THE
RV PC HACK
©
2004 Tor Pinney - All Rights Reserved
Early
last spring I sold my business, moved into an RV, and took off
traveling. I have been on the road 6 months now, cruising from
the U.S. East Coast to Alaska. During this time I’ve managed
to access the Internet nearly as often as I like, staying in
touch with friends and family via email and maintaining an
active web site. I also use an Internet telephone account to
make and receive phone calls through my laptop whenever I’m
online. For anyone contemplating long-term travel and wanting to
stay “connected,” perhaps some of my own experiences and
discoveries of late may prove useful.
Choosing
a Computer
I’m
addicted to the worldwide web and email communications. I also
like to write and take pictures and have come to rely on
computers for word and image processing. This fall and winter I
plan to store my RV and do some trekking abroad, traveling with
just a medium-size pack, and eventually I’ll be moving aboard
a cruising sailboat again, returning to a lifestyle I have
enjoyed for much of my adult life. For all these reasons, I gave
careful consideration to the laptop computer I would bring with
me. It had to be especially small, light, powerful and rugged.
At
the time – this was in December 2003 - my research indicated
the laptop best suited to my needs was the Panasonic Toughbook
CF-W2 and that is what I bought. After using it full time for
the past 7 or 8 months I’d say it was a good choice. The
machine has a lot of excellent features and has performed well.
The only downside is the tight keyboard, which took some getting
used to
I
bought the Toughbook while I was wrapping up my business
affairs, before I moved into the RV. This gave me time to
install the programs I wanted and transfer personal files from
my home-office desktop computer, which I was leaving behind.
Digital
Photography
During
that time I also hired someone to scan every single print
photograph I possessed, a prodigious task that took more than a
month since the collection spanned five decades and filled as
many boxes. Digitalizing all those photos has enabled me to
bring them along on my laptop’s ample 40-gig hard drive. Now,
while I travel, I am gradually sorting them and enhancing many
of them in Paint Shop Pro 8, a program featuring excellent tools
for improving digital photos. Taking my time, it may take me
years to work through them all, but the fun is in the doing.
Scanning
print photographs in such volume is something I won’t have to
do again; I switched to a digital camera a couple of years ago.
To accompany my new laptop and help me record my upcoming
travels, I bought a new camera, an Olympus C-750 UltraZoom,
about the same time I bought the Toughbook. It serves my
purposes admirably, being compact enough to carry in a belt
pouch and powerful enough to produce fine, high-resolution
photographs. I particularly appreciate the camera’s 10X
optical zoom, which helps me capture distant subjects outdoors.
Internet
Connections on the Road
Warning:
New computer viruses circulate constantly on the Internet, but a
traveling computer is unable to automatically update its
anti-virus program to maintain optimum protection. Therefore,
every time you log onto the Internet, BEFORE you download email
or browse the web or do anything else, be sure to manually
update the anti-virus program first. It only takes a minute. If
you don’t have a manually updateable anti-virus program,
you’d better get one. I use Trend PC-cillin, which has worked
faultlessly for me for several years now.
Once
I hit the road, I discovered a variety of ways and means for
getting online. I should mention here that although more and
more commercial RV parks are offering Internet connections to
their overnight guests these days, I have never once stayed in
such a place. I prefer the roads less traveled and the places
less visited; free, secluded campsites along National Forest
back roads and streams, in the countryside and on empty beaches.
Still,
I manage to get online quite often. Of course, when I visit
friends with cable or DSL I simply plug in. On the few occasions
I have had to use a telephone modem connection, I’ve logged on
through NetZero.com, an ISP (Internet service provider) that
allows users up to 10 hours a month of free connectivity. You
really don’t need to pay to have your own ISP, like AOL, when
you’re on the road. As you will see, most of the time an RV
traveler can more easily log on through someone else’s
provider. I have never even come close to using up the 10 free
hours a month allowed by NetZero.
It’s
also possible to connect through a cell phone, and this may be
the best solution for many RV travelers. T-Mobile offers a
convenient cell phone with Internet package, their GRPS Service
(but watch out for expensive roaming charges). If you’re
spending most of your time near large population centers in the
US or Canada where cell coverage is available, this is by far
the easiest way to keep your RV PC connected to the Internet.
