Wifi

[Inspector Fenwick]

Sorry but the wifi this year is worse than ever. Near the red barn.....half a bar. In the Cub parking area....half a bar and unable to connect..vintage hangar,where I am manning a table....very good. It is the eaa wifi that is non existent. C,mon guys!

[John Carrier]

Larry:

We'll have someone take a look at it. In the future, please either send a note to eaawifi@gmail.com or call 920-230-7831 for assistance. When you call, please provide the location number of the Wi-Fi you're attempting to attach to. There is signage nearby.

Also, you might want to check the 2012 AV Grounds Map (see http://airventure.org/planning/schedules_maps.html). It shows the locations of the hotspots or Wi-Fi stations.

John

[FlyingRon]

It's non existent in the camping area behind the Hangar Cafe. Oddly enough while sitting with my laptop out at Pt. Magoo it worked pretty well.

[John Carrier]

The Hangar Cafe is serviced by a consumer grade DSL access point. Unfortunately, the broadcast won't go much farther than the building itself. West of that, it is a "dead zone."

[FlyingRon]

So is this ever going to get fixed? Vintage doesn't rate I guess.

[dougbush]

Do you have a radio in your vintage aircraft?

[John Carrier]

FlyingRon:

All areas of AirVenture are important to us; unfortunately, the location of Vintage and those venues south do not have the benefit of infrastructure (e.g., optic fiber, commerical-grade access points) to handle the Wi-Fi need. Instead of providing no Wi-Fi, we're doing the best we can given the infrastructure (e.g., copper) available to us. Expanding our Wi-Fi presence on the grounds can mean a significant capital investment. Directing limited funds towards this would mean less investment in other areas - AirVenture related and outside of AirVenture. Make no mistake, communications remains a key component of our AirVenture future planning initiative.

John

[CarlOrton]

John;

Just wanted to say that, for me at least, after 5 days, I see a marked improvement over past years. I can actually make calls to others in my party, send/receive txts in a timely manner (not an hour later), and 4G coverage decent for data needs. Wifi still a bit iffy, but that's more dependent on my location. All in all, given the number of users, it's much much better. Home quality? No, but any improvement is welcome!

[Eric Page]

Can't speak to the on-site WiFi as I haven't used it, but my AT&T iPhone has been doing pretty well with 3G signal. I haven't made any voice calls, but data is working fine. Better than it does most days at KPHX, actually.

[dougbush]

Access is better than previous years, but can we please get rid of the login screen? It's just wasted bandwidth, as is the subsequent re-directing to the AirVenture home page. I couldn't download a NEXRAD image during the big storm today, probably because hundreds of other people were getting the wifi login screen, which they didn't want either.

[TheGreatFlight]

How is it for campers this year? We've been wanting to camp, but I have to have wifi for my job, so we decided not to chance it this year and are just driving back and forth like usual.

I had no issues with the wifi today. And down by the vintage area and beyond, my 3G worked great.

[Inspector Fenwick]

Larry:

We'll have someone take a look at it. In the future, please either send a note to eaawifi@gmail.com or call 920-230-7831 for assistance. When you call, please provide the location number of the Wi-Fi you're attempting to attach to. There is signage nearby.

Also, you might want to check the 2012 AV Grounds Map (see http://airventure.org/planning/schedules_maps.html). It shows the locations of the hotspots or Wi-Fi stations.

John

Wifi did not exist this year in the Vintage parking area. Two days I walked, south to north, from the tall pines to the Red Barn. Nada, zip, zero, nuthin' (except, of course, for the Tall Pines wifi, and the Vintage Hangar wifi). We are always parked in the same rows, but are a bit south this year because of the Cubs.

I did email to the address in the email......no response.

I will say that, because of my pitiful work life, I must have connectivity in order to keep things runnin' back at the office. I left at least a day early but this is not EAA's problem, it is my problem.

We have been spoiled with wifi (same parking location) for at least the past three years. I don't know what happened this year that took that away. I saw a post about getting a signal at Point Magoo, which was probably about 150' from my Oshkosh Office (aka "my plane")....I gave up on the wifi on Thursday so nuthin' doing for me.

Don't worry, though, the North Korea style wifi will NOT keep me away from my favorite place on earth next year, Airventure.

[John Carrier]

Larry:

Yes, as the map indicates, Wi-Fi is limited in that area. If you were fortunate enough to connect, the access point may have been saturated by other users/devices. As for the email to our help desk, your email note was interpreted as feedback for improvement for next year, not a request for immediate response/resolution for this year. I apologize if this was not the case.

John

[Inspector Fenwick]

Larry:

Yes, as the map indicates, Wi-Fi is limited in that area. If you were fortunate enough to connect, the access point may have been saturated by other users/devices. As for the email to our help desk, your email note was interpreted as feedback for improvement for next year, not a request for immediate response/resolution for this year. I apologize if this was not the case.

