September 28, 2005

• Unnecessary Moves

  When my wireless communications were disrupted, I did a lot of flailing around before finding a workable solution. I’m not entirely sure I correctly diagnosed the situation.

  Initially, I thought the problem was interference. I thought one of the big broadcast radios south of the border might be sending a signal strong enough to block reception. We’ve had similar problems in the past, at times finding it difficult to disarm the car alarms or having remotely controlled lights turn on or off without a command. Some of our lights had been turning on unexpectedly of late … but that has been happening for over a decade.

  I bought an amplified antenna. It didn’t help.

  Then I decided that the old wireless-b router had burned out and was no longer capable of reliably sending or receiving a signal. I replaced it with a new wireless-g router. Everything improved once I figured out how to set it up correctly.

  Another factor in the equation is that we’ve been having power problems all summer long. We’ve been having the kinds of problems you get when the house voltage is running too low, the kinds of problems that originate with the power company.

  There has been another transition. I didn’t have instruments measuring the voltages or noise levels on the power lines, but suddenly things seemed to work better, the way they did before the beginning of summer. And my wireless signals seem to have improved along with it.

  Was some neighbor running an air conditioning system that was dropping the line voltage or adding noise? We share our power grid with a number of small industries on the next street over, Federal Blvd. The Marketplace at the Grove mall is just a mile away, with lots of new construction for a complex to house a Twenty-Four Hours Fitness and other businesses in what used to be a bowling alley. Either of those could have been the cause of the problem.

  The new router puts out a strong signal. I’m going to keep watching the signal level to see if it drops. I expect that it will remain high, but I would like to know what caused the situation … and if I really needed to replace the router.

  • 22:32
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