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I started this thread to break it out from the water heater conversation.

The radar is powered, if I'm not mistaken, from the chartplotter. The chartplotter is powered via the 'radar' breaker. I'll have to check the wiring later this week to be sure of the wire colors.

I have two wifi routers on the boat. One up inside the radar arch acting as a client to connect to a shore access point. The other one is down in the cabin inside the locker near the couch seating top (under the window, not under the seat). It's connected by CAT5 wire to the router up on the arch. This way the one on the arch makes a connection to shore and then the one in the cabin lets our laptops make a wireless connection. I used two Linksys WRT54GL routers running the 3rd party add-on ddWRT firmware. I have the arch router connected to an 24" tall 8db antenna. I have that router in the arch so the cable from it to the antenna can be as short as possible. Otherwise you lose QUITE a lot of signal strength. The routers are cheap, I didn't even put it inside any sort of protected enclosure. If it rots out from marine corrosion, so be it. I'll just by another. There's not enough room up in the arch to do a proper box. I could gerry-rig some sort of vacuum sealed plastic bag. But, as I mentioned, the routers are cheap enough to be disposable. They both operate off 12vDC. I have power coming from the "Overboard Discharge" breaker. Since the switch that controls the overboard macerator is blocked off (in the head switch assembly) it really does no harm to 'repurpose' this breaker.

To use the wifi I just surf to the arch router's config page from my laptop and select whichever open access point has the best signal. It works reasonably well for simple web surfing. But you're at the mercy of their being a "free" access point open and whatever bandwidth it has available.

I've just ordered a new EVDO (cell data) capable router and plan to try it this weekend. My wife travels enough that we got her a Verizon data card. The card can be used in certain routers. There are data plan restrictions against doing this but unless you consume a horrendous amount of bandwidth they generally let it slide. The real question will be how well the data card's antenna will work and where I'll put the new router. To make a connection I'll simply plug that router into the existing network of other devices. I'll probably have to apply some IP route configuration voodoo to deal with having wifi/data/both connections but it shouldn't be all that difficult.

I do have a Raymarine autopilot setup on the boat. I generally find it never gets used. There just aren't enough situations where the water's clear enough to make effective use of it. On the Chesapeake you're dodging crab pots too often to make it practical to let the autopilot do all the work. That and other boaters now and then.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

I just plug my LG Chocolate into my Laptop and get free EVDO

(Yeah it required a little hacking) Heh!

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Brett DiMichele

Using the data card gets me EV-DO Rev A (faster), doesn't tie up the phone and lets me share it between multiple PCs. Sharing a tethered phone handset through a PC via wifi is a pain in the ass.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

Well, I don't have a big enough boat to have more than one computer aboard!

I just take one laptop, so tethering my handset works great, and with unlimited free weekends and evenings, who can complain!

Using the EVDO Card and then a Wifi setup to share the connection makes sense.. Sounds like a pretty slick setup to me.

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Brett DiMichele

It's not so much about having more than one laptop in use at the same time. We both have our own and having a standalone router keeps it from being a reconfiguration hassle popping cards out to switch. Tethering to a slow phone, along with the admiral's tendency to break USB ports, made using a PC card a better option for us.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista