> Much more importantly to me, is it possible for *any* setup to allow me
> to use a configuration tool to see, and select from, available APs
> without having to do the manual resetting/configuration of some unit,
> whether by wifi or ethernet cable, as is the case now (understanding
> that I'm so thrilled with the end result that doing so is now a minor
> inconvenience)?

No and you generally do not want to do this. You should not just assume you
can connect to any random open SSID you might happen to run across. Yes,
it's often considered reasonable to "trespass lightly" on someone else's
wifi connection. But there are a growing number of situations where folks
have gotten themselves into trouble doing this. Granted, most of those
cases seem to have other circumstances involved, but it's something to
consider.

Let's say you run into two available SSIDs, both at the "same" signal/noise
strength. One's clearly labelled as the SSID for the nearby municipal or
other 'free' hotspot. The other's a network within a private
company/residence, one hellbent on prosecuting people it catches stealing
it's bandwidth. Wouldn't you rather avoid the trouble and use the one
that's reasonably likely to be free from trouble? Letting the device make
the choice isn't going to be as intelligent. Granted, the label shown in
the SSID might be completely unrelated to the source, or even deliberately
mislabelled as such. Some hacker could configure their device with the same
label and then deliberately scan the packets, stealing usernames, passwords
and the like.

Not to mention the hassles of hopping from one to another as the boat swings
about. While it'd sure be convenient if the devices could be smart enough
to do this "automagically" I've not come across any I'd trust to do this
(yet).

In some of my testing I'm leaning toward building a GPS lat/long database of
SSID's I've seen and correlating them as to which are suitable or not. That
way if I'm back in a given area the device might be able to make an
automagic connection based on previous knowledge. This isn't without it's
hassles though. Shore connection labels or MAC addresses might change so
I'd still be back to doing it manually. As it stands now it's not all that
hard to fire up my browser and select a bookmark for the 'Site Survey' web
page on the router. As things move forward I'm considering making a PC
client program to use from the system tray. But it'd be tied to a specific
type of router (in my case, WRT54's using dd-wrt).

> I'm (reasonably) sure having an 'a' unit is of little to no value,
....
> but we've had direct illustration of why a g is valuable.

Yes, b/g is great. Having 802.11a seems like a waste given it's rather poor
market penetration. One might also consider 802.11n devices but they've not
yet reached final standard yet. I'm guessing 802.11g will be more than
sufficient most of the time.

> Given that the Vonage unit has to plug its ethernet into *something*
> I'll likely have to have it between whatever bridge and the ap, anyway,
> and likely have it downstairs, so that's not an issue.

Yes, shore-link wifi to the vonage unit and through that to the on-boat
device(s). You generally should always have a VoIP device on the first
connection to the uplink. This to allow the VoIP device to manage the
limited bandwidth for calls. You "could" bring the shore-link device's
wired connection to a multiport switch and plug everything else into that.
But by doing so you're not letting the VoIP device grab as much bandwidth as
it needs to maintain a good quality connection.

Frankly a VoIP device on the boat is unlikely to work reliably. For several
reasons. One being that you'd be connected behind the shore's router. Most
VoIP services need a direct IP address, not one behind a router. Since you
have no control over the shore devices the VoIP device won't have a direct
address.

Skype isn't VoIP and doesn't share the same issues as the client makes it's
own outbound connections. VoIP devices do not, they sit waiting for an
inbound connection and since the onshore router isn't configured to pass
such things it won't work. It might work for outbound calls but very
unlikely for anything inbound. Use Skype with SkypeOut minutes instead, the
call quality's likely to be better anyway.

-Bill Kearney