Re: [Hampshire] Wireless range

Thought I would just send you all a quick update now I finally had
time to play...

I moved my wireless router back above the door to my office where the
old box was. Velcro does the trick, excellent suggestion! I amso asked
my work IT goys to check the wireless on the VPN box was off (since I
never use it) so it should not be causing any interference.

Using my Dell D400 running Ubuntu 8.10 from the dining room I get a
signal strength between 60% and 70% all the time. I can pick up only
one other network and it is on a different channel and a very weak
signal. So that should not be causing any problems.

My wife's Compaq WinXP machine however still had trouble.

So then I enabled broadcasting the ESSID. Wife's machine is instantly
happy. Not such a good signal as I get with my laptop but at least it
connects now and though it often drops the connection it seems to be
able to pick it up again pretty quick.

I am still unsure why that machine should find it so much more
difficult to get a signal compared to when we used my old router, but
c'est la vie I suppose. Maybe I should invest in a 802.11n card or USB
dongle for her with RangeMax, that may make a difference.

Thanks to everyone for the many helpful suggestions.

Rich



2008/11/11 Richard Danter <radanter@???>:
> Hi again,
>
> New thread, different problem. :)
>
> My wife is having real problems getting a network connection from our
> dining room. That is less than 10m from the router! I know we have
> solid walls (it's a '60's house so not much plasterboard, unlike
> modern houses) but this is rather pathetic.
>
> Problem is really since I got my new Netgear router. The old one was
> much less powerful but I was able to screw it to the wall just above
> the door to my office and though the signal was not great it was
> reasonably stable in the dining room. The new router has to sit on a
> shelf since it does not have any screw holes. I am thinking that maybe
> I could put a shelf above the door, and maybe that is a good way to
> go, but I wonder what else I can do.
>
> Can't only be me with solid walls, any other suggestions. Don't really
> fancy running a wire to the dining room since it is opposite side of
> the house so would mean going up between the ceiling and upstairs
> floor, and kind of makes the whole idea of wireless pointless.
>
> The other thing I thought about was placing the router more central in
> the house, but I use all 4 of the wired ports on the back too and it
> would mean a very long wire from the cable modem (and 4 more back to
> my other boxes). Also the wired connections are Gigabit and long wires
> are not ideal.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks
> Rich
>