Unfortunately, a cell phone connection was not an option for me.
I was planning to hang out in the Northwest US National Forests
where cells generally don’t work, in western Canada where
there is no cell phone service at all outside of a few big
towns, and in the wilder parts of road-accessible Alaska where
coverage is sparse to non-existent.
When
I do go into a town I can usually find an Internet connection.
In fact, it’s the first thing I look for. Sometimes I’ll ask
at a visitor center or the local chamber of commerce. They’ll
often know of a couple of places. Sometimes they even have a
printed list to hand out. However, when I ask for wi-fi hotspots
I almost invariably receive a blank look in reply. Wi-fi
(wireless Internet) seems to still be a bit esoteric for the
average person on the street.
Public
libraries are a good place to look for an Internet connection,
although it is rarely wireless. A few I’ve come across are set
up to allow a visitor to plug in their own PC, and one on Orcas
Island off the northwest coast of Washington actually provided
wi-fi in addition to cable connections. That was the exception,
however. I’ve found most public libraries are only equipped to
let you use their computers to go online, and librarians are
often nervous about even letting you try plugging in your own
laptop directly to see if it’ll work on their system. When
they do let you try, either you will be instantly online via
their direct cable or DSL connection, or else you will not be
able to connect through their intranet at all.
In
the latter case the choice is to either use their computer or go
elsewhere. I don’t like using someone else’s computer to log
on. I much prefer to download incoming email into my own laptop
to read and file at my leisure, and I usually compose and answer
emails when I’m camped out in the woods, to be sent next time
I log on. In addition, I often want to upload files from my
laptop’s hard drive to my web site. I can’t easily do these
things using someone else’s computer.
Many
coffee houses today offer Internet connections, cable or
wireless or both. Some of them charge; some don’t as long as
you buy something while you’re there. These cozy Internet cafés
are a pleasant alternative to sitting alone in my RV, and I use
them from time to time.
Lastly,
Internet stores are turning up in more and more towns. For $5 or
$10 per hour, usually broken down into 15-minute increments, you
can use their computers or your own laptop with their high-speed
connection. A few charge half-price for having your own machine
instead of using one of theirs. These stores are my last resort.
If they’re the only connection in town and I really want to
get online, I’ll use them.
Wi-Fi
Of
course, the RV PC hack’s holy grail is a free wi-fi hotspot,
and finding these on the road can become an art and an
obsession. A wi-fi hotspot is an area where an Internet
connection is available through localized radio waves rather
than through a hardwire cable hookup. As long as your computer
is set up to receive these signals and you’re within their
typically limited broadcast range, you can get online without
plugging in.
My
laptop came readymade with a built-in wi-fi card and antenna to
access wireless signals. Computers without this feature can
usually be upgraded with a plug-in wireless PC card and a small
external antenna. For the RV vagabond the appearance of the
screen message, “One or more wireless networks are
available,” is always welcomed, kind of like finding money on
the street.
If
you’re already online you can often locate some local hotspots
simply by doing a search at web sites that list them, such as www.jiwire.com.
However, they often don’t list all of them for a given town,
and sometimes they don’t list any at all where they actually
do exist. New wi-fi hotspots are springing up all the time.
Anyone with a broadband Internet connection and a hundred dollar
Linksys transmitter can create a one.
One
tactic I use to find hotspots is to set up my laptop on the
passenger seat of my RV and slowly cruise through a town or
city, watching for that heartwarming “One or more wireless
networks are available” message. Not all of the signals are
useful, however. The provider of a wi-fi signal can, if he
chooses, block access to it so that only those who know the
password can log on. These protected signals are obviously
intended for the benefit of members or paying customers only and
are therefore of no use to me. It’s the free, unblocked wi-fi
signals I’m looking for.
When
I come across an accessible hotspot, I pull over and see if I
can spot the source. Whoever is transmitting a wireless signal
gets to name it, and the receiving computer displays that name
or “tag.” Sometimes the tag will indicate plainly that
it’s coming from this office or that café. Others bear
cryptic names that have no obvious meaning to anyone besides the
owner. If I can’t guess the signal’s source, I might move
around a bit in an effort to home in on it, but regardless of
whether or not I ever actually locate the signal source, once
I’ve got a strong connection I’m in hacker’s heaven. I can
then sit in the comfort of my motor home with a hot mug of tea
on the table and Mozart on the stereo, sending and receiving
emails and surfing the web to my heart’s content – for free!
