Month: August 2019

WiFi Extender (update)

colin bastable 1 Comment

2019-07-28 at 09-35-35

UPDATE: The lovely Bethany at GMN has replaced the unit. I have tested it and it appears to work, so next opportunity I will install it.

Another bit of dodgy tech!

The satcom system worked fine for phones and emails at sea. Expensive airtime, mind you! And a pain to get a reasonable package. My Iridium Pilot came with an Optimizer which works to compress and reduce unnecessary files for email and web browsing at sea.

2019-07-28 at 09-35-42

The marina wifi is pretty crap and Frank’s berth is quite a ways from the wifi hotspot. So I ordered a refurbished  RedPort Wifi extender from GMN on rush delivery back last year. Of course, it did not work – it had not been checked or tested. So it went back on RMA and eventually came back, whereupon it went to the back of the line.

Finally, last weekend, it floated to the top of the “to-do” list.

The lights lit up, but the discovery bit, where the Extender appears on the Optimizer menu, did not work.

optimizer_-_tasks_-_luci_pdf

You can’t see it because it ain’t there.

Cue email..

Ticket Number: 2019073110000983

Hello Colin, 

I think that Optimizer is an older version that has been end of lifed. Do you know what hardware model the Extender is? It will say on the back of the Extender. Either wXa-EXT or wXa-EXT V2

Bethany Headrick

GMN Customer Care

—

Global Marine Networks, LLC

3224 Wrights Ferry Road

Louisville, TN 37777

Web: http://www.globalmarinenet.com

Tel: +1.865.379.8723

Email: info@globalmarinenet.com

—

07/31/2019 14:15 – Colin Bastable wrote:

Hi.

I bought a Halo extender. It was defective and RMAd.

I have connected it to the Optimizer.

Plugged into LAN port. WLAN, LAN and Power blue lights on at Optimizer.

Two blue lights on, and flashing red, orange and two green lights on Extender.

No Extender option appeared in the menu.

 

I then updated the firmware from 1.3xxx to wXa-102 v1.63b8

 

Still no Extender option.

 

See attached screengrab.

 

Please can you advise me how to get the Extender option to display?

 

Thanks

 

Colin

 —

At this stage, I am beginning to suspect that what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate between the Optimizer and the Extender. We shall see.

Wind vane and Sailtimer finally up mast

colin bastable Leave a comment

When Frank was having her keel dropped, at Hooking Bull in Rockport back in 2016, because this necessitated having the mast down, I planned to install a SailTimer Wireless Wind Instrument which arrived long after the mast was back up and Frank was in her new berth in Corpus Christi Marina

This week, Matt Sebring of Coastal Bend Yacht Services has mounted it, along with a Windex (the one mounted when at Hooking Bull lasted a week, when a pterodactyl (I am no ornithologist, but they are big-assed ugly monsters that share the marina with the boats) decided that the Windex did not belong on the top of the mast.

2019-07-26 at 10-50-51

It took so long for me to get around to installing the Sailtimer that they have redesigned it – I should have waited until now to buy it. But next time I am at the Marine I can see if it actually works, and also see if the Windex has survived..

Stbd port

colin bastable Leave a comment

Last August I repaired the port side forward port (the big one), rebedding the glass in marine silicon in the alloy frame and repairing the porthole in which it sits. That port was leaking water on the galley side. It seems to be dry now, so this last weekend I did the other side, which leaks water into the chart station, ruining anything not waterproof in the desk and so on.

Gaps filled and epoxied..

2019-07-28 at 09-35-11

Gaps in port frame before thee repair.

2019-07-27 at 16-14-01

The port before repair

2019-07-27 at 13-15-082019-07-27 at 13-14-56

For some silly reason I can’t find or did not take pics of the frame, nor of the finished job, but I will add them later. Neither repaired job is perfect – I need to clean up the silicon from the glass, but it will keep the water out. Four more to go, two each side (smaller).