Air Port questions..

[RNKIII]

OK, multiple questions time...

1. What signal strength should I expect from my AirPort?  Am using iStumbler (Thank you, ABD) and it is reporting mid-60% signal strength to my 20" Intel at a distance of 3 ft. or less.  My wife's G4 Macbook is showing 3 bars at a distance of 30 feet and on another floor.  Was showing mid - 40s to lower 50s before I did a reset on the Airport. (Paper clip method).

2. How do I change channels on the Airport and will that have an affect on the signal strength?  And will the Airport cards in the computers 'follow' the change or is there something I will have to do with them?

3.  Does the type of security assigned to our Airport / network have any affect on the signal strength / connectivity???

TIA, for any and all assistance


Bob K.   rnkiii

[chriskleeman]

Hi Bob,

Well, I ain't no expert on this, but I can tell you this:

1. I think that 60% strength at 3 feet means that you're Airport is sending a weaker signal than it should, for whatever reason. 3 bars of strength, at 30 feet, even though it's through a floor is a low signal as well, especially with the 60 % figure at 3 feet. You should be much closer to 100 % strength IMO.

2. Changing channels is relatively easy. Go menu>Utilities>Airport Utility.app, and then you can follow the step by step. Depending on whether you have devices like wireless phones that share the 2.4 Mhz. frequency band, changing the channel can be quite useful. We use channel 4 or 5, and don't generally have much trouble. The Airport cards will read any of the frequencies that the Airport is capable of.

3. Apple recommends WPA Security. Depending on where you live, you may not need to use it. Yes, you could see a 5-30% slow-down with the calculations to encrypt/decrypt the wireless traffic. We live on a dirt road with no neighbors close enough to tap into our network, so we don't use any security. AFAIK, security settings won't affect the signal strength.

From what I'm seeing, I think your Airport may be in the middle of a slow death.  

HTH,

Chris  

[Xairbusdriver]

From very recent experince, the channel settings, I think, were most easily reached via the Manual Setup function. There should also be an Automatic setting. OTOH, I may have the Airport settings in the Systems Prefs  confused with the Airport Utility!  

[RNKIII]

Took my wife's G4 on a 'drive-by' around town today to various known locations with wi-fi.  Wanted to see what those locations' signal strength was according to iStumbler.

Most all locations I or iStumbler found were in the mid-30 to mid-40 % range as I cruised the city's "hot-spots"... and also noticed that most, >75%, of the private networks encountered were 'unsecured'

But, this leads me to believe that it is NOT my wife's Macbook that is going bad, but our AirPort Extreme that is probably on the way out.

Further investigation needed to accurately determine...

Bob K.   rnkiii

[Xairbusdriver]

As, our friend, RHP, once said, "50-50 chance, it's one or the other; 90% chance you'll pick the wrong one!"

[RNKIII]

Apple Store / Genius visit went well... Talked with "Genius" for over an hour. Had the G4 and the Air Port Extreme there and both were thouroughly checked out.  
Came away with a new Air Port Express (which will do everything the Extreme did + broadcast both 802.11 G & N signals without degrading the speed / strength of either).  So now our network is broadcast in "G' for the G4 and in "N" for my Intel 20" iMac.  
Have 14 days to use it and see if there is an improvement to our connections.
As with all things electronic... what a reduction in size and increase in power!!!  The size of the g4's power adapter with a greatly improved antenna.

As to the Apple Store..... BUSY, BUSY.... lots of iPads, Pods, Phones and computers going out the door with nary a 'check-out' stand in sight!!!   Credit cards are 'read' by iPhones, sales slips and draw-string Apple logo sales bags 'magically' appear from under display tables, as does the cash drawer (who uses cash in these places any more??).  The TOTAL EMPHASIS in THE STORE is on APPLE's products... Impressive to say the least.

Very funny thing happened while I was there...   Some poor soul walked in the door with a dead Dell tower (is that redundant?) and most of the blue-shirted Apple Associates magically formed a double column "funeral procession" for him humming the "Funeral March"... Poor guy never knew what hit him!!!  Everyone in the store clapped when he sat it down on the Genius Bar.

Will let all know how the new AP Express works out.  Also found out that the G4 will no longer be maintained / supported by Apple as of the end of July as that is 5 years after they stopped making them.  


Bob K.   rnkiii

[chriskleeman]

QUOTE(RNKIII @ Jul 24 2010, 03:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Very funny thing happened while I was there...   Some poor soul walked in the door with a dead Dell tower (is that redundant?) and most of the blue-shirted Apple Associates magically formed a double column "funeral procession" for him humming the "Funeral March"... Poor guy never knew what hit him!!!  Everyone in the store clapped when he sat it down on the Genius Bar.

Bob K.   rnkiii

You sure you're not making this up?    

Chris K

[RNKIII]

So help me Steve!!  



Bob K.   rnkiii