Free Muni or other hotspot access from a sailboat??

So, the world is migrating to free internet access. Even the NYTimes,
today, has an article on the subject, saying, in effect, "It's not coming,
it's here!" (The first paragraph, in part: "No fewer than 300 cities and
towns around the nation have taken wireless Internet access, or Wi-Fi, to
the people. San Francisco's aim is to make the entire city a hot spot,
Chicago plans to blanket the city with access, and large parts of
Philadelphia are to go wireless soon.")
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/opinion/06tue3.html?th&emc=th)

Many airports, umpteen hotels, and countless other sources intentionally
offer their bandwidth freely. So, please spare me the moralizations and
legal citations about stealing someone's signal as we address the following
technical challenge:

I'll be on a boat full time. I'll be in range, more or less, of lots of
freely available access - such as San Francisco Bay, for example. I want to
be able to sit in the cabin (less signal due to fiberglass, mast, rigging,
etc.) or on deck, and access *WITHOUT WIRES* the available signal(s) on my
laptop.

Where I am now, there are very marginal signals available from several free
sites. There are also stronger signals available from several subscription
sites. So, I need either my external antenna's configuration utility, or my
internal Windoze Zero Configuration utility to be able to specify to which
of the access points I wish to associate my computer. Because I'll be in
differing locales, I'll not know the SSID or MAC addresses in advance.
Likewise, because I have no control over what's used, I have no assurance
that what I have installed will be the same manufacturer's in the AP. So,
requirements that I have the same mfr. gear, or specify SSID or MAC are out.
Likewise, as subscription sites are likely to have more powerful stations,
or just where I am at the time might have such differences, just having the
gear associate with the strongest signal won't get it either.

Previous attempts to find something I could put up the mast, with some minor
amplification to enable returning the signal, and about an 8.5dBi omni
antenna to hear the signal (omni because at anchor one never knows the
direction we'll face, and it changes all the time, and 8.5 because it's
strong enough without having a totally narrow pattern which would limit what
it saw) have failed miserably.

However, I'm reasonably sure that's just because I haven't looked in the
right places. I have a relatively unlimited amount of 12V available to
power this setup, whether POE or directly wired. If it doesn't come that
way, I can put whatever it is in a NEMA waterproof enclosure, keeping it
safe, with the antenna N-mounted to the box or the mast, putting all that
very high up, assuring good range.

So, who knows what I need to accomplish this? Recall that I want to be able
to have my laptop see the shoreside point, through whatever is up the mast,
and be able to communicate with it, in the same fashion as I'd do if I were
in immediate laptop range. Intermediate steps (such as seeing the SSIDs and
manually entering the one I want after selection from what's available) are
acceptable, but definitely not preferred over WZC or the like's point and
click.

I've entertained, but had defective/faulty/somehow not work
ethernet-connected bridges with the same omni 8.5dBi antenna setup associate
but fail to actually pass data, to a station known good as I can (like now)
communicate over it with my USB external antenna. As both of the Senao
2611CB3 Deluxe units I had behaved in that fashion, I assume this is another
case of manufacturer specific or other limiting circumstances, as I (gasp!)
about wore out the owner's manual, and did every possible change, one at a
time, with no success (other than association and the same signal and link
ratios as found on my USB antenna). So, I've given up on those.

Is there a plug-and-play solution to this technical challenge? Anybody done
the equivalent (something free-standing, some distance away from your
laptop, and a very long distance from the selectable AP you're using)?

Thanks for the assistance. We're getting ready to leave, permanently, and
would surely like to be able to access all the free APs now arising.

