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Escaping WiFi Interference In The Modern Dorm Room?
j.cherney writes "I recently moved my son up to a dorm at Michigan State University. We set up a wireless router (D-link) and everything worked well-until the rest of the dorm moved in. Now he is getting intermittent outages which I am quite sure is related to the large numbers of cordless phones on the 2.4ghz frequency. So my question to everyone is: Is there anything that I can do to make wireless work in this environment? Obviously I'm not willing to buy everyone in the dorm a new cordless phone! Is one brand more resistant to interference than another? Is there a filter than can be installed? Or is he S.O.L.?"
1) Switch to 802.11a (in the 5.4Ghz range, so the cordless phones will not bother it)
OR
2) Wallpaper the dorm room with tinfoil (has the added benefit of blocking government mind control rays)
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I'm a 3rd year junior, I've since moved off campus but this is my suggestions.
1. The, IMHO,most logical suggestion. A dorm room isn't that big, buy a 50 foot cable. If you insist on keeping a wireless network around, try going for 11a equip. Kinda hard to find but a week or 2 ago, worst buy...er i mean bestbuy had a sale for a dual band 11a/b/g router.
2. See if there is a campus wireless, and if it covers the dorm areas. If yes, convince EVERYONE to kill their AP and use the campus wireless. As for the phones, not much you can do if you're not buying everyone a new phone.
3. You could try a game of "my transmitter is more powerful than yours" and use ext antennas to put out a stronger signal...but not that practical.
Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
> What does S.O.L. mean?
Sadly Outta Luck
If you have a microwave you know exactly how to build one. The freq. that a microwave functions at is damn near spot on 2.4 GHz so all you need is several rolls of metal window screen where the mesh size is the same as your microwave.
Oh Yah, you also need to make sure that it is well grounded, you can tie directly to the ground lug of any triple prong outlet, or steam pipe, etc.
Free Flat screen whatevers
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
> Sadly Outta Luck
Really? Seriously, I've always heard/said "Shit outta luck" , which really doesn't make any more sense, except that there is a reason to abbreviate it. Once you say it a million times tho' it doesn't seem to be anything odd.
Not that I'd claim my version is the authority however.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
Nothing you can really do in this case.
However,
my Belkin equipment has a special mode it says you should enable in high-interference environments. My guess is, it either adds additional error correction, or boosts the output, or something, at the expense of a little bit of speed.
You probably already read the AUP for MSUnet. It specifically addresses the issue of NAT devices, a common concern at universities. The issue is that normally a person must register their MAC on the network to gain access. Then any nefarious activity that occurs on the network can be tracked to the individual user who registered that MAC address. For now, let's ignore the possibility of being able to change the MAC address on some ethernet cards.
By introducing a NAT'd device, you open an entry point to the network to anyone, even those not with proper access, and you rely on the good will of these nameless souls not to do bad things in your name. So if anyone ever becomes evil while connected to your basepoint, it becomes your responsibility to deny access to your AP or remove it from the network.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
It doesn't suck at all. He's violating the AUP of his school, and his port will be shut off in short order, no doubt.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
1) Fire up NetStumbler (or your OS's equivalent) and see which channels are in use. Remeber that 802.11b/g "bleeds" both up and down at least one channel. Pick the "least-busy" channel. Failing that, pick the one with the weakest (i.e. "easiest to clobber") signal.
:-)
2) Depending on your school's policies, see if you can turn on bridging or otherwise share the connection (some schools are okay with it so long as you bridge and don't use NAT). If your connection works, others might use it and shut off their own connections. This probably involves talking to neighbors with their own APs.
3) Talk to a neighbor with an open AP and see if you can use that one rather than your own. Most people are cool about that sort of thing.
4) If you can't share, think about -reducing- the power of your AP, and see if your neighbors are willing to do the same. This is the airspace equivalent to "quiet hours".
5) Almost every new AP supports some sort of "interference robustness" or "microwave-safe mode" or something like that. All it does is reduce your MTU so that -some- of the packets make it through. Either turn this on, or manually reduce your MTU.
6) Think about Bluetooth, 802.11a, or other "alternative" wireless technology. Bluetooth shares the same frequencies, but is often able to get an across-the-room connection even when the wi-fi space is totally screwed up.
--
Try a patch, corner, or parabolic reflector located at the access point. It should do the job and if it doesn't you will not have wasted much time or money. Freeantennas has plans. You can use ordinary tin foil or screening to You want to orient the antenna to either block the interference or to project it's stronger coverage over your desired area. If that doesn't use a cat5 cable. -- ecks
Since the frequencies overlap... the way to minimize interference is by getting everyone on these 3 channels. 1, 6, or 11
Take charge... assigning channels to each on the floor... keep like channels as far apart (physically) as possible.
Then, using NetStumbler, find the channel that is least busy/least noise (of 1, 6, 11) for your own usage...