An Interesting Day

Well thus far it’s been an interesting day.  We woke to a misty morning and I spent 30 minutes of it on the mooring outside the boat talking to FMIL (favourite mother-in-law) back in sunny Sydney via Skype.  Normally I can’t get a data signal outside on the mooring so she was lucky.  I’m not sure if I really wanted to hear the temperature in Sydney was 29 degrees C. 

I was working on the external aerial when a hireboat pulled alongside Kelly-Louise.  It was Pat, a blog reader who had passed us on the way up the Llangollen Canal.  He’d met Jan but I’d been out walking the day he passed.  It was great to meet one of our blog reader and we hope he and the rest of the crew enjoy the remainder of their time on Emerald.

Pat heads towards Hurleston Junction on Emerald

The other interesting event was the arrival of the small red Royal Mail van with a package from Australia containing the “missing link” patchlead I’d ordered from Telco Antennas.

The patchlead links our external aerial to the Android Samsung mobile phone.

This is yet another photo of the aerial currently taped to the top of a boat pole.  There is an ice cream container tied lower down on the pole (not in the photo) which is used to contain the phone outside where it was sometimes possible to get a voice and data signal. 

However the only guaranteed Three Mobile Network signal was from the aerial.

The patchlead now connects the exterior aerial to the internal antenna socket under the back cover of the Samasung.

The phone is now inside Kelly-Louise rather than outside in the ice cream container.  And YES….!   We now have a strong signal on the phone from the aerial.

The red arrow points at the phone data symbol showing we have a HSPA strength connection.

Now the phone is inside the boat the strength of the wireless connection between the phone and the laptop has also improved.

So we can now make and receive phone calls from inside Kelly-Louise.  The phone can also be used as a wireless router allowing us to make use of our Three Mobile “all you can eat” data plan. 

Once I’ve trialled the setup for a few days I’ll probably drill a small hole in the Samsung rear cover so the patchlead can be attached without having to remove the cover.