A little late to add my 2 cents to this thread, been out of town. I purchased a Radio Labs Wifi antenna - transceiver system a year and a half ago. Used it for two trips from Daytona Beach down the waterway to Miami, and through the Bahamas. In most of the Bahamas (Nassau, most of Exuma, and Abaco's) WiFi is available. Cost ranges from some free sites, some at $10 per day; in Georgetown, Exuma $15 per week, and Abaco using Out Island Internet is $40 per week. In Florida, the Yacht Clubs that I used had free wifi. The Radio Labs system that I ordered was custom, with a 12 dBi antenna (standard unit has 8 dBi antenna). System has worked fairly well, does give me communication, up to 1 nm from hot spot. http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/wireless-marine-antenna.php this year, anchored near a fellow T&T member, Mike Danforth (Defever 52, Steffi Ann). He had a system by Wave Wifi (Wave HP), that far outperformed the radio labs system. He was picking up hot spots at more than twice the distance that I could get them. Wave WiFi site: http://www.wavewifi.com/wavewifi_products.pdf these spec's indicate a 25 dB improvement in receive sensitivity and approx 12 dB improvement in transmit power, comparing the radio labs spec and the Wave HP. Transceiver is in a waterproof box mounted away from the antenna, using LMR cable with type N connectors to the antenna (approx 10 - 15 feet). High Price for the Wave HP, see following site for price: http://www.marinecomputer.com/products.php?cat=35 Talking with a technician from Out Island Internet (Abaco), he recommended a system by Engenius, was installing them on boats as a side business. I am still looking into an upgrade, but was not planning to spend the kind of money that is asked for the Wave HP. Chet DeFever 44+5, Cygnet Daytona Beach, FL

< http://www.wavewifi.com/wavewifi_products.pdf > is a brochure on the 4 different models. Two of them have 1 Watt transmit power. I didn't know that was legal. Most "high power" units are 400mw with a few at 600mw. It is unclear to me what ranges they claim. They direct you to dealers and give no pricing. Ron Rogers

"Chester Brummett" <brummetc@bellsouth.net> writes: >I am still looking into an upgrade, but was not planning to spend the kind of >money that is asked for the Wave HP. I have been meaning to post some comments on this whole discussion. A bit of background. First, I am in the internet and networking business, so I have more than a passing interest in having a connection onboard (among other things, it lets me pretend that I am at work when I'm actually on the boat). Second, I looked at an rejected the satellite options. Wayyyyy to expensive for my tastes. Third, there is a good WiFi provider in the area I use my boat (http://bbxpress.net/). In past years I have relied on a DSL connection at the dock in conjunction with the occasional open WiFi when I happen to be in a marina, but that was not really enough. So, this year I decided to bite the bullet and put in some form of wireless internet. I first researched the various WiFi solutions, and concluded three things: 1) The hardware is not cheap. $250 to several thousand for a good setup. And the high-powered solutions are not particularly user-friendly. 2) The subscription services are not cheap. BBX is $99/month or $300/year. 4) The coverage is still pretty skimpy. 100 marinas sounds like a lot but there's a lot of water in BC. So I looked around at other solutions, in particular the internet-via-cell solutions. After some research I went with a Sierra Wireless USB EVDO card from Telus (http://www.telusmobility.com/on/business_solutions/sierra_ac595u.shtml). This connects via USB so it would work with the machine I use to run Nobeltec. Cost was $299, but it's available for much less if you sign up for a contract. For a service plan, Telus is offering a $65/month plan with UNLIMITED data for the first three months, which is all I needed for the summer (http://www.telusmobility.com/on/business_solutions/connect_megabyte_rate_plan.shtml). This means that unlike a tethered phone solution, using the data connection does not stop you from having phone conversations. So, for $299 plus $130, or a total cost of $429, the theory was that I should have virtually unlimited internet, with almost total coverage in the areas I boat (http://www.telusmobility.com/pdf/bc.pdf). OK, you are all dying to know, how did it work out? In a word, perfect. Setup was extremely easy (less than 5 minutes). I thought that I might need to place the card outside, but I just plunked it on a windowsill in the pilothouse and left it there. Connection speeds were typically 115 to 250 KBPS, which in practice was perfectly acceptable. And the connection was ALWAYS ON! We used it for everything: manuals, Google Earth, checking weather, the whole nine yards. The fact that it did not interfere with the voice calling meant that I was able to do full online teleconferences, right from the boat, in one case anchored up in Desolation Sound! In 6 weeks of cruising, we only spent 7 nights at dock, and in those 6 weeks we had only a single day when we did not have internet connectivity. And best of all I used Internet Connection Sharing, hooked up an inexpensive wireless router, and the laptops on the boat could then share the same connection. Again, no problems at all. To top it all off, now that I'm done boating for the season, I just cancel the plan (which was month-to-month) and sign up again next summer when I need it. All in all, I am extremely satisfied with the service. I would highly, highly recommend this as an alternative to WiFi. In the US, I see that Sprint offers a very similar deal ($60/month for 5 GB of data and $249 for the card). The only problem I ran into is that for completely stupid technical reasons, it's not possible to run Internet Connection Sharing if you use a Nobeltec radar. No connection, etc. Scott Welch FirstClass Product Manager www.firstclass.com Those who make no mistakes rarely make anything.