We are glad to be offering a limited but growing range of Marine services for Marinas and Boat Owners related to your computer and wifi needs.
Though we don’t directly sell components we have plan packages for helping boaters with wifi connetivity on their boats. We have looked at several of the companies products that are sold and marketed to the marine market, and though many of them are very good products, we feel that for the boater on a budget that they are very expensive. Costing from around $250 up to close to $500. Our systems in many cases are hardware wise close to or identical to these systems but average half the cost.
What you get from them is hopefully more free hands on installation support over the phone and email to make the 100% markup worth paying. As well as your warranty being with the same people that are giving you support. Don’t get me wrong. If you have the money to pay the freight, that sort of service is valuable, and they deserve the money they charge. I am not inexpensive when I do hands on installations and setup on these systems. You get what you pay for. What I am offering here is a very inexpensive, guided, ordering, installation and setup for the end user that expects you to do most all of the work with some detailed documentation on how to do the most basic setup and configurations that allow you to use these systems to provide Internet directly to your computer.
If you need more than this then I would recommend one of the more expensive companies that are directly selling these systems or to contact me if your in the local area and you purchase the equipment at the wholesale rates using my system 1 or system 2 recommendations and then hiring me to install and configure it for you. I will reduce my service charge by the cost of the system 1 or system 2 charge if I do the installation for you.
These plans are for the owner on a budget that is willing to setup and install the equipment themselves but that doesn’t know what to purchase. We have two different recommended setups.
- System 1 is a usb antenna access/router combination that is installed above deck with a 15ft usb cable that will allow you to plug directly into your laptop or boat computer system and give you 5x the range of the built in wireless on todays laptops. Theoretically you can connect to a access point from up to a half mile or more away. Local conditions could result in better or worse performance though.
System 1 at this time if purchased directly by the end user can cost around 80 dollars and at a minimum requires only two components. The antenna and the usb transmitter. For a 25$ consulting fee we will provide you with links to purchase the specific components from vendors on amazon.com and a pdf document describing how to install and configure the equipment. This would give you a system equal to what some of the marine wifi vendors are selling in the $250 range for around $120 after our consulting fee, the parts and shipping. - System 2 is a POE (power over Ethernet) system that looks and performs similarly to the usb version but that can be mounted more than 15 ft away from your computer (Max distance 300 meters. More than enough distance even for a large ship). The second system allows you to share the wifi connection among more than one computer at the same time also. You can mount this system at the mast head of a sail boat for example or on a stern radar arch or other location that is farther than a usb cable can reach. This system though the same power as the usb system can range considerably farther due to the ability with the longer cable length to more than double the range depending on how high you are able to mount the antenna to get a line of sight signal with no obstructions.
System 2 is a bit more complex to configure and requires more components. The base system depending on the model and power of the transmitter as well as the type of power supply, will include 5 components and cost between $120 and $200 dollars. The components are an antenna, POE transmitter, POE power supply (110 or 12 volt versions) and two ethernet cables. After our consulting fee for the product links and and directions of $25 your total price should be between $145 to $225.
Why you should pay our consulting fee? I know many people are asking why should you pay our fee for information that is freely available over the Internet. If you already know how to do this and what products to get or you have the time and inclination to learn how and what to get then you shouldn’t pay our fee. I do this for a living and have spent many weeks of research looking at the wide variety of products out there trying to find the most powerful and cost effective solutions both for myself and my clients. I have also as part of the R&D process purchased and tests all these products at much cost to my company. I bring a lot of value to this process and am willing to share it for a very minimal fee. To install this in person I charge many dollars an hour. 
It is how I pay for groceries, gas, clothes for my family and all the other things needed to live on or with. My goal is to help people that don’t have the money to pay me the +$100 to several hundred dollars in labor to install one of these system depending on the configuration but still make a few dollars toward my bills. What you get for your $25 is an email with direct links to all the products needed to put this system together on amazon so that you can purchase it all at one time in one place at very competitive prices. If you don’t want to purchase through amazon you will still be getting a list of the specific models and part numbers of each component that you can then search for elsewhere if you so chose. You will also be getting a pdf document with directions and screen shots of how to install and configure this equipment in its basic configuration to provide Internet directly to your computer using the USB system 1 setup or for the POE system 2 setup.
For marinas the POE version of this equipment can act as a access point to provide Internet to the boats in your marina this requires a different setup but the exact same equipment. In one of my current installations at a marina we have the transmitter and antenna mounted inside the marina shop in a window overlooking the boats. It is providing a very strong signal and data transfer rates for almost the entire marina by itself. The only potential problems is wifi has to have a direct line of sight, any buildings or trees between the antenna/transmitter and clients will cause problems. These units are designed to be mounted externally and can be mounted to poles on the roof or even bolted directly to the eaves of a building facing the marina.
We are perfectly happy to offer our discounted self help consulting price above to marinas or any other entity as well as to individual boat owners. We are also very happy to provide on site service locally to all individuals and organizations to install these systems at our normal hourly rates of 120 dollars an hour prorated to 60 dollars per half hour after the first hour.
Marine computer solutions
We offer expertise in several computing models from 12volt computers the size of a standard computer internal DVD/CD player to using netbooks or laptops. The services we offer are like the above recommendations for what to purchase and where to purchase it as well as detailed recommendations on how to purchase and use a USB GPS unit and free chart plotter software and maps to create an inexpensive chart plotter at your nav station below. We are also glad to provide help in installing, configuring and integrating all the different offerings listed here at our normal rates. At this point we have not setup standard packagse like the above units for the wifi solutions.
Please check back as these offerings are changing and growing as we work on expanding and improving our marine service products. If you are interested and want more information please give us a call or text us at 843-465-6555 or email me at scott@carleenterprises.com
We accept credit cards and paypal as payment, locally we also accept cash as well as business or personal checks.