WiFi. Help!!

longjohnsilver

longjohnsilver

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I know diddly squat about computers and systems and bits you plug in. Please bear that in mind if you reply. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

We're looking at going away on the boat for 4 months in the summer down the French W coast and maybe into Spanish waters. We need to buy an up to date laptop (Debs fancies an Apple Mac) and want to get reliable (and cheap) internet access.

In simple words of preferably not more than 1 syllable what should we be lookig at getting? Please don't confuse me, just the thought of trying to connect bits brings me out in a rash!

Just as an add on how simple is it to use the laptop screen as a plotter when connected say to a handheld gps? Or is this one stage too far? TIA
 
I use a lap top on my boat and it is connected via a dongle supply by a moblie supplier Voda phone, 3 or one of the others. best to find out the best net work coverage for the area you and sailing in. you will have to let the suppler know that you are going abroad. I also use sea max on the lap top and give very good detail of most of the world, althrough expensive, but there are cheaper versions about.

Paul H

Have a great time
 
Vodafone, O2, and many others will sell you a dongle to stick in the side of the laptop. It almost configures itself with the appropriate software, then it's hey ho !, mobile internet. All you have to do then is pay the bill.

Most plotting applications with have the ability to link to a handheld GPS, using either the USP port or an adapter to an older input, e.g a Com port.

There'll be a menu, probably under Tools, to Connect to GPS, and you may have to Configure GPS ensuring that the GPS is NMEA compatible and outputting its signals in that format.

If you are buying a new laptop, the supplier should be able to provide a complete package for you, and set it all up. But £££ ?
 
John. We've got 3 (Mobile name) mobile conections, I'm running this PC off one. Debs has another on her lap top. It works just about any where, but you'll have to check for abroad. Cost £10 to £25 per month, we spend £15, but cant use all that up.

You just plug the dongle thingy in a USB port and go.

Dont know about the GPS thingy, to complicated.
 
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R u happy to use just in marinas where wi fi is available?

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No not really Tom, from choice I'd rather be swinging on the hook than in a marina.
 
Then you need a dongle !

Apple macs are great my little girl just got one we are ever so happy with it !

If you got some one with a student card you get 15% off !

We got one if it helps, we bought the 24inch Imac and love it !
 
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(Debs fancies an Apple Mac)

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No question they are fabulous computers but since only 5% of computer users have them, then if you need help then you are limiting the number of people who can help you. You will have enough challenges on route to digital automation without introducing more.
 
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I know diddly squat about computers and systems and bits you plug in. Please bear that in mind if you reply. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Whatever you do, DONT buy a mobile broadband dongle from a UK network then use it abroad. They charge £ per Mb when roaming, and you will be busted by the bills!!!

If you proposed to go this route, (which is what I do), you need an unlocked dongle, (ebay, or do it yourself), or you could use an unlocked mobile phone connected to your laptop.... I can use my unlocked Nokia N95, or my unlocked USB dongle, or my unlocked PCMCIA card.

You then need to get a local PAYG sim card.... easy in Spain with YOIGO, (GPRS only, 1.4 euros per day), and in Italy with WIND or TIM, (3G and possibly HSDPA at around 30 euros per month for 5GB, along with various other deals).

With 3G you can use Skype for phone calls at about 2p per minute. Quality isnt always fabulous, but it beats 38p per minute with a mobile.

France is pretty poor for obtaining a PAYG sim, which would probably be enough to make me avoid it. If I ran out of nice places to go in the Med., I might go to France.

You should also get a wifi USB adapter, (I have a Senao jobbie), along with an extension and a higher db aerial. This way you have more chance of picking up wifi, (either legitimately, or otherwise).

Hope this helps as a taster
 
1Mb isn't enough.

You can do the following, regarding these 3G dongles:

1. Buy a £60/month Vodafone contract which allows 200Mb/month of euro roaming. That's plenty. It's what I use

2. Buy a £15/month contract, avaialble from most of the UK phone companies, and then pay an extra £10/day to roam. Ie, each day you roam you get billed £10 extra and you can then roam all day, till midnight. This is fine if once-a-week internet is ok, otherwise crap

3. Buy local PAYG cards in the countries you visit. Too much hassle imho and not cheap.

Best answer is bite bullet and get 200Mb/month roaming plus unlimited UK for the £60/month Voda deal (or similar from another company). The software includes a "fuel gauge" so you know if you're hitting the 200Mb roaming limit. I never do, 200Mb is fine for email, forums, some browsing, etc

If you install a 3G router on the boat two or more folks can use the one internet connection simultaneously. You will hit the 200 faster though!

