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There have been several long threads dealing with wireless
communications for cruisers. I thought the list may be
interested in our experiences. We have been researching
ways to stay in touch from Skooch as we hop around
the USVIs and hopefully work our way thru the Bahamas
and home. That is . . . without buying a huge sat dish and
paying $3/minute.
So far we have purchased a motorola data phone and set
up an account with Cingular. We picked them because we
can set up national long distance roaming and 500 minutes
for @XXX.XXX Coverage charts indicate they have the
best data coverage on the east coast and best areas for
long distance coverage. Bahamas and Virgins.
Results are in for St Croix: No long distance charges to call
my ISP in Philadelphia and the signal is digital, good to
about 6 nm out.
Rest of USVI: No long distance charges, all digital and
reception was great as long as there wasn't a mountain
(Island) between us and St Thomas where they've stuck
the cell tower. We ran offshore one day till we could see
St Thomas, so my wife could call her office.
Puerto Rica was the same at the airport. I was tempted to
leave the phone on as the flight was vectored all over the
island in bad weather, but the admiral wouldn't let me.
Next step is the computer and data adapter. This works
great at home and gets up to 19.5KBPS. The boat just
got a 9db cell phone antenna from defender, which should
we hope will boost the range considerably.
We are open to all sugestions, questions and advice on
this subject.
Usual Disclaimers
David Stahl
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Kennett Internet Services, 112 S. Union Street, Kennett Square, PA 19348
610-444-9008 Visit our web site at http://www.kennett.net
