The below was written for the Albin List but may be of interest to many
folks we met through Trawler Fests over several years of helping to put
them on.

Dennis responds...

With the closure of the Erie Canal system this summer, our plans changed
quickly. We instead went down to New York City (nearly, it was so hot we
headed north again), and are presently on Lake Champlain in the "Smallest
City in the USA", Vergennes, Vt. We happened into here on Friday afternoon,
found a dock with free water and electric, and the 25th annual Vergennes
Day Community Festival on Saturday. Lots of crafters, politicians, musical
entertainers, fund raising breakfasts and lunches, and good times had by
all.

Luckily, it was on Saturday with great weather. Today (Sunday) it's been
cold (well, maybe 65 degrees, and I refuse to put on long pants) and wet,
as well as windy. A small brick heater takes the chill off a 27 footer
fairly quickly, especially if the electricity is free! Tomorrow we head to
Burlington.

Perhaps the Bay of Quinte next summer! We love that area, as well as the
1,000 Islands and Rideau system.

Re bug control; we use screening fabric, with cord on the bottom as weights
to hold it in place, with tension rods securing it to the top of
companionways. Esther is very crafty and has also constructed a three sided
screen for the forward hatch, with is secured with stitched in light nylon
line to the hand holds on either side.

The day we arrived here, Sadie B turned 7,777 hours on her hour meter. We
celebrated the occasion with a close up photo of the meter, and a glass of
wine (internal, not on the meter). When we bought her, 12 years ago she,
had 700 hours on the meter. Assuming 6 mph, this is around 42,000 miles, or
nearly twice around the globe! When we bought her, we had no idea
retirement could be so much fun. We have literally met thousands of great
folks with the same interests, and encouraged many to join us in the life
style.

Enjoy the winter in your shop with more projects on Briar Patch. Did you
know that Lane Befus, recently from Picton, and transplanted to BC, bought
an Albin?

Dennis

Dennis Bruckel, Cruising Editor
Waterway Guide
M/V Sadie B, Albin 27
Cell 407 414 0531
Website: www.debruckel.com

A man who is not afraid of the sea will be drowned,
for he'll be going out on a day when he shouldn't.
The Arron Islands, J. M. Synge

My continuing cellular performance experiments have reached the fun stage.
The equipment is all installed and the software to do the measurements has
been written.  It's now time for some on-the-water testing.

My local John Deere service center is in Southwest Harbor, about 35nm from
Castine, Maine.  It was time for a 2,000 hour service check on aCappella's
engines and the timing was perfect to do some objective cellular
measurements along the coast of Maine.  The software records the -dBm signal
strength of the cellular signal reaching my Palm Treo 650 phone and the
lat/lon about every 0.5nm.  I recorded the signal using the amp installation
from Castine to SW Harbor and without the amp from SW Harbor back to Castine
three days later.  When I got home, I correlated the "before" and "after"
signal positions to within about 1/4 mile to get a good comparison.

A negative dBm measurement means that the lower the value, the better the
signal level.  On Cingular's GSM system with a Treo, a level of 99 or
greater means that there are no bars and no signal is available.  A level of
78 or lower is the equivalent of being pinned with full bars.  As the value
goes lower than 78 I've noticed a slight increase in internet GPRS
throughput.  I was docked near a cell tower in SW Harbor and had pretty good
reception with or without the amp engaged.  When the amp was used, an
internet speed test showed that my throughput was consistently 105kb/sec.
This decreased to about 90kb without the amp.

The software can't record the signal level when the phone is actually being
used so there are a couple of missing points in the data.  Overall, it is
pretty complete.

The following is available:

• The raw data is included below.

• A graph of the data showing the comparison is at:
  www.activemap.com/castine-swharbor-graph.jpg

• A chart of the positions acquired is at:
  www.activemap.com/castine-swharbor-route.jpg

Remember that lower signal values mean better strength with this data.  I
plotted the "No Signal" and "Full Bars" level on the graph to emphasize the
results that I experienced.

I believe that the results speak for themselves.  The amplifier does an
outstanding job.

The hardware that I've put together to do all of this is:

1. Wilson GSM dual-frequency cellular amplifier.
2. LMR-400 coax.
3. The best quality connectors possible.
4. Special connectors removing the need for any "patch" cables.
5. Shakespeare 4dB cellular antenna.

I'm also testing a Digital Antenna cellular antenna (thanks George!).  That
antenna can be directly swapped with the Shakespeare by climbing up on my
arch.  In informal testing, the DA antenna performs the same as the
Shakespeare although it is made better and feels more substantial.  It is
also a little smaller and feels more rugged.

