mvweebles
Guru
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2019
- Messages
- 8,007
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Weebles
- Vessel Make
- 1970 Willard 36 Trawler
A bit of a repeat from the Starlink thread I just posted to, but I thought this warranted its own thread.
First, why bother with a dedicated WiFi network aboard? For me, the best reason is I can have all onboard devices connected to a single router (the Pepwave in this case). They will always be connected to Weebles' WiFi network - always. What will change is what signal the Router is connected to. I have phones, PCs, tablets, Simrad, and god knows what else - they are all now connected to Weebles WiFi. When the WiFi source changes - say, move from one marina WiFi network to another, rather than changing 10 passwords, I change one - the one the router uses to connect to the network. Awesome!!
I purchased much of my kit from 5GStore.com but eventually found Doug at Onboard Wireless (HERE). I I wish had found him earlier as he seemed genuinely knowledgeable about systems and would take the time to make solid recommendations. I did okay with the selections I made, but he might have had a better suggestion had I found him before buying much of the stuff.
In some ways, I'm pretty technical. But in other ways, I am a 4-year old. I've worked on the periphery of networking/tech for 25-years - even held a Cisco certification at one point. But I have zero talent. When I started my research journey for how to build a wifi network for Weebles, I kept encountering information that made zero sense to me - it was as if I walked into a movie halfway through - all sorts of terms (MiMo???) were bandied about that I had no context to ingest. So I thought I would post where I ended up with some specifics and hopefully save another person or two some brain damage. Not saying this is the right solution for others, not even saying it's what I would do if I started from scratch today. But I offer it as a base template for those who too feel like they can't get an answer they understand.
A picture is worth a thousand words. See attached. It's about $1700 worth of kit in current pricing.
Schematic of my system (same as I posted to recent Starlink thread):

Peplnk BR1 5G Router (HERE) is mounted in a cowling beneath the hard top. In my research, there were many mentions to keep the cables from antenae to router as short as possible. Plus, not a bad place to mount. NOTE - take a picture of the back of the router before mounting - it has password information unique to the individual router. There is a small port that takes up to two SIM cards for cellular use (T-Mobile and ATT seem to be the favorite). Important to mount the router in a way that you can access this port.

Close-up of the Pepwave router. This comes with size pencil-sized post antennae. These are replaced with cables to an external antenna(e). The four on the right are for cellular (plus a GPS feed internal to the antenna). Two on the left for WiFi reception/amplification. On the left are also the connections for power, two LAN ports and a WAN port.

Access Point (AP). (HERE) The router itself has WiFi broadcast capabilities, but most applications will probably require at least one Access Point (AP) to extend the signal. For my small boat, a single AP in the saloon is fine. This connects to one of the two LAN ports on the router. It also needs power. This AP is 12VDC but comes with an adapter plug for 120VAC. Better would be to run what is called a "PoE Injector." This device goes inline with the Ethernet cable with a power connection that is provided remotely. The benefit is that instead of having two connections as I do, only the Ethernet cable is visible. Minor item - was supposed to have PoE but was installed without.

Antennae - OLD/Removed. I started this journey before Starlink became commercially viable so I wanted a very robust reception schema. I chose to go with two antennae - a Peplink 40G for cellular (HERE); and a Peplink 20G for WiFi (HERE). As you can tell from the prices - 4.5x what I paid for the final (next paragraph), they are likely far superior antennae. But they looked pretty awkward on Weebles. Since I opted for Starlink, cell comms are further as backup. So I opted for aesthetics.

Antenna - final solution - Peplink 42g HERE. A few months ago it became pretty apparent that Starlink was crowding out cell/wifi solutions. While all the wiring was apart and I had access to folks who could neatly run cabling, I installed Starlink and opted to down-size my bulky twin antennae (40g/20g mentioned) and get a combined flush-mount 42g antenna. You can see the post for my Starlink antenna in the backgound.

