RV Park thoughts, suggestions & ideas.

[rox]

Eddie,

If you have that many trees then I'm sure everybody will find a spot to hang their patio lights. if some get configured where the trees aren't there, you have the sugggestions.

Good luck on the internet, i think that one is going to really be a challenge for you. My suggestion would be to create a seperate topic on TBN as will as check out websites where the techies hang out. Try Googling "Designing a Wireless Computer Network" I took exactly one networking college class and it was very basic and although the main concepts haven't changed, it is way beyond me. Good luck ont he network, and that is really what you need, design build and maintain a computer network.

I did Google "Campgorunds + Free + Internet + Access" and there is one in your area that does offer it free, but his business looks much smaller than what your are building, so you do have a real challenge ahead of you. There were a lot of campgrounds with free internet, and Wireless. If I was a betting woman, I would bet that you pull it out, and figure it out, and you have "Happy Campers"

 

[mike4038]

Here is A lot of Info on internet services provider for the camping and outdoor hospitality industries.

TengoInternet: Wireless Internet Providers: WiFi Location directory for RV Parks, Campgrounds, Hotels and Motels

good luck

 

[DANOCHEESE]

Eddie: The advantage to using coax is that you would only have to build one distribution system. TV, Voice and Data. Yes this can all be done in an IP network but try and buy the headend for IP $$$ I would put wirelss in the common areas. I wired up a small park in California ( boy do they have rules about RV parks) We were able to feed everything with CAT5 Ethernet topology, cat3 telephone and coax drops from local cable provider. We even added a park channel so the manager could sell some advertising and post announcments. I imangine your park is more remote, so your first issue is getting wholesale product ot the edge. There are options that will not break the bank. Today we installed a newer technology wirelss access point and were getting great results at 1400 feet sitting inside a van. So when you are ready to start building your network, start a new thread and you will get some ideas about what is out there. It is getting better everyday.

 

[CurlyDave]

Dave,

What's a "node?"

Back in the days when I was really up on this stuff (dinosaurs still frolicked in most major cities), a node was a router, or a transmitter, or a hub, or a switch, or a wireless access point. Basically a box which somehow processed the internet connection.

Essentially, cat 6 wire can carry a lot of data, much more than any wireless connection. If you distribute WiFi transmitters around your park, each one can handle 10 to 30 connections. I am thinking that each transmitter would have a cat 6 wire connecting it to some kind of major league hub back in your office. (Now in the world of the internet "hub" has a specific meaning, which is not the way I am using it here.)

Anyway, you would need a very fast connection for the whole park and a way of dividing up and sharing that connection with the individual sites.

I suspect the way to deal with permanent vs. overnite sites is to rely on the limited range of WiFi, which is about 300 feet. If the transmitters in the permanent section have a way of requiring monthly payment before they will work, and the ones in the overnight sections don't have this, it will work out just like you want.

To me, the whole idea is to install cat 6 wires while you are doing the rest of the wiring in the park. This gets them in at minimal expense. Then wait until about 3 or 4 months before you open to put in your final system. By then everything will have changed and the available equipment will be faster, cheaper and better than what you could buy today.

 

[gemini5362]

