On-the Road Internet Access?

[Cathunter]

More than once I have been far from home and realized I was missing waypoint data or other information that could easily be had if I had access to the internet.

With many businesses, homes, mall, schools, etc with high speed internet connections these days, I would think that there must be a bunch of places one could go to for a temporary internet connection to use while out caching. With the expansion of wireless, i’m sure there are even some places a wireless connection can be had from the parking lot.

I hope that we can form a list of places to go to do just that. Do you know a place that anyone could go to get online? If it’s wireless, what is the logon procedure? If you know of a place- please post details here.

[WISearchers]

Cathunter:

Many small Coffee houses offer free wireless connections, but who knows if you are Podunk, WI. Many hotels will also offer what is called a “hotspot”. They are becoming more and more popular, but even here in Madison their are only a handful. Even our local Starbucks stores do not offer them, but a few coffee shops downtown do.

Here is one of many sites that offer the information you require, but again they are somewhat few and far between. (I searched “wireless hotspots” in google.)
http://www.wififreespot.com/wi.html

Here is a list of cybercafes in WI: http://cybercaptive.com/zz/z270.html

With an Earthlink dial up account, when I travel for business, I carry a list of Local Dialup access numbers on my Palm (downloadable from their website). In a situation like that, I would stop at a hotel lobby and plug in to the lobby phone. (have a donut from continental breakfast while your at it LOL.

By the way, if you are ever by my house, you can park in my driveway and use my connection

Hope that helps!

Tony (Mr. WISearcher)

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[kbraband]

I don’t have WiFi yet but plan to go that route soon. Currently I use my cell phone for data connections to my laptop to check email when I’m on the road. It’s too slow for web browsing. I do know that Pere Marquette Park and Cathedral Square Park in downtown Milwaukee are both free WiFi hotspots. You can pull up to the curb in your car and log on. In addition to the site Tony mentioned, you can find others here: http://www.jiwire.com

[Paul]

We use a Sprint Phone to access the internet through a laptop if need be while away from home. It’s pretty sinple but then I know you don’t have a Sprint cell phone.

Paul

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PWB – Comet Cache Chasers
http://www.cachechasers.com

[greyhounder]

Some McDonalds now have Hot Spots too!

Bec

[sbukosky]

I bought a WI-FI card for my laptop two weeks ago when I found out the Baymont that I was staying at had it. I don’t know if all have wireless but I’m thinking that if they have, being an Ovations member, they might give a person the code if you pull into the lot and ask them for it. But for just getting cache page info, I’d think wireless dial-up would suffice and be a lot easier than running around for hot spots.

[GrouseTales]

It’s too bad the wireless phone modems are so darn slow. I use my cellphone as a modem on my laptop on occasion.

I’ve use mine for pulling up radar images on my laptop while I’m out storm spotting, or to check email while camping. It’s nice to have if you’re out caching and need to look something up.

Along the same line, I’ve been able to surf the internet on my PDA by means of an infrared connection to my cellphone. This proved very useful last year while I was on a turkey hunting trip. I didn’t have time to print out nearby caches before I left home. With my PDA/cellphone, I was able to find all the nearest caches, and even log them while at the cache

I have a built in wireless card in my laptop. I also found a program on the internet that scans for open wireless networks, that you could connect to you wanted. I have found it entertaining to drive around the block and detect wireless networks. I’ve never attempted to access them, nor do I advocate doing so. I can tell you that about 90% of the wireless networks I’ve detected, DO NOT have their security features turned on. This basically means anyone with a wireless card could surf the net on that network, if you’re in range.

A little word of advice, if you have a wireless router on your computer, TURN ON the security features. Change the default security passwords, enable mac filtering. Activate the WEP key settings.

Like I said, most networks are unprotected. People hook up these wireless routers and never active any type of security features on them.

[Paul]

The Sprint connection is like 140 Kbps.

Paul

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PWB – Comet Cache Chasers
http://www.cachechasers.com

[WISearchers]

Finally! Jeremy read my mind (and Cathunter’s)

Now you can search for, view, log a find. grab a travel bug, AT THE CACHE SITE from your cell phone!
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=79671&hl=cell

Mr. Burns says…. “EXXXXCELLENT!”

Mr. WISearcher

[This message has been edited by WISearchers (edited 09-20-2004).]

[cacheseekers]

Yep, Geocaching.com has setup http://wap.geocaching.com so you can use your phone to browse/log/find caches where ever you are

Generally what we do when we need access while on the road is find an open wifi spot by using some software on the laptop to ‘sniff’ for open wireless networks

If you get a wifi card and need access, go near hotels. They tend to have open access for their guests That and head down a pretty dense residential neighbor hood, you’ll eventually find one. (We even found one out in the middle of the country once!)

Nick

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of The Cacheseekers

http://www.cacheseekers.com

[WISearchers]

quote:

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Originally posted by cacheseekers:
That and head down a pretty dense residential neighbor hood, you’ll eventually find one. (We even found one out in the middle of the country once!)

Nick

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I’ll be sure to bolster my firewall and keep all of my Top Secret files off of my computer when you’re in Deforest, Nick. LOL

Tony

[cacheseekers]

*grin*

[houseofbrew]

http://rtr.ca/geo

is another good place to log caches with a cell phone. It has a few better features on it than the wap.geocaching.com.

[Flushingrouse]

There’s a new Ice Cream Shop in “downtown” Merton WI. that was offering WIFI for awhile.. I don’t know if you had to go inside to get the password/etc. or not.. I never tried it out…

Just FYI my friends!!

[GrouseTales]

This wap.geocaching.com works pretty good on my cell phone. There are lot of steps to get through the menus, but if you need to access the site in the field, it will come in real handy.

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“There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting and grouse hunting.”
-Aldo Leopold, A sand county Almanac

Brian
WGA President
Grousetales at wi-geocaching dot com
KC9GMW

[Author]

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