John

thanks John....I appreciate all the efforts in this regard. What I don't understand is that we had reliable wifi in the same area for the past three years, so, I guess everyone expected it. Also, the EAAwifi did not even show up as a network on my morning walks from Tall Pines to Vintage.

We just got used to having it, I guess.

[John Carrier]

Larry:

Not sure what to say about past years. Model has remained relatively unchanged over the past three years. As for not seeing EAAWIFI between Tall Pines and Vintage, this is true. Those Wi-Fi spots are served by DSL access points and have unique SSIDs (e.g., Tall Pines, Vintage Cafe). We put them up, but they are not part of our fiber enabled network.

John

[FlyingRon]

It was my understanding that the godawful trench dug through the middle of the classic taxiway last year (not not properly backfilled making it a hazard to taxiing aircraft) was fiber.

[John Carrier]

No, the trench was dug to run power and a phone line from the Red Barn to the Vintage Membership kiosk. A conduit was also put down to accommodate a future fiber run.

[Treetop_Flyer]

Larry:

Yes, as the map indicates, Wi-Fi is limited in that area. If you were fortunate enough to connect, the access point may have been saturated by other users/devices. As for the email to our help desk, your email note was interpreted as feedback for improvement for next year, not a request for immediate response/resolution for this year. I apologize if this was not the case.

John

I was in Row 75E and could see the WiFi access on the iPad, but was never able to connect. I suspect it was Saturated as you state. It would be great to see this on the capital improvement plan for 2013.

Aside from that, the mobile coverage was much better this year. No dropped calls at all.

[Mayhemxpc]

Similar to all of the above. It seemed that my last visit in 2010 it was much easier to connect from most locations (or most locations where I was, anyway.) This year seemed impossible. In many places I was getting a signal, but unable to connect. In Scholler (my first and only time that I will camp there) if you were more than 200 feet away from the WiFi spot there was no signal at all. (OK, maybe 500 feet. Maybe.) Were there THAT many more people trying to connect this year?

[John Carrier]

I suspect that 2010 was better for two reasons:

1) The inclement weather kept some people off of certain access points, which likely helped lessen some of the network traffic.
2) The proliferation of smart devices (with large data appetites) wasn't as great.

Keep in mind that most mobile devices will automatically attempt to attach to any available public Wi-Fi, and will attempt to grab more than one IP address. To help control this, we require acceptance of the Terms and Conditions before a user can connect to the web. Also, we time-out after about 1 hour so that others will have an opportunity to take advantage of the service. As for getting a signal, in most cases, we toned down the access point broadcast. While this made the Wi-Fi less accessible to those further away from the point, it did allow us to provide a better internet session for those within 150 feet.

Providing ubiquitous coverage, or deeper coverage in the outlying areas, requires considerably more infrastructure than we can realistically justify at this time. As a result, we established Wi-Fi stations and other venues (e.g., campground internet cafe, N40 retail tent computer bar) to augment our wireless service. Similar to a shower house, this means an individual must go to the (Wi-Fi) location to obtain the desired service.

[MEdwards]

My experience on the south side was similar to the others'. No WIFI signal anywhere in Vintage. It wasn't saturation, there just was no signal. There has been some signal the last three years, there was none this year. Something was wrong this year.

I did connect successfully during a visit to the North 40, so I know it can work routinely.

As for the local hot spots, not a bad idea, but they didn't work for me. I tried at Tall Pines and at the ultralight barn. Good signal both places, but my laptop was unable to connect. Tried several different times, nobody around, so it was not saturation. It just didn't work. If connecting via those local hot spots is different, requires different settings, than your EAAWIFI service, then you need to tell people that.

I, too, wrote to the email address you gave. Got no response. I guess to you "It doesn't work" means "think about fixing it next year."

[Jim Hann]

I was able to connect in Scholler, much better than last year although it still had a tendency to drop off after about 20 minutes. Guessing it was my distance from the hotspot by the west camp bath house (at or in my camper @12th&Sunset.). John, good improvements over last year, I hope you can build on that success in this data hungry world!

[John Carrier]

The settings between EAAWIFI and the DSL-enabled Wi-Fi locations (e.g., Tall Pines, Hangar Cafe, Vintage Cafe, and Vintage Barn) were basically the same - both were public, broadcasting, and unprotected. However, the EAAWIFI locations, in most cases, were fiber attached, they required T&C acceptance, and they would time out after about 1 hour. The DSL locations were outfitted with consumer (not industrial) grade DSL devices with little ability to configure/customize - you just hopped on. We provided the DSLs so that at least some Wi-Fi would be available at these locations. Without them, the farthest south we would be able to provide Wi-Fi would be the Communications Center. It is quite possible that the DSL devices became overwhelmed by demand. Although not as convenient, we did offer other Wi-Fi enabled locations.

I again apologize for the email snafu. Although messages were checked, my help didn't realize some messages were an appeal for help versus pointing out opportunities for improvement. This will be corrected next year. However, we also provided a telephone number that one could have used to explain their situation and seek assistance.

