Wi-Fi Service Information
Wi-Fi Tips
1. Line of site or a strong reflection is
critical.
Wi-Fi signals are transmitted at very low power (capped by the FCC) and will
not penetrate metal, cement, tree leaves, and other dense objects.
Therefore, a clear Line Of Site (LOS) is critical and necessary for reliable
high speed data transfer. Even though the signal is transmitted at a low
power rate, it does have the ability to reflect off many of the obstructions
in its path.
Improving the LOS can be achieved by installing an antenna that is high enough, or in close range, to allow for a clear path to the transmitting antenna. A reliable reflection can be achieved by making sure that large metal objects (such as other boats) are not blocking your LOS.
2. Don’t use a weak
WiFi appliance.
Due to the battery powered requirements on a standard laptop, built-in
wireless adapters generally emit a very weak signal strength (approximately
30mw). In addition, many of the low cost (PCMCIA) WiFi cards are also low in
radiated power. Therefore, we recommend a 200mw card, such as the SMC card.
A common condition that we find, is that our strong transmitting signal reaches the laptop, however, the signal from the laptop is not strong enough to reach back to the user’s antenna.
3. Viruses and spyware greatly effect
performance.
If your computer becomes infected with a virus, or spyware, your Internet
connection will appear to be very slow. This is a very common problem due to
the virus and/or spy ware working in the background, and having to
communicate through the Internet. This process may impact your system, and
cause poor performance issues for yourself and other WiFi users. Therefore,
we strongly recommend Anti Virus* and Anti-Spyware** software as well as
enabling Windows firewall software**.
* There are some great free and/or relatively cheap options available,
check our list here for suggestions.
** For more help in enabling Windows XP SP2's or Vista's Firewall
refer to Microsoft's documentation here.
4. Using Peer to Peer file sharing networks can
frequently create processes that hurt your performance.
Many of the file sharing programs used to download music, movies, and books
can load applications* onto your system without your knowledge. These
processes are loaded onto your computer, and run in the background over the
Internet causing a decrease in available user bandwidth. Eventually, this
will lead to poor system performance for you and other WiFi users. Some Web
Sites that offer this type of download software are: Kazaa, BearShare,
Sharaza, LimeWire.
The files you download may also contain a virus that can infect your computer and cause performance issues, file corruption, and in some instances, hardware failures. Also, a user needs to keep in mind, there may be legal issues relating to file-sharing and software-copy.
* These applications are commonly referred to as 'Spyware' programs.
5. Do not set your home page to a secure site.
Having your homepage set to a secure site may prevent you from reaching our
WiFi login page. Prior to logging into the WiFi site, the url needs to be
set at: “http://”, rather than the standard https://, for our login screen
to appear. The most common problem occurs if the user has logged into a
banking site, mail site, or another secure site (usually any site that
allows you to make purchases), and if that’s the case, you will need to
change the line to read (http://).