Campground WiFi Not What It Used To Be
Well, we’ve finished a nine-day tour to test out our new 2002 Winnebago Adventurer. We went to four campgrounds - two on the Maine coast, one in Vermont, and one in New Hampshire. The WiFi sucked at all of them.
The only one the WiFi was good at, ironically, was one we pulled into by accident.
Apparently it’s becoming fashionable this season to add WiFi to your list of campground amenities. However of the four campgrounds we went to, none of them had good park-wide coverage. We needed to use our home-brewed external antenna just to get a usable signal. And at our final campground, we couldn’t get any kind of signal.
The first place we stayed - Megunticook Campground by the Sea in Rockport, Maine - just had a store-bought wireless router hooked up at the office. We have to move to within sight of the office to get any kind of signal. It was offered and advertised as free, however. So I can’t complain too much.
In the second place we stayed - Wells Beach Resort in Wells, Maine - the WiFi didn’t extent much beyond the office either. Fortunately, they agreed to put us at a site very close to the office and the signal was fine. But the WiFi is essentially useless for doing any serious work unless you can get one of the few close sites, or want to hang out at the office all day.
I think the WiFi problem at the campground we stayed at in Vermont, Lake Champagne Campground, was just a fluke resulting from bad positioning. The park owner showed me the coverage map (when I went to the office to complain) and our site happened to be on the edge of both of the antenna coverage patterns. So we weren’t getting a strong signal from either of the park’s antennas. Unfortunately, they said they were booked up and couldn’t move us. Even with the external antenna, the signal would fade after a while and I’d have to get out and fiddle with the antenna to get the signal back. If you ever stop at this park, stay away from the K section, or sections E thru J.
In the last campground we stayed at, Danforth Bay Camping Resort in Freedom, NH, the WiFi coverage was clearly misrepresented. I drove down the campground’s main road, campsites on either side of me, with MacStumbler running and didn’t pick up a signal until I was almost in the parking lot of the campground office. Yet in their brochure, they have this statement:
“Wireless Internet access is included in your site rate. While wireless Internet service is available throughout the park, we cannot guarantee that each and every site will have adequate signal strength at any given time.”
I know for a fact the WiFi is not available throughout the park because I measured it. And their disclaimer begs the question: Why are they charging you for a service they cannot guarantee?
When we did our first tour last Summer, we didn’t have coverage problems to the extent we did on this trip - and that was a year ago when less was known about how to implement the technology in a campground setting.
I hope this is not the start of a trend - shoddy WiFi installations just so you can claim you offer WiFi. Get professional help, people.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I just got my first laptop and look forward to taking it along in my camper. I wonder if you know of any resources that would help me as a beginner. I need to know things like: Will I need to get a code to use the different wifi spots? Will I need to know my own passwords to access my email remotely? As you can see, I need ” WiFi for Dummies.” Thanks for any advice.