Eddie I apologize you opened a topic in your thread that has very specific language. Most of it you can get from just doing a google of the terms. Let me see if I can make it a bit simpler to understand and anyone that wants to jump in here and say I am wrong be my guest. Think of the internet as a train on a track with passenger cars. If you want to get into one of the cars you have to have a door to get in the car. Think of the door as a NODE. It allows you to get on the internet. I used the term POP (point of presence ) Maybe a good way to describe that is a major train station the ones with the tracks that are on a turntable that lets you connect to all the other tracks. That is what a POP is. Wi Fi you already know. Cat 5 is a cable that has 8 wires and actually reminds you of a good old fashioned phone cable on steroids. Cat 5 cable will allow data to flow on it up to speeds of about 100 million bytes per second. dont worry about what bytes are the speed is the important thing for this discussion. cat 6 cable is 8 wires also but allows data speed of up to 1 billion bytes per second (1 billion bytes per second is the same as 1 gigabyte) cat 5 and cat 6 are the same size and look alike. The only way I know of to tell the difference by looking at it is to read what is stenciled on the side of the cable. cat 5 wire is probably going to be a lot cheaper but I have not priced it in a while. with Cat 6 you will be ready for advances in technology that give higher data rates and it will be a lot easier to support a large group of users with the higher speed cable. Like a lot of things about your park if you use cat 5 or cat 6 that will be a monetary decision versus a performance issue. you will see me at some point in this discussion use the term collision. It is kind of what it sounds like. When you get data going on the same lines if you dont have some good way of sorting it out the data collides and you lose it. If you lose it then it has to be resent. If you keep having to resend it then it clogs up your system and performance suffers. Dave used the term hub in his last post. I believe he used it as a generic term but it actually is a physical piece of equipment. In my post I used the term hub and switch It is my opinion that a hub is a total waste of money here is why. If you have a 8 port ( ports are just where you physically connect wires to the equipment an 8 port hub would have 8 places to hook up the cat 5 wire to) If you have an 8 port hub anything that is sent into the hub from your main computer to go out to one of the other computers on the system will be sent to each and every one of the ports at the same time. If it is being sent to only one computer then each computer would have to sort throgh all the data for every other computer hooked to that hub looking for the data being sent to it. Basically that will slow down system performance and also really makes optimum conditions for data collisions. If you have an 8 port switch this is an intelligent device. If you send data to a certain computer and that computer is hooked to port #3 it knows that it only needs to send data to that port so it does not send it to every port. Hopefully you can see how much more efficient that is. Several years ago hubs were relatively cheap and switches were very expensive that has realy changed in the last 5 years and switches have gotten relatively cheap. Down to the point where it is really not cost effective to use a hub. coaxial cable is just like the cable that you use to hook up your tv with. My problem with it is that it does have the data carrying capability of even cat 5 cable let alone cat 6 I believe but am not positive but it is only capable of about ten million bytes of data per second. The other problem with coaxial cable is attenuation. As you put data through a cable the farther it goes the weaker it gets this is called attenuation. All cables do it some just worse than others. This can be worked around with amplifiers but they are an expense and have to have power ran to them also.

People that have talked about useing wi- fi have a good point. It would solve a lot of your problems here is my concerns about wi-fi.

1. Your trees I dont know how bad they would block the signal.
2. power, wi-fi is Radio Frequency energy the power of RF reduces in reverse proportion to the square of the distance. I used to remember the constant used for measureing the power but essentially to use easy numbers not real life distances. if at 2 feet it is half power then at 4 feet it is not 1/4 the power it is 1/16th the power etc. It has been a long time since I played with this stuff but I believe that is the correct way of looking at it. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong. The FCC controls how much power out you transmit that is not something you can change. Where you make changes is in the antenna. all formulas start with an omni antenna it transmits equally in all directions. You can get a higher gan antenna which basically transmits all of its power in one direction and none in the others. the better a job it does of putting power in one direction the narrower the slice of pie shape that you recieve that power.

4. Wi fi has a lot more security to get set right to use sine it is broadcast and anyone can use it they use more security to make sure that only the intended computer can use the system. This takes a secure connection and any time you add security you add someone haveing to be able to talk a potential user through problems that happen when you try to connect.


As dave said you can put 10 to 30 users on a wi-fi system. I know hotels have hundreds of users on wi- fi but i dont know how they have it set up. they might have routers that talk to antenna systems that control 10 to 30 units.

This has gotten to be a very long post so I will stop now and hopefully that will answer a few questions concerning terms.

 

[CurlyDave]

I know hotels have hundreds of users on wi- fi but i dont know how they have it set up. they might have routers that talk to antenna systems that control 10 to 30 units.

They have many routers, about one for each 30 rooms. Sometimes they have external antennae, sometimes they just use the ones that come with the routers. I used to stay frequently at a hotel where they had this type of a system. Sometimes one of the routers/access points would need to be reset and I convinced them it was far easier to just let me power cycle their system than to move me to another room where the WiFi worked, or call in someone to fix it at night. I got reasonably familiar with their system after the manager bootlegged a key to the equipment rooms for me.

I don't know if they are all set up as routers, or if most of them are set up as simple wireless access points. Usually a wireless router is less expensive than a WAP, even though it has greater capabilities. Probably because they are many, many times more common.

