Road trip technology

[Posted on 27 July 2009 by Henry] | One Comment

Internet
I am sure road tripping has come a long way since the days of Route 66. Case in point, Angela is driving right now and I am typing away on a laptop. Two days ago we drove into a residential neighborhood in Indianapolis to bum wireless internet connection off of somebody. What you do is you pull off to the side of a residential street and scan the wireless networks in the vicinity. You need to find a network that is unencrypted.

Though you may find an unencrypted network, you may not have a strong enough signal for practical use. Move your car forward by a few houses and see if the signal improves. If it does, bingo! You are getting closer to the person from whom you are “stealing electricity”. We got our connection this way and were able to make our hotel reservation for the night.

Tunes
Invest in a new car audio deck with a USB port on the front. I got mine for $150 and it is very good. With a USB port, you plug your iPod right into it with your standard iPod cable. The port even recharges the iPod.

Electricity

I installed something called a power inverter in Parker. It is a transformer-looking device that allows you to plug in electronics as if you were plugging them into a wall socket. You can buy a cheap 300W inverter that you plug into the cigarette lighter for under $30. If you just need to charge your phone, that will suffice. But for a road trip, invest in a power inverter that gives you at least 500W, and connect the unit directly to the car battery. You won’t drain the battery as long as you are driving. I have a 700W inverter that cost $60 and the installation was $45.

GPS
Everyone has a GPS these days, so I don’t have to go into it. But personally, I think GPS works most of the time, not all of the time. The other night, in central Pennsylvania, we were ready to throw our Tom Tom out the window. It doesn’t know all the roads. You still want a good old fashioned map as a backup. Besides, reading maps is fun.