[Treetop_Flyer]

Thanks for the great responses, John! Sounds like your team is already hard at work for 2013. Those of us craving connection at Oshkosh thank you and your team for your efforts. It's going to be a growing process every year as more and more "gadgets" show up. Seemed like I saw way more people with iPad's in 2012 than in 2011.

[nickn]

The DSL locations were outfitted with consumer (not industrial) grade DSL devices with little ability to configure/customize - you just hopped on.

If the lack of ability to configure the consumer devices caused an issue, why wasn't an aftermarket OS such as DD-WRT installed? While not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, I have successfully used off the shelf WRT54G routers with DD-WRT installed to support up to around 30 concurrent users.

John, from what the forum is saying, it seems like many users were either having trouble finding a signal, or could not initially connect to the local access point. For both of those issues, the backhaul infrastructure, which is what you keep citing, is not the problem. You said the budget was low, but has the I.T. department looked into getting some better access points? I wasn't at the show this year, but last year, it looked like you only had 2.4 Ghz nodes set up. Was that the same this year? While of course I didn't go around and take a full site survey, a quick scan in one location revealed that there was an extreme amount of activity over the entire 2.4 Ghz band, causing every channel to have a large amount of interference. If you haven't done so already, perhaps you could buy some multi radio /multi band APs, and use band steering to move all capable devices over to the 5Ghz band. Meraki (http://www.meraki.com/solutions/high-density-wifi), for example, sells several decently priced multi radio APs with large antennas, which would also help with the reception issues. In addition, Meraki has a nifty and easy to use cloud based management UI that would allow you to check on the health of, and gather data from, all of the APs on the grounds. You wouldn't need to wait for users with problems to come to you, and then have to remember what number AP they were on, as you could immediately see and log what nodes were overburdened as the show was going on.


I was in Row 75E and could see the WiFi access on the iPad, but was never able to connect. I suspect it was Saturated as you state. It would be great to see this on the capital improvement plan for 2013.


In many places I was getting a signal, but unable to connect.

[Eric Page]

For those having trouble with WiFi signal strength, you might consider making yourself a directional high-gain antenna. They're quite simple and work amazingly well if made properly. Shouldn't be too much of a challenge for a bunch of aircraft homebuilders.

Click here (http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html) for a site with simple instructions to build a DIY "cantenna" for WiFi.

Here's an Amazon link for the required N Female Chassis Mount Connector (http://www.amazon.com/Coaxial-Connector-Type-Panel-Square/dp/B000AAHN78/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1343700042&sr=1-2&keywords=N+female+chassis+mount), and here's a link (http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?productid=1549&cat=264&page=1) for the connector and the required coax cable as a kit (choose RP-SMA for the cable, unless your laptop has some other style).

Speaking of coax cable, you'll need one to hook the antenna to your laptop. For most computers, you'll need an RP-SMA Male (internal threads, central pin socket) connector at one end and an N Male (internal threads, central pin) connector at the other. Look here (http://www.data-alliance.net/servlet/-strse-43/RP-dsh-SMA-dsh-male-ANTENNA-CABLE-10-dsh-FT/Detail) or here (http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Reverse-Weatherproof-Connector-TEW-L202/dp/B000EREM6C/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1343697296&sr=1-3&keywords=sma+male+to+n+male).

If your laptop doesn't have an external antenna connector, you'll need to turn off its internal WiFi adapter and use a USB adapter instead. Don't worry, they're cheap. Look here (http://www.data-alliance.net/servlet/-strse-264/Alfa-802.11n-USB-Wireless/Detail), here (http://www.data-alliance.net/servlet/-strse-232/alfa-USB-Wireless-WiFi/Detail), here (http://www.data-alliance.net/servlet/-strse-61/alfa-500mW-USB-Wireless/Detail) or here (http://www.amazon.com/GMYLE-Wireless-802-11n-Network-RTL8191US/dp/B003Y6UNI6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1343701194&sr=8-6&keywords=usb+wifi+adapter).

To disable your internal WiFi adapter, use the appropriate hot-key combination. If your laptop doesn't support hot-key hardware switching, or you don't know what I'm talking about, do this: Click "Start," "Control Panel," "Device Manager." Expand "Network adapters." Click to highlight your wireless adapter. Click "Action," "Disable." To re-enable your internal WiFi, follow these instructions but at the end, click "Enable."

One final note for smartphone and tablet users: you're out of luck. Without an antenna connector or USB socket, the built-in adapter/antenna is your only option.

[John Carrier]

Thank you for the Wi-Fi recommendation. Our Wi-Fi infrastructure was essentially unchanged from last year - we made little investment in it given other capital needs. As for the technology available, we are well aware of the options. We tended to steer away from 5Ghz systems given its reduced range and ability to penetrate obstacles (we have a very unfriendly Wi-Fi environment).