everyone I know who has a little notebook
wireless on their boat nearly has to be on top of a marina repeater to get
reliable service....

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 16:16:56 -0500, wrote:

I need some help identifying the type of gear I need to do what I want
to accomplish.

I am building a wired network in my boat, using off the shelf components
designed for home use, such as simple wired routers (Netgear, Belkin,
Lynksys, etc).

But I want to be able to access WiFi Internet service, such as available
through the companies that are offering WiFi at marina's, and I want to
be able to access this from any pc on my wired boat-network.

This is the opposite of what is now common in many homes. There we see
the internet (via cable tv or DSL) hardwired into a wireless router,
which then b'casts to outlying pc's. In my case I want wireless
broadcast _into_ my boat-net, and then hardwired to pc's around the
boat.

What is the name of the device I need at the furthest upstream point
(i.e. the receiving unit from the wireless ISP) that the antenna is
connected to? Whatever it is, from there I want to route to 4 locations
in my boat by cable.

I asked this on a wireless usenet group and they got completely
confused, thinking I was trying to do the common household internal
wireless from wired DSL/cable and wondering why I wasn't "getting it."
Finally one guy understood what I wanted and explained it to the others,
but then nobody had any answers. I am hoping my fellow boaters
understand what I am trying to do.

You need what Linksys calls a 'workgroup hub' and a wifi antenna with
an Ethernet pigtail. The hub I have has six Ethernet ports on it. You
may find one with four.



Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a

"Happy is he that taketh thy little ones and dasheth them upon the stones." __Psalm 137

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

(At last, somebody who understands. I've seen so many eyes go soft focus
about this).

wrote in
:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

(At last, somebody who understands. I've seen so many eyes go soft focus
about this).




Great....Let us know what you install and how it works, especially its
range...

Would this work?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5766659679

Update, original left below for reference:

I bought a Hawking USB directional antenna along with an active USB cable,
which has allowed me to sit at the nav, with the antenna topsides, and enjoy
full connectivity, including my Vonage Softphone (drop me a line if you'd
like a referral; we'd both get a free month). Unfortunately, as it's not my
ISP, I don't have convenient (I consider anything web-based to be extremely
inconvenient, so googlegroups is a last resort) access to this group - thus
my long disappearances, as I am on the boat, refitting, now, the vast
majority of the time.

On order, now, is a wireless access point feeding a wireless amplifier, both
with pigtails to externally mounted antennas on the NEMA box. The rubber
duck from the hub goes down; there's a pigtail of Cat5 communicating with
the amplifier which has a bulkhead mounted pigtail onto which the external
big-stick 8.5dBi antenna screws. Here's the specs:

Special Order Custom Built
Dual Radio

2611CB3+D w/ HGV-2409U Antenna

D-link 900AP w/rubber duck Antenna

Aluminum NEMA Enclusure

lightning protection

Powering the whole thing with 12V, I'm going to test it out here at home,
first, and, assuming all goes well, mount it to the mast the next trip
(Monday). All indications are that wherever there's an open wifi signal
within a few miles of my anchorage, we'll be on the internet, and on the
telephone, transparently as though we were here at home (which is under
option contract to sell, so "home" is more a landside term than an abode).
This will greatly relieve Lydia's need to be in constant contact with her
children, and encourage me, who expected to have only sailmail/winlink and
cafe access to minibits of emails.

The refit process is coming along very slowly, but it appears that we may be
able to bring many things together at the same time. When anything's
finished, I'll post about it and provide picture links. In the meantime,
for any who may have an interest, clicking on the URL in the sig, and going
to the home portion of the gallery will let you see the projects section.

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

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

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

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

--
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