I finally got around to configuring the system yesterday which was only mildly frustrating. It took me a while of Google searching to figure out I needed a password that was on label on the back of the router. From there, it was pretty straightforward to run the configuration app, but it's something I have done before just not enough to know it by heart.
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS:
1. Starlink - this will go into the WAN port of the Peplink router. Because Starlink uses proprietary connectors, I need an adapter from Starlink. Should have it this week. Right now, I connect via the Starlink router but in the future, I will connect via the Weebles Wifi network (Peplink router).
2. NEMO N2K Gateway (HERE). This will hang off the last open LAN port on the Peplink router. This allows all sorts of AIS data to integrate with Coastal Explorer, the PC-based nav app I use. This isn't required - I am firmly committed to Simrad MFD as a system-of-record to drive the boat. But I find CE easier to build routes on a PC, then upload.
Hope this helps someone -
Peter
First, why bother with a dedicated WiFi network aboard? For me, the best reason is I can have all onboard devices connected to a single router (the Pepwave in this case). They will always be connected to Weebles' WiFi network - always. What will change is what signal the Router is connected to. I have phones, PCs, tablets, Simrad, and god knows what else - they are all now connected to Weebles WiFi. When the WiFi source changes - say, move from one marina WiFi network to another, rather than changing 10 passwords, I change one - the one the router uses to connect to the network. Awesome!!
I purchased much of my kit from 5GStore.com but eventually found Doug at Onboard Wireless (HERE). I I wish had found him earlier as he seemed genuinely knowledgeable about systems and would take the time to make solid recommendations. I did okay with the selections I made, but he might have had a better suggestion had I found him before buying much of the stuff.
In some ways, I'm pretty technical. But in other ways, I am a 4-year old. I've worked on the periphery of networking/tech for 25-years - even held a Cisco certification at one point. But I have zero talent. When I started my research journey for how to build a wifi network for Weebles, I kept encountering information that made zero sense to me - it was as if I walked into a movie halfway through - all sorts of terms (MiMo???) were bandied about that I had no context to ingest. So I thought I would post where I ended up with some specifics and hopefully save another person or two some brain damage. Not saying this is the right solution for others, not even saying it's what I would do if I started from scratch today. But I offer it as a base template for those who too feel like they can't get an answer they understand.
A picture is worth a thousand words. See attached. It's about $1700 worth of kit in current pricing.
Schematic of my system (same as I posted to recent Starlink thread):

Peplnk BR1 5G Router (HERE) is mounted in a cowling beneath the hard top. In my research, there were many mentions to keep the cables from antenae to router as short as possible. Plus, not a bad place to mount. NOTE - take a picture of the back of the router before mounting - it has password information unique to the individual router. There is a small port that takes up to two SIM cards for cellular use (T-Mobile and ATT seem to be the favorite). Important to mount the router in a way that you can access this port.

Close-up of the Pepwave router. This comes with size pencil-sized post antennae. These are replaced with cables to an external antenna(e). The four on the right are for cellular (plus a GPS feed internal to the antenna). Two on the left for WiFi reception/amplification. On the left are also the connections for power, two LAN ports and a WAN port.

Access Point (AP). (HERE) The router itself has WiFi broadcast capabilities, but most applications will probably require at least one Access Point (AP) to extend the signal. For my small boat, a single AP in the saloon is fine. This connects to one of the two LAN ports on the router. It also needs power. This AP is 12VDC but comes with an adapter plug for 120VAC. Better would be to run what is called a "PoE Injector." This device goes inline with the Ethernet cable with a power connection that is provided remotely. The benefit is that instead of having two connections as I do, only the Ethernet cable is visible. Minor item - was supposed to have PoE but was installed without.

Antennae - OLD/Removed. I started this journey before Starlink became commercially viable so I wanted a very robust reception schema. I chose to go with two antennae - a Peplink 40G for cellular (HERE); and a Peplink 20G for WiFi (HERE). As you can tell from the prices - 4.5x what I paid for the final (next paragraph), they are likely far superior antennae. But they looked pretty awkward on Weebles. Since I opted for Starlink, cell comms are further as backup. So I opted for aesthetics.

Antenna - final solution - Peplink 42g HERE. A few months ago it became pretty apparent that Starlink was crowding out cell/wifi solutions. While all the wiring was apart and I had access to folks who could neatly run cabling, I installed Starlink and opted to down-size my bulky twin antennae (40g/20g mentioned) and get a combined flush-mount 42g antenna. You can see the post for my Starlink antenna in the backgound.

I finally got around to configuring the system yesterday which was only mildly frustrating. It took me a while of Google searching to figure out I needed a password that was on label on the back of the router. From there, it was pretty straightforward to run the configuration app, but it's something I have done before just not enough to know it by heart.
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS:
1. Starlink - this will go into the WAN port of the Peplink router. Because Starlink uses proprietary connectors, I need an adapter from Starlink. Should have it this week. Right now, I connect via the Starlink router but in the future, I will connect via the Weebles Wifi network (Peplink router).
2. NEMO N2K Gateway (HERE). This will hang off the last open LAN port on the Peplink router. This allows all sorts of AIS data to integrate with Coastal Explorer, the PC-based nav app I use. This isn't required - I am firmly committed to Simrad MFD as a system-of-record to drive the boat. But I find CE easier to build routes on a PC, then upload.
Hope this helps someone -
Peter