Busy LONG weekend, part 2

Back to the productivity.

We want to have a phone on board, but don't want to sign up for a cell phone service, and the pay-as-you-go plan gets expensive fast, so Vonage looked like a good solution. However, it requires a broadband connection, and it is not clear from their web site that WiFi on a boat qualifies as broadband.

They do have an alpha-application called Vonage Talk which works on the PC alone, using the microphone and speakers on the PC to give you a phone. So I downloaded this last week, andtried to get it to work, but the app seems to have problems recognizing customers, and I gave up. Sunday, sitting in the boat with nothing to do I decided to try again, and Voila! it worked. Called Joy in Pittsburgh, and she could hear us, and we had a nice talk. We even got her to send us the last of the boat stickers (details on another post) for the big boat.

So, now we have a phone, wherever we have a laptop and a WiFi connection, which is cool.

Monday, we went off to shop for groceries. Down Rt 1, to Publix for some pork chops and sald greens, and then over to the farm stand, where we buy LOTS of great fruits at really great prices. The fruit there seems to be much juicier than we ever got up north.

When we came, back, the Engenius box had arrived, and while jlm went off to the gym, I put it together, and tried to make it work. I didn't mount it, but just stuck it up on the book and ran an ethernet cable down thru the hatch, where it connected to a PoE injection point, and then to the laptop. All powered up well, and I was able to get into the router to configure it, but for 2 hours I could figure out how to make it pick up the WiFI and send it to the PC.

Lots of surfing on the web, looking for others who had similar problems, and Voila! I found a recent thread that explained that although you have to set the IP address and subnet mask manually to get IN to the AP, you have to re-enable auto IP addressing when you are done with the setup for it to recognize the computer. Do this and Voila! you have a connection.

Then it was on to the Vonage box, which sits between the AP and the PC. This was the tricky part, because I didn't know whether it could be convinced that the AP was really a cable modem. More ethernet wires were strung across the cabin, connecting the AP, the PoE injector, the Vonage box, a wireless phone(!), and the computer. With power cords everywhere, as well. I should have taken a photo.

Once again, I made it into the Vonage box to configure it, and it talked to me. It also recognized the AP, and proceeded to spend a LONG time downloading firmware upgrades before the lights finally arrived in the magic configuration, and Voila! I had a dial-tone on the phone!

Once again, called Joy to see how it worked. She is starting to wonder about us, because I am calling her to see if she "can hear me now". I figure that if SHE can understand us, given her bad hearing, everyone else can, as well.

I even used the Vonage Talk software to call the watermaker people to see whether I need to rally run the watermaker, or just flush it. They said just flush it, which is what I wanted to hear.

Celebrated this productivity success with some really nice pork chops, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and cab/shiraz blend.

This AM (Tuesday), I started to see about locating the AP and the Vonage box, and have determined that this is going to be more hassle than thought. The mount for the AP antenna wants a vertical pole, which only exists in one suitable location on the arch, next to the SSB antenna. I don't want the AP antenna radiating into the SSB, or vice-versa. Also, it looks like I may have to cut off the ends of the cable and crimp on new plugs, to make it thru the holes in the arch. Then, I will have to find ANOTHER power strip to be able to plug in all of the new power bricks. As well as figuring out how to get the wire from the arch into the fwd part of the boat.

Ahh well. Life on a boat.

We also went to Mr. Bread this AM to buy the preferred loaf. Last time we went in the late PM, and they were out. We have learned. Also bought some stone crabs for dinner tonite.

Weather has moderated, and we are no longer rocking and rolling. Tommorrow we are off to the South Florida Fair in WBP with Karen and Pete. It should be interesting.