WiFi signal shape - where to place router

[Graham.]

I don't know how old I was when my dad bought me a junior hacksaw from Mr Saul at the hardware shop opposite our house, but it was a coming of age.

[Brian Gaff]

Very dependent on what is in the way, wall thickness and material.

Brian

[fred]

In article , Andrew Gabriel writes

I've got an Edimax 3G router and a separate AP but I've not seen any particular mode to enable handover, I thought it was standard when the APs share the same SSID, pass & encryption type (although I haven't tried it yet). Could you let me know which model you are using so I can have a look at the manual?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Quite old now - EW-7206APg.

It may indeed work like you said - I haven't tried it. ISTR is explicitly mentioned that it had support for this.

The 11g support didn't work well enough when I got them and I had to disable it, but a subsequent firmware update fixed that.

Other thing I liked about these is that they come with a 12V PSU, but have an internal 5V or 3V switched mode PSU. This means I can feed the power to them over the spare pairs on a long cat5e cable, and they don't care much about the voltage drop. A sort of poor man's power over ethernet without having to buy the expensive PoE parts. Also, the aerial is mounteded om the micro aerial connector, and in one case I put a several metre aerial extension lead in to mount the aerial remotely, and that works fine. Finally, they were quite cheap at the time from someone on Amazon!

One thing they couldn't do which my earlier netgear 11b-only ones could is to DHCP for their own management IP address, which can make swapping them around more of a pain. (I don't use their built-in DHCP server, and mine all operate in access point mode.)

[fred]

In article , Andrew Gabriel writes

Snap :-!

When I get round to trying it I will feed back on the results, it may be a while though.

That's a useful tip, I'll look out for that in future models if the need arises although I'm now more likely to be using all pairs to form a gigabit pipe and then fanning out from there.

I also got mine at a a bit of a bargain price but I like their support attitude too, easy to find full manuals, firmware updates and Linux source code of all things (not that I've used it).

On likes, I'm finding Zyxel excellent for small unmanaged gigabit switches at the mo, seem well made and they're in dinky little metal boxes that can be fitted in just about anywhere, good prices too.

As it needs to perform as a DHCP client in a couple of its modes it's a shame they didn't think of that but all in all I found it very easy to set up and it was my first AP.

[robert]

If you have a central staircase - placing it within the stairwell - e.g. under the stairs can be a good place.

[News]

In message , Ian Jackson writes

I have seen similar comments before, but am not sure what it means in practice. I have certainly not heard of anyone nearby being inconvenienced, and have been using these devices for several years.

We have a house and attached shop, with separate utilities, and I cannot use a home plug in the shop, via the house ring main, and cannot pick up a wireless transmission in the shop, from the house.

[charles]

They are probably on different phases.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It took a bit of dredging but here is the skinny on 'homeplug'

"HomePlug AV employs 1155 carriers, ranging from 1.80 MHz to 30.00 MHz."

That's above ADSL but not beyond SW and HF radio. Certainly radioation in that area is affected by walls as well.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Mine (Billion) is in the cellar, since that's where the old (cable only) one was. It covers all the house ok - and this is a three story building. Black art, RF. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Doesn't every computer tell you the signal strength?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Miner (billion) is in this room. I can get half signal in the bedroom across the corridor, and nothing anywhere else.

Foil backed plasterboard throughout,

However the whole house has structured wiring instead.

[tony sayer]

In article , Andrew Gabriel scribeth thus

Indeed it is the 2.4 G band is overloaded most everywhere. Use cable if you can;)..

[Mathew Newton]

They do, however often only on a rather crude graphical 4/5-step scale. The= real beauty however with apps like the one suggested is that they can also= display the signal strengths of other WiFi networks in the vicinity thus h= elping you select a channel to minimise interference (if possible).

Mathew

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So is mine. I just replaced the original cabled one with a newer one which had wireless too, when it failed.

But cable free is fairly essential with my phone. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So do both of my laptops. And my Nokia phone too - without getting a special app.

[Mathew Newton]

You won't find benefit in such a tool then given you've already got the capability. The advise was undoubtedly intended for someone that hasn't.

Mathew

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I was curious to know about any laptop that doesn't give a signal strength readout - and a list of all home networks within range.

If it doesn't give such a list, how do you tell it to log onto one?

[Simon Finnigan]

Theres a difference between the info given by Windows - network name and a grade 1-5 signal strength, compared to inSSIDer which lists all networks and their exact signal strength in dB, as well as channel. This makes it much easier to identify sources of interference and change channel to avoid them.

[charles]

The lapstop may well know, but not bother to tell the owner. A quick Google shows there is free software for the purpose. but i haven't yet dug our my laptop to do anything about it.