Hello all here. I am fairly new to the site, love the concept. I looked for a way to contact the site but can only find the forum as a way to do that. I was thinking it would be great to know if a campground has WIFI at the campsite, not just at the office. I spent the last few nights in my truck, parked at the camp office doing some online stuff that had to get done. It would have been a lot more comfy in the 5er. What do you all think ? Would you support a change to the question of "Wireless Internet?" to "WIFI at site" ?
I like it. B) Wifi has evolved to become a necessary entity for many travelers. While the laundrymat and coffee shop don't have the distance challenges that a RV park owner faces providing this service, just seems good customer service to let folks know the situation. Ask about Wifi availability at check-in and park accordingly. I know of at least one park owner who has a new Wifi antenna budgeted... more customers now asking. Amazingly (for those of us who cannot imagine being w/o our computers) not everyone is interested...
I think this is an excellent idea. We spent 3+ months on the road earlier this year and at least half of the parks that advertised WiFi did not have it "at site." Many had it available only in or adjacent to the Office.....and some only had it available in certain rooms near the office. I'd like to see Woodalls and Trailer Life include "on site" availability of WiFi in their descriptions and ratings of parks. It's not 1975 anymore. And now people rely on the internet to pay bills, contact family at home, make purchases, etc. I certainly don't expect WiFi in State or National Parks......but when I pony-up for the extra cost of a private park which advertises WiFi, I certainly don't expect to have to wedge between the washing machines in the laundry room (as I had to do at a park in Indiana) in order to get a connection.
Great Idea, however, who or what decides what constitutes "WiFi available at your Site"? I have been at many parks where the signal is great at some sites and when I returned for another visit, not available at all at another site. I would hate to see a park listed as not having WiFi available at the site because a reviewer stayed at a site where the signal was blocked by topography, or they just caught a bad break and couldn't connect at the site they chose. By the same token, I would hate to check into a park and find out the only site where WFi could be accessed from the site is the site adjacent to the office. Again, a reviewer would have no way to determine wifi coverage in the park.
Hmmmm...kcmoedoe makes a very good point. WiFi (shouldn't be)... but seems to be as elusive as a strong dollar. I'm with Pianotuna. Life is too short to wrestle with an on-again/off-again freeby, when you really need a connection. Air Card: at home and on the road! Cheers!
KC: Granted, it is not feasible to expect Trailer Life/Woodalls to check WiFI availability at every site; but maybe they could just ask the office where it should be available, and check 2-4 of the sites in that area(s). Then publish where they found it and/or where they did not. This would give patrons a general idea of which areas of a park to find a site in if WiFi is important to them.
TumbleOak, To contact Webmaster look at main or first page and go down to bottom. You will see Contact us in green. Click on that and off you go. On Wi-Fi at your site. That is a ball of wax. All Wi-Fi systems and laptops are not the same. One laptop may pick it up and the next would not. Say you are working on line and a 45 foot bus moves in next to you. Office is now on other side of the bus, now you are off line. Trees, building, large RV units all cut down on sig level. Parks that have the rabbit ear (Linksys) in office to me do not have a Wi-Fi system only a short range toy. KOA people have the pits in systems to me. You can be in office and not see the sig. It has always been my poor laptop that was the problem. Man in KOA office told me, look you can see the antenna on roof. Yes, I also see the moon but can not pick it up as well. We need more and more input from people who review parks on this type of problem.
We a good antenna, if you can get it at the office, you can get it anywhere in the campground (usually). I think a question in the review profile is a great idea. It would take a while to flush it through and like many other things it can change right away.
Lindsay, what antennae do you use ? John, thanks for that info. I now see it. lol, can't pick up the moon huh ? Foster and Piano, what is the cost and speed of an aircard ? It isn't for me since I don't have any cell signal at home but I am curious. Thanks for the replies, I'll send over my suggestion to the powers that be.