I also make all my phone calls then, which I’ll tell you more
about shortly.
Of
course, none of this costs the wi-fi provider anything. I’m
just getting onto the Internet using their already existing
connection.
During
these months traveling in my RV I have found wi-fi signals in
some interesting and unlikely places. Once I pulled off
Interstate 40 at one of those exits where a bunch of motels, gas
stations and chain restaurants are clustered together, a
commercial oasis in the middle of nowhere. On a lark, I booted
up the laptop and bingo! There was a good signal coming from a
Best Western motel. (No doubt about it. The tag actually said
“BestWestern”). So I parked discretely in a corner of their
parking lot and spent a happy hour emailing friends from the
Texas prairie while tumbleweed rolled across the road two blocks
away.
On
another occasion I had parked way out on a beach point near a
town on Vancouver Island. I had already searched the small
community for a wi-fi hotspot without success, yet when I fired
up my laptop to do some writing a strong wi-fi signal magically
appeared. I was surrounded by ocean, sand and city park land,
yet I sat chatting with friends back East through my laptop as
though I was next door. My best guess was that the signal
emanated from the high school’s administration offices on a
hill nearly a mile away, but I never really knew (and it never
really mattered).
Most
recently I’ve been using a wi-fi signal I found on the town
docks in beautiful Seward, Alaska, broadcast by one of the tour
boat operators there. I park my RV a stone’s throw from their
cabin-like ticket office and surf and email and make phone calls
while gazing at glacier-clad mountains across the bay where bald
eagles fly and bears fish for salmon in the streams.
Internet
Telephone
In
addition to staying connected with my RV PC via email, I also
have an Internet telephone account with Vonage (www.vonage.com).
This is one of the relatively new, groundbreaking Internet
telephone companies that are, I believe, heralding the end of
home and office telephone service as we have known it. Rather
than using traditional telephone systems for phone calls, the
technology uses the Internet to carry voice communications. This
enables the calls to avoid expensive switching fees and a host
of petty taxes that drive up “normal” phone bills every
month.
As
a result, Internet phone calls are less expensive than ordinary
calls. Vonage’s Residential Basic 500 plan includes the first
500 minutes of domestic (US and Canada) phone calls for $15 per
month plus a little tax. That works out to about 3-cents a
minute, with no hidden costs or tricky add-on charges. If you
use up the 500 minutes, I believe they then charge 4.9-cents a
minute overtime, but I've never yet used up the 500 minutes in a
month. International calls are extra, but the rates are just as
reasonable.
They
have unlimited minutes plans, as well, and all the packages
include voice mail and most other popular conveniences. The
system works seamlessly with normal telephones, and if you call
another Vonage customer the minutes are free, not deducted from
your monthly allowance.
Unfortunately,
Vonage’s standard package and service require a bit of
hardware (which they give you), and a hardwire connection to the
Internet. That’s fine in a stationary home or office, which is
what it was designed for, but it won’t work in a moving
vehicle and it won’t work with a wireless connection.
The
good news is that Vonage also offers what they call a SoftPhone
package, which does work directly through a laptop computer and
a wireless connection, and without the extraneous hardware. The
bad news is they would not sell me the SoftPhone package alone.
I had to first sign up for the Residential Basic 500 plan, which
I cannot use, and then add on the SoftPhone package for an
additional $10 plus tax per month. So I’m paying for two
500-minute plans each month, but am only able to use one of
them. Hopefully, Vonage or some other Internet phone company
will improve upon this policy soon.
Meanwhile,
the bottom line is that I am paying $28.73 (including tax) a
month to have wireless Internet telephone capability, including
voice mail that is accessible both by telephone and online. I
can park my RV (or just myself with my laptop) in any hotspot,
plug my operator-style headset and microphone into the computer,
and chat with friends and family as if I were calling from a
landline. Note that with the Vonage system you cannot make or
receive phone calls except when your computer is actually
online. The voice mail service, however, works all the time.
