Trailer De-winterizing

[bjarvis]

Another camping season at Roseland Resort has begun!

Actually, since the campground is open 12 months of the year, it's always been camping season here, but the trailer is not exactly comfortable in the depth of winter so we close it up in early November and open it again when weather & scheduling allow in the spring. Since spring seems to have come early this year, we de-winterized in mid-March rather than early April.

De-winterizing was a breeze: connect the utilities, flush the antifreeze from the lines, install the battery & propane tanks, power up the appliances and park our asses.

Roseland has changed a little since we left last fall. The rec hall has been expanded by about 50%, making it much more spacious and including a wrap-around porch. An ATM is now available for those who need quick cash. Internet access has been outsourced to WVHotSpot.net who has installed wifi hotspots across the campground: we can even get a signal inside our trailer instead of the machinations I employed to find an open wifi signal in the dining hall last year.

The wifi is a bit less than optimal for us geeks. One purchases a block of time as one would at an airport: $4/hour, $10/day, $15/week, $30/month, $50/60 days, $70/quarter, $100/half-year. Alas, the purchased account is tied to that single device and isn't transferable. If I purchase wifi access on my laptop, I can't logout and then login with my tablet. If anyone has an idea of how to work around this limit, let me know.

If you're reading this right now, it's because I purchased a day's wifi bandwidth for testing & evaluation. If only Verizon Wirless' 3G or 4G signal reached into these rural parts of West Virginia, I could use my phone's hotspot instead. *sigh*

While talking over schedules a few hours after arriving, we realized we don't actually need to dash home Sunday afternoon. After all, Michael is effectively self-employed, I telecommute and Kent is job hunting right now: what's the rush to be home & refreshed for Monday morning? Accordingly, we're going to stay at the trailer until Monday morning, then head home at our leisure. I can handle my regular work remotely from the back seat of the minivan as we trek across western Maryland for home.

I had a long nap this evening as I was still exhausted from a late night work shift. This probably means I'll be up half the night, but that's no tragedy: I have lots of reading material, a couple of writing assignments, a business plan to compose and some square dance choreography to create.

Comments

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

NAT. Buy a small NAT addressable router and use that to connect. If the Wireless picks up a MAC address, it should be that of the router, not the actual device. In theory. :)

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

Oh - and you might also just be able to use your smart phone. Connect smart phone to wireless access, then turn on wifi hotspot on your phone (if it has that capability - most android devices do). Then connect your devices to the hotspot on the phone, not on the campus wifi. Essentially, you'll be using your phone as a NAT'd router

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Nope, not going to work. We're too rural: this place is a radio frequency nightmare because we're so far from civilization in a terrain composed of tall hills and sharp drop-off valleys. My mobile phone can get "1X" data only outside the trailer at the edge of the deck and voice only sporadically. Other carriers are worse.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Might work. I've never met a NAT addressable router which connects via wifi short of an industrial expensive unit; home units I can reasonably afford will only connect to an ISP via cable, then feed via wifi. If you know of any models which can connect to the ISP via wifi and then providing NAT via wifi, send me model info so I can go shopping! ;-)

Wireless Bridge

[bigmacbear]

I have a device called a wireless bridge from Buffalo Communications. It is designed to deliver one or more wired Ethernet connections (mine has four) from a WiFi network. I used it to hook up a PC that was incapable of having a WiFi card installed to my wireless network (it was billed as being good for relatively dumb devices like printers and video game consoles). I suspect with the advances in WiFi technology, there aren't many new ones being made but it wouldn't hurt to check.

You would then a)register the wireless bridge with your provider as your sole WiFi device, b) hook up your WiFi router via cable to the bridge, and c) connect your devices via WiFi or cable only to the router.

I don't know if you would get into trouble with your provider by doing this, but what they don't know won't hurt them, right?