On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Jim Thompson wrote:
Putting a larger omni antenna on your AP is sure to make the problem worse. Your neighbor's signals will be "louder" to the AP as well.
I was planning to get a directional antenna that directs the "cone" of the signal down through the places where I usually sit and use the laptops. Ive been looking at the Buffalo stuff. Anybody have any recommendations?
I do, but they would only be commercial in nature, and this is a non-commercial list.
My only problem with this is that it might force neighbors to get antennas as well and Im back where I started. This is why I started looking at directional antennas so I can minimize stray signals from my AP.
Unless your antenna has a large backlobe, you'll probably make the situation better for your neighbors too.
Unless you point the antenna at them, of course.
Its likely if you have your laptops configured to associate to "any" ESSID, then they are, in-fact picking the lowest channel were an AP of "sufficient" stregth is found. I know for a fact that the firmware in the Agere 11b chipset starts at ch1 during its scan. Other chipsets may be different.
Ajai, does the situation improve if you get close to (in the same room as) your AP?
Yes, my main laptop works fine closer to the AP but if I move into the bedroom the connection is erratic. In fact, Ive noticed that it seems to "lose" the connection if I stop typing for a minute, almost as if the NIC goes to sleep and so loses the AP signal... usually switching to another window and starting a ping to the router wakes it up again...
it may be a firmware/driver issue, not related to RF at all. -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