Foster, you use your Air card at home? At home, I have Verizon DSL and I wanted to drop DSL in favor of the Air Card, use at home and on the road. I got the song and dance about "if you have DSL you have UNLIMITED whatever for the price I pay, versus the air card where, for $55 a month, I will have "limits." Hey, don't download music or movies, I just read email and do stuff on RV forums. Foster, how does that work for you? JJ
Hi, No one has been able to rewrite the inverse square law. Speed is directly dependent on signal strength. That being said, with a good signal the theoretical speed is considerably faster than DSL or cable. The catch is *don't* exceed 5 gigs per billing period or there may be a nasty surprise. Lindsay uses an RVwave antenna and has good range with it. I use a 15 db omni directional antenna and a wifi adapter which gives me a range of about 4000 feet. Mine takes longer to set up that Lindsay's system and if I had it to "do over" I'd go with the RVwave. It's just easier to use unless one does a permanent installation for the antenna. QUOTE(TumbleOak @ Oct 6 2008, 07:03 PM) [snapback]13433[/snapback] Lindsay, what antennae do you use ? John, thanks for that info. I now see it. lol, can't pick up the moon huh ? Foster and Piano, what is the cost and speed of an aircard ? It isn't for me since I don't have any cell signal at home but I am curious. Thanks for the replies, I'll send over my suggestion to the powers that be.
QUOTE(DXSMac @ Oct 6 2008, 06:27 PM) [snapback]13434[/snapback] Foster, you use your Air card at home? ... how does that work for you? JJ, we couldn't access a DSL line at home...had dial-up. So, not a big deal to close account and sign up for Verizon Air Card. Since we had Verizon for cel service we got a package deal to incorporate their air-card for 59.99 per month. Had read enough from folks on the road to know WiFi was hit and miss. I decided the price was worth the anxiety of trying to log on at every new stop. We have no limits... use it to keep up on news, e-mails (including photos), bills, and of course this site! Pay our monthly bill which includes the cel phone and air-card. No problems. I've perused everything from stock portfolios, 401K, real estate, job openings, police and fire reports for a particular community... Did I answer your question?
QUOTE(Lindsay Richards @ Oct 6 2008, 07:23 PM) [snapback]13430[/snapback] We a good antenna, if you can get it at the office, you can get it anywhere in the campground (usually). I think a question in the review profile is a great idea. It would take a while to flush it through and like many other things it can change right away. We use the Sprint Novatel S720 broadband card (EVDO) and a Linksys wrt54g3g-st wireless mobile router since we have 2 notebook PC's that need access the Internet. The Sprint service is $59.95 per month for all you do. There are no limits to bandwidth or any extra fees. The Sprint service has worked pretty much wherever we have been and at download speeds of up to 1.6mbps. We are currently in the Corpus Christie area and have a connection of 1.25mbps. We also have a 2nd Linksys wrt54g wireless router that we have set up (connected by wire/cable to the the broadband router) with an external 6db gain antenna (attached to the RV ladder) and the Sveasoft Hotspot firmware (http://www.sveasoft.com). We provide all of our neighbors in the park with FREE wireless connections. If you are in a park and see a wireless connection listed as "rvpctronics.com", connect to it... it's us... and it's free.
QUOTE(lbacon @ Oct 7 2008, 10:42 AM) [snapback]13449[/snapback] ... If you are in a park and see a wireless connection listed as "rvpctronics.com", connect to it... it's us... and it's free. Cool! Thanks B)
QUOTE(FosterImposters @ Oct 6 2008, 09:12 PM) [snapback]13442[/snapback] JJ, we couldn't access a DSL line at home...had dial-up. So, not a big deal to close account and sign up for Verizon Air Card. Since we had Verizon for cel service we got a package deal to incorporate their air-card for 59.99 per month. Had read enough from folks on the road to know WiFi was hit and miss. I decided the price was worth the anxiety of trying to log on at every new stop. We have no limits... use it to keep up on news, e-mails (including photos), bills, and of course this site! Pay our monthly bill which includes the cel phone and air-card. No problems. I've perused everything from stock portfolios, 401K, real estate, job openings, police and fire reports for a particular community... Did I answer your question? Yeppers! I want to drop my DSL and just use the air card. Even at home! JJ
QUOTE Lindsay, what antennae do you use ? I use the RVWave antenna and love it. Click on link to see setup and my Pat Pending extension pole for the antenna. It is amazing how it works. Click on link to see photos of my setup. http://www.linandnancy.com/cedkeyswan1.html