The hardest part of getting all of this right was figuring out the coax
cable and connectors.  With normal connectors, a special patch cable would
be necessary to go from the antenna N-type connector to the cellular amp
custom connector.  After extensive searching I was able to source a single
connector (from Cellular Solutions) that made this possible without the
patch cable.  My coax goes directly from the antenna to the amp.  Every
connector means signal loss and I have the fewest connectors possible.

In addition, the LMR-400 coax provides much lower signal loss compared to
normal coax cable.  My experiments showed that this makes a big difference
especially if you have a long cable run (I used 40' from my arch to my
pilothouse).  The following web site provides a good signal loss calculator:
http://www.timesmicrowave.com/cgi-bin/calculate.pl

At 1900 MHz, 40' of RG-58 gives an 8.7 dB loss.
At 1900 MHz, 40' of LMR-400 gives a 2.3 dB loss.

It's worth noting that having a 4dB cellular antenna by itself with 40' of
RG-58 will actually decrease your cellular signal strength!  The Wilson
amplifier has 37dB of gain which blows away the loss.  The LMR-400
significantly reduces the loss even more.

On September 27th, we're leaving Castine headed for the Carolinas.  Although
I won't be able to do a forward and reverse test as I did with Southwest
Harbor, I will be able to give a signal level graph all along the coast.
I'd also like to do more offshore experiments to see how much further out
the amplifier allows me to use the cell phone.

The software to record cellular signal strength on a nautical chart is
available for free.  Write me off list if you have a Treo that can connect
to a GPS and I'll send it to you.

The experiments continue...

================
Jeffrey Siegel
M/V aCappella
DeFever 53PH
W1ACA/WDB4350
Castine, Maine

Raw data between Castine and Southwest Harbor

---==================
Lat        Lon            With Amp  Without Amp
44.38403333 -68.78653333  65        95
44.38666666 -68.79488333  59        73
44.38153333 -68.80374999  51        69
44.3772    -68.8121      51        79
44.36876666 -68.81866666  59        81
44.36033333 -68.82303333  55        89
44.3519    -68.82649999  51        83
44.34349999 -68.83088333  51        81
44.33516666 -68.83188333  55        81
44.32683333 -68.8324      55        71
44.31846666 -68.83138333  57        81
44.31009999 -68.82833333  57        79
44.30684999 -68.81953333  57        101
44.30478333 -68.81091666  59        97
44.30369999 -68.80258      61        83
44.30313833 -68.79423166  55        81
44.30214166 -68.78584666  59        79
44.30346999 -68.777465    57        79
44.3046    -68.76911333  59        87
44.309485  -68.76073999  61        89
44.31205333 -68.75236499  71        93
44.31426833 -68.74399999  63        95
44.314945  -68.73562833  65        99
44.31225333 -68.72724833  57        95
44.30871499 -68.71889166  71        89
44.30505    -68.71052      75        85
44.30090833 -68.70215666  75        85
44.29681333 -68.69382      69        87
44.29325166 -68.68543666  77        85
44.29026333 -68.677085    71        85
44.28715499 -68.66873333  75        85
44.28401166 -68.66038333  71        83
44.27938666 -68.652005    81        95
44.274185  -68.64362833  71        87
44.26883999 -68.63527999  63        81
44.26329499 -68.62693333  71        93
44.24594166 -68.59857166  63        83
44.24135166 -68.59022166  59        77
44.23728333 -68.58186666  63        87
44.23122333 -68.57351166  61        85
44.22669499 -68.56517666  65        81
44.22133999 -68.55684166  65        81
44.216355  -68.54848499  77        83
44.20966166 -68.52716333  75        87
44.20910333 -68.51881      67        75
44.21167333 -68.51042333  59        71
44.21757    -68.50206833  55        85
44.22415833 -68.49370166  57        69
44.232495  -68.48643666  55        83
44.22735    -68.44623333  57        71
44.2242    -68.43788166  55        69
44.22354333 -68.42951666  55        65
44.22331166 -68.42113833  57        67
44.22278166 -68.41274833  55        67
44.21835    -68.3545      61        65
44.21761666 -68.34613333  55        63
44.21903333 -68.33771666  61        65
44.22033333 -68.32925      67        73
44.22036666 -68.32089999  71        77
44.22026666 -68.31256666  67        75
44.21981666 -68.30423333  71        71
44.2205    -68.2959      69        69
44.22883333 -68.28888333  61        67
44.23718333 -68.28348333  67        71
44.24551666 -68.28194999  61        65
44.2539    -68.28163333  59        59
44.26225    -68.28076666  67        71
44.26721666 -68.28918333  51        69
44.27261666 -68.3014      51        69