It is usually possible to "dumb down" a modern router to just be an access point.

Security is a red herring for Eddie's system. He wants an open system that anyone in range can access.

At my property in OR, my wireless security is based on the 300 foot max range of my base station. Our house is in the middle of 40 acres, which means I am 650 feet from the property line in all directions. I limit the transmit power in software down to about a 100' range.

One might say I have the world's only 12 gauge wireless security system, with a canine backup...

In CA, I use WEP encryption.

 

[jwstewar]

Eddie,

How far apart are the permanent from the overnight campers going to be? I'm asking because if you have a permanent camper on edge, they might still be able to access the wireless connection w/o paying. Then the rest of your perm campers are going to be upset that they have to pay for their Internet. I think you are going to find the perm campers will be upset anyway with the nickle and diming them. Rent, electric, and Internet on top of that.

Sorry, just my .02.

 

[rox]

If you do go wireless, and charge the monthy campers, and offer if free to the ovrnights and weeklies, if I were a monthly, I would just carry my laptop over to the area that had the free connection and work there. The battery on my laptop lasts pretty long.

Also you are right about the elctric meters. When we had our permenent campsite with no electric meters I did use an electric heater rahter than propane when it was jsut chily. When it was really cold I had to use the camper heater and use the propane.

 

[rox]

Electric Meters- Eddie what I think you would liek to do is provide a fixed amount of electricity included in the renatl amount, whether nighly, week-end or monthly. Affter that amount you would like to charge the guest.

In my supreemly non technical terms, isn't what you are looking for more of an electric regulator rather than an electric meter? Very basic

There is a new connection/new guest mechanism that is activated. The guest is assigned XXX amount of electricity. After xxx is reached the power goes out and the guest ust go to the office and "fill up" thir account with electricity. Rather like a debit card. Whne you hit zero you can't buy anymore until you put more money in.

Really what you want to do is just charge those customers who go over the limit, not read everybody's meter and charge them each according to use. What is to stop people from dragging their extension cord over to their non metered neighbors Main and plugging in for the night and then pulling the plug in the morning before any camp staff are out and about? I want to say that i would never do that, that overt stealing, but I bet people would. Remember there are people, even over here on TBN, who brag about always using 2 parking places so their precious vehicle won't get scratched.

So you want to regulate xxx amount of electric to a site, and then turn it off. I actually prefer just turning it off, rather than having to run after people, "Hey you went over on your electric usuage, please pay me xxx" I think it would be much better to just cut that electric, and then have them pay in advance for another XXX amount of electricity. If the electric goes off in the night, the food is not going to spoil overnight until people can get to the office in the morning and "fill up" their electric account. Yarly campers/Monthly campers are not going to leave the a/c running during the wor week while they are not there, becasue fo the fear of running out of electric while they are away. I'm guessing there must be "elecric regualtors" manufactured as others I am sure have thought of this also.

Reminds me of those light switchs that are on a timer. on the wall switch is a little flipper, you dial the flipper down to 6 o'clock and the lights ocme on. The flipper toggles back, tick-tick-tick to the up position, and once it hits 12 o'clock the lights go off. In concept it seems like you could have the same type of system for your electrical use.

I know i would like electric included in my rental fee, however I wouldn't mind if it was limited. I bet we rant he air conditioner perhaps 3 times in all the years we camped, so I know I would ever hit the maximum limit allowed. Other people had their air on constantly, and really I never could figure out why. An actuall shut off of electricity immediatly notifies the guest that thy have reached the limit, rahter than being surprised bu getting an electric bill form the office at the end of the month.

 

[Bird]

Rox, I think your suggestion for electricity billing is certainly a novel idea, but personally, I don't think it would be practical. Neither you nor your customers would want to run out of electricity in the middle of the night or when there's no one around the RV. And I think it would be a record keeping problem. From what I know of RV parks, it's customary for the daily rates, and usually even for weekly rates if they have such, to include the electricity. And at least a few years ago, it was quite common in the south for them to ask whether you had air-conditioning, and if so, to charge an extra $1 to $2 a day for that. But for monthly customers, each site has its own electric meter.