Here's something I found useful on our recent cruise in the San Juans. I started to post it in my boat thread, but thought it might be of more general interest.
I've found that even relatively good marina Wifi setups often have dead spots. I found myself trying to telecommute from a dock in Friday Harbor with really poor Wifi signal. So out came my cheapskate extender. There are really good Wifi extenders available, if you're going to use them full time. But for a few days a year, I can't justify ~$300-600.
So I bought a USB wifi adapter - the kind you might plug into an old laptop that doesn't have built-in Wifi. The model I bought a couple years ago is discontinued now; it looks like this is the current one (~$13). I combined that with a long USB cable, so I can run the adapter up a flag halyard. USB has a 5m (16') cable-length limit; that length lets me raise the antenna about 10' while sitting in the cabin. We found that we went from not enough bandwidth to download email to streaming Netflix.
I just discovered that you can get active USB cables, which use the USB power to drive a mid-cable repeater, allowing a 32' length(or even multiple repeaters if you need to go longer). That cable only cost $15 at Amazon, so now I have an (untested) 30-foot version that should let me raise the Wifi adapter to spreader height and still have some slack for reasonable routing in the cabin.
From there, you can have your laptop share the Internet connection to other devices via its own Wifi; presto, everyone's phone's and tablets are happy (and, importantly, so is the crew).
I won't use it often, so I'm not routing it permanently, but if it lets me work a few more days from the boat, we all get more water time!
Total cost: ~$30
Perhaps someone else will find that a helpful tip.
PS - I normally try to post links to our SBO hosts here, but to my knowledge, they don't stock Wifi adapters and powered USB cables. Sorry @Dave Groshong
I've found that even relatively good marina Wifi setups often have dead spots. I found myself trying to telecommute from a dock in Friday Harbor with really poor Wifi signal. So out came my cheapskate extender. There are really good Wifi extenders available, if you're going to use them full time. But for a few days a year, I can't justify ~$300-600.
So I bought a USB wifi adapter - the kind you might plug into an old laptop that doesn't have built-in Wifi. The model I bought a couple years ago is discontinued now; it looks like this is the current one (~$13). I combined that with a long USB cable, so I can run the adapter up a flag halyard. USB has a 5m (16') cable-length limit; that length lets me raise the antenna about 10' while sitting in the cabin. We found that we went from not enough bandwidth to download email to streaming Netflix.
I just discovered that you can get active USB cables, which use the USB power to drive a mid-cable repeater, allowing a 32' length(or even multiple repeaters if you need to go longer). That cable only cost $15 at Amazon, so now I have an (untested) 30-foot version that should let me raise the Wifi adapter to spreader height and still have some slack for reasonable routing in the cabin.
From there, you can have your laptop share the Internet connection to other devices via its own Wifi; presto, everyone's phone's and tablets are happy (and, importantly, so is the crew).
I won't use it often, so I'm not routing it permanently, but if it lets me work a few more days from the boat, we all get more water time!
Total cost: ~$30
Perhaps someone else will find that a helpful tip.
PS - I normally try to post links to our SBO hosts here, but to my knowledge, they don't stock Wifi adapters and powered USB cables. Sorry @Dave Groshong
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