wifi on board

[Mikedefieslife]

I think it's pointless buying anything other than dual band. Sure 2.4ghz has greater penetrations, but 5ghz is faster and has a ton more channels available. That's important in a place where you might have up to 100 liveaboards accessing wifi. Most good marinas will operate on 2.4 and 5. Outside of marinas it's pot luck. Some restaurants and other shore-side buildings are running both, some only 2.4ghz. The important thing is though that it gives you choice and costs less than £100 for a decent outdoor access point.

 

[KellysEye]

Make sure the wifi is a minimum of 12 db. We had a steel boat so I used an extension lead to tie the wifi to the boom, if you have poor reception that will work.

 

[pvb]

As per previous posts, I've tried to improve the marina signal by various methods but now use my phone tethered to my laptop. The only problem is that Windows 10 updates regularly try to rape my data allowance if I'm not paying attention.

In the Updates preferences, you can set it so that it won't download updates when you're on a metered connection (ie tethered to a phone).

 

[colind3782]

In the Updates preferences, you can set it so that it won't download updates when you're on a metered connection (ie tethered to a phone).

Yes, I know. It's just when I'm not paying attention.

 

[PembrokeshirePromise]

I like Ubiquiti kit - we use a lot of it for a community wifi scheme round here - though not completely trivial to setup if you aren't used to networks.
I have tried various devices on the boat. Generally you want an Omni aerial - though I suppose if you were always in a fixed birth and it was just for use in a marina a directional one might give better reception.

As others have said - often marina wifi is poorly setup and over used. Also for wifi in general - you can have the best - mots powerful setup on your boat - but that doesn't do anything much to improve the power of the access point that you are connecting to - and as most use is download - its the power of that link thats most important.

I have used the Ubiquiti picostation with some success in various places. One of the nice things about the Ubiquiti kit is that the POE is quite forgiving and you can normally just supply 12v direct

 

[Graham376]

We use a 4G data sim in a Netgear 4G router.

I gave up on wifi years ago for normal onboard use, have 30gb 4G data sim for €25 p.m, films download in a few minutes and TV streams just fine. Seems to me it's a bit mad to spend much on unreliable wifi gadgets, when a 10gb 4G data sim can be had for £7 p.m. in UK. Updates can be downloaded by free wifi when ashore.