Dudley Walk and the Internet

This morning we awoke to a very light dusting of snow which had all but gone by the time we walked to Lidl for a few essentials at 11am.  In the afternoon I went for a local walk doing an anti-clockwise circuit which took me via Dudley Town Centre.

Our mooring at Bumble Hole.  Waiouru In the distance on the right.  I’m thinking of walking to the masts on the skyline.  There appears to be no access from this side of the hill so it will be another circular route.

Today’s walk took me through Warren’s Hill Nature Reserve and past Cobb’s Engine House to reach New Rowley Road.

Looking back.

More information on the history of the park here.  

The route took me into Dudley Town Centre and I was slightly bemused (but not surprised) to see at the other end of the Street the Toby Carvery where we had a Sunday lunch whilst moored at the Dudley Canal Trust.

Dudley Castle.

Over Christmas I replaced the operating system on our Samsung S4 phone and in doing so upgraded it to Android version 7.  I then exchanged the upgraded S4 with the Samsung S1 which we use as the boat phone.  The S4 provides a faster internet speed when configured as a “hotspot” in the boat.  I thought I’d been clever until I noticed five days ago that our monthly “hotspot” data allowance of 12,000MB had almost been used.  Our plan gives us unlimited internet data on the phone but only 12,000MB when configured as a “Hotspot” allowing other devices to wirelessly connect to the internet via the phone.  When I looked at the balance of our hotspot allowance we only had 512MB left to last the 18 days until the new month.  Drastic action was required!

I swapped the phones using the old Samsung S1 as the boat phone and reactivating it as the boat “hotspot”.  Unfortunately this didn’t arrest the problem and later that same day the allowance was down to 429MB.   After rummaging around in the back of the storage cupboard I retrieved the old Zoom portable wifi router.  We used the Zoom and an attached USB dongle for internet access when we first arrived in the UK and prior to me realising the phone could be configured as a “Hotspot”.  What I have done is connect the Samsung S1 to the Zoom with a USB cable.  I also downloaded a small program from the Zoom manufacturer which electronically connects the Zoom router to any Android phone with the now obsolete version 2.3 Android operating system.  The phone is connected to the aerial on the cabin roof (no change there) and the Zoom router is connected to the boat 12V system to keep its battery charged.  The Zoom also charges the phone through the USB cable.  By doing this the Samsung phone is no longer configured as the “Hotspot”.  Instead we connect to the Zoom wireless router.

The new setup is above.  The Zoom router on the left and the Samsung S1 phone on the right.  The two are connected by a USB cable.

Since I did this five days ago the new setup has achieved the desired result with the hotspot allowance remaining frozen at 429MB.

I couldn’t connect the Zoom router to the Samsung S4 and get the higher 4G speed because the phone uses a more modern version of Android (v4.4).  The Zoom will only connect to Android v2.3.