Connecting GPS to laptop is easy. You'll need plotter software on lapptop of course. Pretty much plug and play
 
The dongle is about the most plug and play thing you can imagine. Just plug in, wait 30secs, and the "connect" button comes on the screen, just press it. This is very handy cos I let guests use it on the boat on their own laptops and no installation routine is needed (on XP and Vista, at least. Will try a Mac soon, my kids use Macs)

If you use multiple laptops the fuel gauge needs a workaround. It keeps a separate tally on each laptop that you use, so for example if you and SWMBO use it you'd have to check both fuel guages and add them together

Also it keeps a file in My Documents of (I guess but don't know) your web use history, called vpclog.txt. This gets to 500Mb pretty easily in say 2 weeks, even for a light web user like me, so you have to go in and delete this file every couple of weeks else it can get to multiple Gigabytes. Seems daft, but easily worked around. Deleting the file does no harm so far as I can tell

But a great invention generally I've found, for boating use especially. The £60/month thing for the much-roaming contracts might well fall - it was £99 when I started 2 years ago
 
We use the dongles when on the move deliverys etc, they work well usualy paying about 15€ for 3 MB this gives you 30 days constant acces to the net. Unless you are downloading fillms or stacks of pics etc you would probably find this fine. For just internet acces a 10€ will do, with 1 MB down load it's a lot. Make sure you have roaming switched on, when you set up.

Use www.windfinder.com for the wind, sea, and weather. very acurate. lituraly you can set your watch by the acuracy.
 
Hi John,

Well the internet access seems to have been taken car of already, so I'll just comment on the laptop chartplotter. Yes it can be easy, depending upon the GPS you have. Older handheld GPS uses a Serial data cable, and most modern laptops dont have a serial port. You can get USB to serial adapter but they cheap ones are very hit and miss. If its say a more modern Garmin GPS that uses a USB data cable then its pretty darn easy.


Alternitavly just get a USB 'puck' style GPS such as this (I haven't tried that particular one but give it just as an example). If you do get one just check first that it is compatible with Vista as its likley any new laptop will have Vista by default (but thats a whole new thread...).

If you are using the nav software I think you are then its very easy to configure it see the GPS once its connected and working. That said a decent USB Garmin handheld is so cheap now I would prob just get one of them.

Personaly I would steer clear of a mac for what you want, it could be a challange to get nav software to run it without use of an emulator etc, and for the price of them you could get prob get 2 windows laptops (I went thru three on my cruise but then they did have some spectacular accidents /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif but thats the nature of using computers on boats, or maybe its just me!).

Feel free to email or call me if you want any help.

Ants
 
Re: WiFi. Help!!

Quote:
Whatever you do, DONT buy a mobile broadband dongle from a UK network then use it abroad. They charge £ per Mb when roaming, and you will be busted by the bills!!!

I can't stress enough how true this is - even just normal usage of sending digital camera pics back home by email will bankrupt you very quickly. Average digicam pic is likely to be more than 1 MB. All it needs is someone to send you a hi-resolution 5 MB pic (or worse 10 of them) and you have racked up massive charges.

Go for a laptop with integrated wifi (just about all of them have it these days) so you can do wireless networking at marinas, cafes, hotels etc, but get an unlocked dongle as well for Wireless Internet when in areas that don't have wifi. Just make sure that you read the small print on charges.
 
Re: WiFi. Help!!

Not sure how many PC chartplotter programs are available for Macs...ditto hardware like GPS etc etc may not love your Mac.

Cheap and cheerful £300 laptop should be plety good enough if you don't load too much rubbish on it.

I got a secondhand Panasonic Toughbook off ebay and whilst it is slow and runs WinXP not Vista it is fine for email, web and general office applications.

Waterproof and shockproof too....though "proof" has never been tested it has survived 4 years on motor boats banging around at 30 knots or more.
 
1mb is absolutely nothing... you will need a lot more than that if you intending to look at the web. It is probably OK for email if you are not receiving or sending pics but for the web it is not anything like enough.

You will find that most web pages have lots of graphocs and you will not get more than a few pages for your 1mb and if the web builder has not resized his pics and he just allowed the browser to do the resize then 1mb might not even give you 1 page!
 
It looks like a dongle is the best answer, but don't make the the decision on what network until just before you go, as with the growth in netbooks (this years must have) and the enlarging market in 3g access, terms, tariffs and conditions seem to be changing very quickly.

It could well be by then that a PAYG dongle bought in France and or Spain could be the solution.

In UK now a dongles cost, plus 1Gb/month only equates to 5 days of WiFi access bought through i-cafe or hotel.

I predict that in the very near future WiFi as a roaming concept in the UK will soon cease to exist in any major way as 3g takes over and that prices will also drop dramatically both for dongles and data. Europe will follow.

For easiest and most portable solution, I would get one of these;
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product...t_4213_netbooks

Which has both wireless and 3g (no dongle needed just a sim card). built in, small and covers most bases, the swines have dropped the price by £20 since I bought mine. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Just a little bit to add, I get free WIFI provided by my local harbour, I can pick the signal up from 3 kilometres away, I am on it now. I use a usb ZDWlan thingy 25 squid. Apple Macs cannot be configuered to run this set up! or so I am told, not a techy myself, so dont know if this is true. All I know is my costs are completely free all year. I like much cheapness!
 
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