--
L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
http://tinyurl.com/p7rb4 - NOTE:new URL! The vessel as Tehamana, as we
bought her

"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely nothing-half so
much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing about in
boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's
the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get
anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and
you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

hi skip,

Skip Gundlach wrote:
[snip]
> address the following technical challenge:
>
> I'll be on a boat full time. I'll be in range, more or less, of lots of
> freely available access - such as San Francisco Bay, for example. I want to
> be able to sit in the cabin (less signal due to fiberglass, mast, rigging,
> etc.) or on deck, and access *WITHOUT WIRES* the available signal(s) on my
> laptop.
>
> Where I am now, there are very marginal signals available from several free
> sites. There are also stronger signals available from several subscription
> sites. So, I need either my external antenna's configuration utility, or my
> internal Windoze Zero Configuration utility to be able to specify to which
> of the access points I wish to associate my computer. Because I'll be in
> differing locales, I'll not know the SSID or MAC addresses in advance.
> Likewise, because I have no control over what's used, I have no assurance
> that what I have installed will be the same manufacturer's in the AP. So,
> requirements that I have the same mfr. gear, or specify SSID or MAC are out.
> Likewise, as subscription sites are likely to have more powerful stations,
> or just where I am at the time might have such differences, just having the
> gear associate with the strongest signal won't get it either.

in windows this should be trivial, under control panel -> network
connections, you'll have a wireless network tool that you can "view
wireless networks" on and it'll show you all the networks in range,
their signal strengths, and you just click on which ever one you want
to connect to and be done with it. so trivial, in fact, that based on
your obvious level of knowledge i must be misunderstanding the problem
you're having. or maybe you aren't running windows xp.

> Previous attempts to find something I could put up the mast, with some minor
> amplification to enable returning the signal, and about an 8.5dBi omni
> antenna to hear the signal (omni because at anchor one never knows the
> direction we'll face, and it changes all the time, and 8.5 because it's
> strong enough without having a totally narrow pattern which would limit what
> it saw) have failed miserably.

certainly an omni up the mast will give you a better view. you can
also get a slightly louder voice by using a stronger signal, there are
cards out there that have a little more power. one such card is the
Senao card available at http://www.radiolabs.com/. by the way, there
are also a wide variety of omni directional antennas at that site.

> However, I'm reasonably sure that's just because I haven't looked in the
> right places. I have a relatively unlimited amount of 12V available to
> power this setup, whether POE or directly wired. If it doesn't come that
> way, I can put whatever it is in a NEMA waterproof enclosure, keeping it
> safe, with the antenna N-mounted to the box or the mast, putting all that
> very high up, assuring good range.
>
> So, who knows what I need to accomplish this? Recall that I want to be able
> to have my laptop see the shoreside point, through whatever is up the mast,
> and be able to communicate with it, in the same fashion as I'd do if I were
> in immediate laptop range. Intermediate steps (such as seeing the SSIDs and
> manually entering the one I want after selection from what's available) are
> acceptable, but definitely not preferred over WZC or the like's point and
> click.
>
> I've entertained, but had defective/faulty/somehow not work
> ethernet-connected bridges with the same omni 8.5dBi antenna setup associate
> but fail to actually pass data, to a station known good as I can (like now)
> communicate over it with my USB external antenna. As both of the Senao
> 2611CB3 Deluxe units I had behaved in that fashion, I assume this is another
> case of manufacturer specific or other limiting circumstances, as I (gasp!)
> about wore out the owner's manual, and did every possible change, one at a
> time, with no success (other than association and the same signal and link
> ratios as found on my USB antenna). So, I've given up on those.
>
> Is there a plug-and-play solution to this technical challenge? Anybody done
> the equivalent (something free-standing, some distance away from your
> laptop, and a very long distance from the selectable AP you're using)?
>
> Thanks for the assistance. We're getting ready to leave, permanently, and
> would surely like to be able to access all the free APs now arising.

if you really want a debugging tool what you're looking for is kismet
running on a linux box (or partition). an old 50$us laptop works great
for this, it'll let you see exactly what AP's are out there, their
relative signal strengths, and you can see, immediately and in real
time, if you are getting packets from them without having to go to the
trouble of associating with them, etc, you'll see them all at once.
it's a good tool for checking your antenna configuration because you
can see differences based on where you put the antenna and how you have
it hooked up.

of course a directional/yagi would be the perfect solution if the boat
was steady on a calm day and wasn't swinging. i wouldn't want too
narrow a beam on it though or any boat motion would lose signal, but
sort of a 180 degree down to 45 degree field of view would be nice.

> --
> L8R
>
> Skip
[snip]