I had a chance today to run my boat for about 2 hours to the boat yard to get it hauled and the bottom cleaned/painted. I just upgraded my marine PC that I have on the boat and hooked up a marine Wi-Fi antenna that is on the hardtop electronics mast. The one I am using is from Radio Labs ( http://radiolabs.com/products/wireless/wireless-marine-antenna.php ) and I must say I am fairly impressed. I was about 1.5 - 2 miles offshore (on the James River) and I was picking up private Wi-Fi networks very easily. The product literature says "up to 1 mile" but I was definitely doing better than that. Many of these appeared to be from homes along the riverbank (you could tell because the name would be "Smith Home Network" and such). Although about half of them were locked down, about half of them were open to connect to. Unbelievable. There were always about 7 or 8 different networks detected and a few that would allow a connection. When I got into the marina, being closer to shore and more populated, the list of networks available was fairly long....
Anyway, before anyone says "I am on the boat and I don't want an Internet connection", I'm posting this for those of you who like having connectivity once in awhile. When you are cruising for days/weeks, it's nice to have a solid Wi-Fi capability. I can also tie into a Verizon's EVDO/1xRTT network using my phone but I thought the Wi-Fi thing was pretty cool.
Anyway... just an FYI and my 2 cents. I am not a geek. Really.
Anyway, before anyone says "I am on the boat and I don't want an Internet connection", I'm posting this for those of you who like having connectivity once in awhile. When you are cruising for days/weeks, it's nice to have a solid Wi-Fi capability. I can also tie into a Verizon's EVDO/1xRTT network using my phone but I thought the Wi-Fi thing was pretty cool.
Anyway... just an FYI and my 2 cents. I am not a geek. Really.