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Improving Indoors Wi-Fi Reception?
VirtualUK asks: "I was given a WiFi base station and PCMCIA card for my laptop as a Christmas present so that I could read slashdot...urm I mean work, in any room in the house. When I read the manual it stated lofty figures of being able to work up to hundreds of feet inside office environments, so I felt that it would be more than capable of being able to allow me to stay connected in my tiny house. It seems however that the WiFi gods are against me as I tap this posting in the next room to the WiFi base station, a mere 20-30 feet away, just regular so-thin-I-can-hear-an-ant-fart walls, no kryptonite, no lead cladding and yet still I struggle to get a constant connection. I've found that shifting the laptop to face different directions sometimes helps, but as should it be this hard at such short range? Is there anything I can do to make my WiFi work better in a house environment?"
I found with my laptops that the position of my hand with respect to the antenna affects link quality.
On one laptop, the PCCard slot is toward the rear of the machine, so there is normally no effect unless I move my hand way over.
On the other laptop, the PCCard slot is toward the front and I have to watch that I don't have my hand resting over the antenna when I am not typing.
To check this, pull of the Link Info screen of your Wireless LAN Configuration Utility and watch the bar graphs as you move your hand.
The simplest and most enjoyable way is to simply increse the chances of line of sight.
Step one find sledge hammer
Step two move hammer at rapid velocity at wall
Step three Come up with good excuse for spouse/land lord/parents
Step four enjoy incresed range of WiFi