Wfi over water

"For seamless operation each boat requires satellite IP. You would " Not realy Actually, if i were to use mesh routers on each of the ferries, i'd have a self-healing network. (UCW has an open-source mesh router OS). This way the four ferries plus the two on either islands would always form a wireless mesh (except probably on days when the no of boats goes down)

We WiFi marinas. The task you have chosen, though doable, is not cheap.

Besides land-based high-power units and high-gain antennas you will need approx 150' to may be 300' land based antenna towers(depending upon the scenario finally selected) to clear the distance. This is still no guarantee of good service. Additionally, you may need to create a corrosion proof antenna system for the ferries.

Satellite IP is probably the way to go.

But again, the solution will not be cheap.

Doubtless there are many in the group who have a great deal of experience in practicalities of this sort of problem. My 2p is this; the distance to the horizon, assuming one ae is at sea level(I presume this would not actually be so ) the other would have to be at 270' to achieve LOS. You get my drift.(Touch of nautical humour...not) This page may help with the calcs.

Interesting application.

I suspect that an omni directional antenna on the boat would not be good enough. Assuming that you are looking for a good, not perfect link, you could take advantage of the fact that while enroute the ferry is always more or less aimed in the same direction. You could put a directional antenna at each end of the ferry, aimed at each harbor. This could feed a bridging access point, that could then connect to another Access Point that provides service to the users on the ferry.

The question is whether you can find off the shelf equipment that can automatically use the more powerful signal, and switch between the two.

Report back on how you make this work.

Mike Schumann

Check out your local tern/pelican/sea eagle communities. Perhaps you could tag some of them with small light-weight solar powered wi-fi transponders.

You would be well and truly stuffed however, if they were migratory or they stayed too close to shore, so it might not be seamless.

For seamless operation each boat requires satellite IP. You would distribute the connection on each boat via a wi-fi access point.

If you can't afford the satellite connectivity but still need to advertise that your boats have wi-fi, then you could set up each boat's hot-spot splash page to display a message that says something to the effect of "The MV WoodDuck's hot-spot is currently down for maintenance, we regret this inconvience and hope to have it fixed as soon as possible".

Phuoc

MIMO routers, somewhat directional antenna which covers one 'wedge' for each antenna port on the router.

Hi,

I've had much success with simple industrial grade outdoor wireless access points. The product I used was a sputnik 3mile outdoor job..

There are several outdoor products that have much greater ranges now and over open water is really the best scenerio for wireless applications. Little interferance or terrain to block your signal.. I've been out 5 miles off shore with a perfect signal.

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