People can leave messages whether you’re online or not, and
you can retrieve them anytime via Internet or telephone.
This
winter my Internet telephone account will represent an even
greater value to me. I plan to be in New Zealand and will have
my laptop with me. Vonage treats all my phone calls as
originating in the United States no matter where in the world I
happen to be logging onto the Internet. When I log on over
there, I'll still be able to use my Internet telephone system to
call anywhere in the US and Canada for free up to the 500
minutes per month included with the package I have. I’ll pay
no overseas charges at all!
Charging
the Battery
The
Panasonic Toughbook CF-W2 has a decent battery pack. According
to the specs it lasts longer than most comparable laptops before
it needs to be recharged; that was one of the features that
first attracted me to it. Still, I use my computer quite a bit
and have to recharge it pretty much everyday, sometimes more
than once. Unlike the home or office hack, I can’t just plug
it into a wall socket overnight. In an RV that’s camped out,
i.e., not plugged into an outside source of electrical power, I
have to generate my own electricity. I do this either by running
the engine so that the alternator is putting out 12v DC power,
or by running the RV’s built-in generator, which produces 110V
AC electricity.
The
12v DC alternator charges both the engine’s starter battery
and the house battery, a deep-cycle battery that powers the
RV’s interior lights, the pressure water system’s pump, and
some other stuff. To use the house battery’s 12v current for
charging the laptop’s battery, the 12v DC electricity first
has to be converted to 110v AC power. For that purpose I
installed a small power inverter in a cabinet above the dinette.
The inverter pulls 12v DC electricity from the house battery and
changes it to the 110V AC current needed for the laptop’s
plug-in converter. I wired the inverter’s output to a standard
wall plug I installed in the dinette area, where I most often
use the computer. So, when the laptop’s battery needs
recharging, I simply plug it into that wall socket and switch on
the power inverter. Presto! The laptop is fed the energy it
needs. (Actually, the Toughbook requires 16v DC, so there is a
final step in which the 110v AC is converted by the laptop’s
own power cord converter.)
This
recharging works out especially well when I’m doing a lot of
driving. The engine is running anyway and the alternator is
constantly replenishing the power drawn from the house battery.
If I’m staying put for a while and not running the RV’s
engine to recharge the house battery, then I make the 110v AC
current I need by firing up the more fuel-efficient generator,
which most RV manufacturers build in as a standard feature. The
generator feeds electricity directly into the RV’s wall
sockets and I can plug the laptop into any one of these to
recharge it. The generator also powers a small battery charger
that will slowly recharge the house battery.
Antennas
Capturing
strong wi-fi signals is the key to happy RV PC hacking. A
salesman in a computer store back in Oregon sold me a pricey,
omni-directional external antenna, claiming it was much more
powerful than my laptop’s built-in antenna and would enable me
to access wi-fi signals from up to a mile away and more. I
bought it and the PC card needed to connect it to my laptop. The
4’ long, fiberglass-encased antenna did seem to help a little,
but it didn’t give me anything like the one mile range the
salesman promised, and the hassle of erecting it outside the RV
each time I wanted to use it was usually more than the slight
improvement in reception was worth. In the end I tended to leave
the antenna up more often than I should, projecting several feet
above the roof of my RV, which already stands 10’ above the
road. One day while hunting for wi-fi signals in downtown
Kamloops, British Columbia, I pulled up to a curb to park,
failed to notice an overhanging tree branch, and snap! There
went my expensive external antenna. I'd like to try out a
directional Super Cantenna (www.cantenna.com), but
haven’t gotten around to it yet. For the time being I manage
to find enough wi-fi signals to carry on just using my
laptop’s built-in antenna.
~
As
computers and the Internet continue to evolve, people are
finding new ways of applying these tools to suit the way they
live and work. Footloose travelers like me can now stay as
connected as they want to be - almost. I foresee the day when
satellites will broadcast continuous, omnipresent, broadband
wi-fi signals worldwide, so that we’ll be able to log onto the
Internet while parked in an RV in the deepest forest or sailing
a boat in the middle of the ocean. In fact, the beginnings of
that technology are already available, but that’s another
story altogether.
~
End ~
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