<div dir="ltr"><div>My wife and I did a WarWalk through downtown on Monday.</div><div>City Hall at Laurel & Franklin had a bright, strong radio signal, but no upstream connection behind it.</div><div>I bet they are reconsidering the value of their PEG franchise with Comcast. They should be.<br></div><div><br></div><div>The Redwood Coast Senior Center had both electricity and public Wifi. However, as the week</div><div>wore on, the quality of the internet connection degraded. But that might have been due to</div><div>the load as word spread and people started using it. Headlands coffee shop had a generator <br></div><div>running yesterday, but I didn't check for Wifi.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I work remotely for and internet company, so no internet for a week is not an option.</div><div><br></div><div>--<a href="http://us.imdb.com/Name?Stewart+Dickson">http://us.imdb.com/Name?Stewart+Dickson</a> <a href="http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~sdickson">http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~sdickson</a></div><div><a href="http://mumstudents.org/~000-10-8151/Lab1/aboutme.html">http://mumstudents.org/~000-10-8151/Lab1/aboutme.html</a></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 1:40 AM bO Shmo <<a href="mailto:bo@immaculateflame.org">bo@immaculateflame.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Mendocino Coast Tech Guild - to facilitate technical education and community business startup.<br>
Hi Stewart.<br>
<br>
As you are learning now, Fort Bragg has a terrible shortage of<br>
publicly accessible WiFi. This is mostly a nation-wide problem, but<br>
Fort Bragg is less hospitable than most other towns of it's size that<br>
I have computed in.<br>
<br>
Moody's in Mendocino might be your best bet for a coffee shop connection.<br>
<br>
Since you've already mentioned a long-term solution for your home, be<br>
aware that most of that 15 Watts is being pumped out of your router in<br>
the form of radio waves (probably). You should be able to access your<br>
router's configuration with any web browser, and switch off the WiFi.<br>
You would then have a functional router (in the classic sense) that<br>
you physically plug your computer into with a Cat 5 cable. Ping me if<br>
I can give you any tips about that.<br>
<br>
Reason #1 why the 'WiFi-off' solution may not help: Laptops typically<br>
dissipate 65 Watts or more, which makes your router's power<br>
dissipation much less significant than the use of other devices. Many<br>
laptops actually use 90W on average. Monitor size is a big factor<br>
here, but so are processor speeds and high-performance graphics cards.<br>
If a 15W router is compromising your battery charge, then you are<br>
going to need a second, more powerful battery to run any device too<br>
large to fit in your pocket. The inverter which converts your DC to AC<br>
will also waste a lot of charge.<br>
<br>
Reason #2 why the 'WiFi-off' solution may not help: Telecom<br>
corporations in the US are scamming, blood-sucking, parasitic<br>
bastards. Your router might have been sold to you by a telecom. In<br>
recent years, some telecoms have sold routers without admin passwords,<br>
so you literally cannot configure your own device (Verizon = guilty).<br>
But this really should NOT be a problem for you, because everybody<br>
*should* be using an after-market router, anyway. Just make sure that<br>
whatever rectangular device which functions as your modem is not also<br>
broadcasting any radio signals, and then perhaps the 'WiFi-off'<br>
solution is right for you. On that note, If your modem is separate<br>
from your router, which is most typical, then you could plug directly<br>
into the modem, and remove your router from the equation.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
bO Pierce<br>
+1.580.530.6660, text messages only<br>
<br>
No people have ever significantly reformed capitalism without<br>
threatening its existence.<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div>