Lifehacker provided this great post today on strengthen your home wireless network signal. Here are some of the tips provided:
*Place the base station centrally on an upper floor, or atop furniture, because radio waves spread best laterally and down
*Reception will be better if the signal does not have to travel at steep angles and if it doesn’t have to go through thick walls, mirrors, fish tanks or anything metal
*Use access points as boosters throughout the house to rebroadcast your wifi signal around problem areas
*Place wireless network components far from other devices in the house that can cause interference, like cordless phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors or halogen lamps
*Change the default signal channnel (usually set to 6) to avoid interference with neighbors’ network devices
A few points to consider:
The AP route can be problematic depending on the hardware. I started with that route but found that my devices were having trouble getting IP addresses from the router thru the AP – even though it was all Linksys equipment.
Second, another route is to increase the signal output – the Linksys WRT54G and GS have open source firmware that has been hacked to, among other things, remove the cap on transmission power. It’s easy to find this on the ‘net (eg. http://www.sveasoft.com). Do this and your neighbours may not like you very much, though.
Finally, some wireless routers can be configured with higher gain antennas – that’s what I used with the Linksys to extend my range when I had to trash the AP.
Oh, one other thing – pre-n is now trickling out and the airgo equipment in particular seems to be getting a lot of attention for range and speed improvement.
“Strengthen your Home Wireless Network Signal”
Posted by Grant Griffiths: “Lifehacker provided this great post today on strengthen your home wireless network signal. Here are some