Airport Extreme

[DB6]

Took delivery of one this week, chiefly because my AOL-supplied Netgear DG834G gave a pretty weak signal at the other end of the house. After reading all the bumf about latest generation etc etc and expecting somthing special the poxy thing is just as bad! Am I doing something wrong? Computer is a Mac mini so I think only functions at g speeds not n but range surely should not be affected? Plasterboard walls so no great challenge there. Would a Netgear DG834N Rangemax do the job? Apart from the USB printer/external hard drive capability on the Airport I am not impressed so far.

[Saab Dastard]

If the aerial for the wifi card is stuck at the back of the Mac case, and possibly also behind your screen, then that could be a problem.

Also, have you got a lot of other wifi networks in your area?

My solution to the former was to buy an aerial extension (Maplin, £9.99). I also added a home-made parabolic directional surround (think half a tin can here :O ) to help cut out extraneous signals.

For the latter, see if you can ask your neighbours what channels they are using - for b and g there are only 3 non-overlapping channels (1, 7 and 13 in the UK, IIRC - 1. 6 and 11 in the US). You should try a variety of channels to see which gives you the best signal.

It is also possible that there are sources of interference in your house - microwaves, cellphones, cordless phones etc. Try switching these off to see if this improves reception.

If all else fails (or even before!), you can try turning the aerial through 90 degrees, either on the Mac or the WAP.

SD

[The Flying Pram]

You could download "NetStumbler" - free from the web, It's a handy little WiFi scanner which will display any networks nearby and show channel numbers and signal strength. You could use the latter function to experiment with different positions for the aerials etc.

[DB6]

Thanks for the tips. I have been able to get a decent signal by raising both computer and base station up a bit, however I still feel a bit cheated by the negligible improvement over the basic Netgear router. One to put down to experience I guess.
Netstumbler looks like a useful tool but seems to be for Windows only, any idea if there's an Apple equivalent?

[NeoDude]

FYI, The Netgear Rangemax routers only have increased range when used in conjunction with a rangemax NIC.

[PyroTek]

i remember the days of trying to get wifi working in this house, my rangemax is fairly closeby, but it pissed me off to have constantly dropping connections, so i now have an inactive NIC in this PC and a 20 metre Cat5 cable running through my bathroom to the rangemax's RJ45 ports :D