Wireless channels

Hi

I have a wireless network setup and having problems with connecting my wireless radio. I was advised to find out how many competing networks are in the air, and on which channels? Also how do I check which channels I maybe competing with. I only know how to check the wireless networks in my area via Windows, and there are only 2 and they are not in my range.

Please let me know your comments. Thanks in advance.

Reply to
jayc
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On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:50:56 +0100, "jayc" wrote in :

See the wikis below.

You're welcome.

Reply to
John Navas

Thanks, I did a search using the links but cannot find anything specific to how I find out my competing networks are, not can I find anything relating to my AE Internet Radio having 1 or 2 bars of wifi power or less... this is the main issue. I know it's new technology but I think I may have to return the radio as it's just not working as expected....

If you have anycomments or help, please let me know.

Reply to
jayc

Did you not see Site Survey? Network Stumbler is a good way to find other networks, what channels they are on, and how strong the signals are.

Did you also not see Interference? Wi-Fi is subject to many types of radio frequency interference, as listed in the wikis.

And there's information on improving signal, notably the benefits of better antennas.

Does that help? ;)

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:26:39 +0100, "jayc" wrote in :

Reply to
John Navas

"jayc" hath wroth:

Any particular reason why you didn't bother to supply the maker and model numbers of your wireless devices? They could be ancient junk, incompatible, or known losers. Full disclosure is helpful.

Good advice. However, if you don't want to go through the trouble, just change your unspecified model wireless router to 1, 6, or 11 and see if any of these channels offer an improvement.

That's impossible for me to describe because I have no clue what operating system, hardware, drivers, or utilities you're using. You're posting header shows Ouchlook Depress 6.00.2900 so you're using XP. There's a better than 50% chance that you're using Microsoft supplied Wireless Zero Config. Find the icon that looks kinda wireless in the system tray (lower right of screen). If you double click when connected, it will show the channel, signal strength, and connection speed. The less than 50% chance is that you're using a connection manager utility supplied by your unspecified wireless device vendor. Double click on the icon and it should display something worth reading.

If you can see them with your unspecified Windoze client, and they are on the same channel, they have the potential to interfer. Note that the 802.11b/g signals are about 20MHz wide, which means that they occupy about 4 channels. That's why 1, 6, and 11 are the only non-overlapping channels. If you use one in between, you run the risk of getting interference from both adjacent channels.

Also note that there may be wireless LAN's that you cannot see with WZC or the vendors tools. The problem is caused by excessively clever security experts insisting that not broadcasting the SSID is some sort of security feature. It's not and the result is that it makes what you're trying to accomplish rather difficult. You'll need a Linux based sniffer (i.e. Kismet) in order to see everything.

Comment: What problem are you trying to solve? What are the symptoms? What is the distance? What's in the line of sight? What do you have for hardware? Softare?

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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