I sailed to Spain several years back and my Groove Antenna and MicroTik (2015 vintage) have been working just fine in my marina. However, recently the marina “upgraded” their wifi system and apparently configured it so that the Groove cannot connect to their signal. I also tried connecting with a repeater, and had the same issue. The antennas see the marina wifi, but when told to connect, they just “hang”. I have been informed that some marinas are, these days, configuring their systems so that cruisers cannot use antenna boosters. I am wondering if there is a possible work around out there that somebody may know of, since the signal from the marina is not that great.
Hmm… it’s pretty difficult to block specific types of devices with modern WiFi systems unless you have a very sophisticated one which usually aren’t found in marinas.
I assume you have kept the firmware updated on your MikroTik? It could be that they have disabled some of the older bands as well, so you might try disabling some of them and trying the more modern ones to see if that helps.
If they do have a modern system, they could be blocking it based on the MAC address range that MikroTik shows up as. You could try changing that (most MikroTik allow this) to something else like a range from a more mainstream device.
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I have tried changing the MAC address. Didn’t work. I was told by Bob at IslandTimePC that some marinas have been blocking routers. I also attempted to connect to the marina wifi using a standard repeater station. Again, it saw the signal but could not connect to it.
Ah darn on the MAC address change. It could be they are using more advanced control software, in which case they can block things where they detect other devices “behind” the device that is connecting to their network. I don’t know why they would want to do this since it ends up being a better service if you have a dedicated device connecting to their network instead of a bunch of devices in a boat with low signal levels. The only case I could see where they would want to do this would be if they charge you per-device or something like that.