Take care with your Vodafone dongle. The no-expiry service is not available on new dongles. I'm told that the old dongles are dedicated to the old SIM cards, so you can't just swap the SIM into a new dongle. The no-expiry dongle has to be used at least once every 6 months, and can still be topped up for £15 per 1GB. New dongles are £15 per 3GB but expire after 1 month.
The 3 network were giving 150MB free at each topup, but they've now stopped it. Apparently it was a mistake - it was only supposed to apply to phones and not broadband dongles. Dave Wedd. 2010/1/21 Trevor <[email protected]>: > Hi David, > > I'm actually using a PCLine four port thumb drive(unfortunately it is > only USB 1.1 spec so I'm getting regular nags about how USB2 is so much > faster .. lol ..) and tests, here at home this morning, have been very > successful - I've even managed to get a decent '3' signal (quite > unusually), although the dongles are probably at least a couple of > metres higher than previously. > > The fact that I'm also using a 5 metre powered USB2.0 active extension > cable, immediately before the thumb hub, might also have something to do > with that. > > Power supply to the dongles *was* a concern, before the tests, and I'd > found some 'Y' cables on Ebay - luckily I seem to be able to manage > without one :-) > > Everything is mounted onto a length of dowelling which then goes into a > white plastic pipe (black pipe isn't usually successful, I'm told - > although I haven't tried it personally - that this is due to the > inclusion of graphite to provide the black colour) on the advice of some > members of CARC who, apparently, often use this idea when building > aerials for their rigs which they want to keep neat and dry! > > The pipe itself is actually the leg from an old, and now defunct, patio > table and the whole assembly is going to be attached to the outside > bulkhead of the saloon, close by the side doors, using a number of > small, though extremely powerful, magnets - which I discovered whilst > rummaging through a box of bits that I discovered after taking over > 'Wyrd'! Doing it this way allows me to demount, and bring inside, the > aerial assembly if I am leaving the boat for any significant period of time. > > So, all the parts are OK - individually - I just need to put it all > together to make the finished product :-) > > Many thanks for the feedback - it is always appreciated! > > Trevor > nb.Wyrd - on the K&A > > > > On 21/01/2010 09:54, David Morris wrote: >> Two USB peripherals on the same physical port? Were you planning on >> using some sort of Y cable? That's not going to work. Two USB dongles >> plugged in to a USB hub would - the hub would handle contention and >> 'routing' between the two dongles. 500ma is the correct number, but it >> would need to be a powered hub. Some USB ports on desktops / laptops >> can supply 500ma - some fail dismally and use a Y cable simply to >> double up on the power availability. It's not uncommon to see these in >> use on USB 2.5 HD enclosures for instance. My Sony eBook reader >> shipped with one for the same reason - for charging. > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > >
