The Wi-Fi at Williston Crossings RV Resort has been very good since we got here.  There are professional grade access points with decent antennas positioned on towers all through the park.  The signals have been strong and steady, and the bandwidth generally very good.  Wi-Fi is always going to slow down when lots of people are using it, but the resort seems to have enough access points feeding into a robust enough router and gateway to handle the demands placed on the system by the residents.

A couple of weeks ago the resort announced that they were going to reconfigure the Wi-Fi system slightly and that starting on January 10 we would need a username and password.  We generally prefer “open” Wi-Fi signals since we connect to them with our roof-mounted Wi-Fi Ranger Mobile, which repeats the signal as a secure hot spot around out coach.  Our current configuration goes one step farther.  We have an Amped Wireless SR20000G Wi-Fi router/repeater configured as a bridge to the Wi-Fi Ranger.  The SR20000G creates a local area network to which we connect wirelessly along with a RAID 1 Network Attached Storage device connected via Ethernet.  The SR20000G then connects to the private/secure hotspot side of the Wi-Fi Ranger Mobile, which is connected to the wide area network on the public side and from there to the Internet.  It’s a great setup when everything works correctly.

In the past we have used our Wi-Fi Ranger Mobile successfully with both secure and filtered Wi-Fi networks, and both types are handled through the Wi-Fi Ranger web-browser interface.  Secure Wi-Fi systems require an encryption key, which is entered through the Wi-Fi Ranger control panel and stored for future use.  Filtered Wi-Fi networks are not secure.  After the radio and logical connection is established, you are taken to a web page where you enter a username and password and accept the terms and conditions of use.  Indeed, places like Panera don’t even bother with the username and password, they just want you to acknowledge the terms and conditions of use before allowing you access to the Internet through their system.  Fair enough, the Wi-Fi Ranger is designed to handle that as well right from the control panel.

We have had our system configured and working flawlessly right through yesterday morning.  When we returned from a day of hiking and visiting it was obvious that something had changed.  It still wasn’t working properly this morning so I inquired in the office and they confirmed that the guy who takes care of their Wi-Fi network had made changes yesterday and was working on the system today.  I reconfigured some of our equipment to use our Verizon Mi-Fi to get online and take care of e-mail and some BCM article tasks.  I called the Wi-Fi guy and chatted with him briefly, just to explain our setup and make sure there wasn’t any reason for it to now work.  I spent part of the rest of the day working with and reconfiguring our equipment and by late afternoon everything seemed to be back to normal.  I even found a better spot in the coach for the Verizon Mi-Fi device.

The day ended well, however, as Linda made whole-grain angel hair pasta with garlic, onion, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes, perfectly dressed in olive oil.  It’s one of my favorite dishes.