WiFi jamming?

The WiFi performance at my house has been acceptable until just last week.
I was in my family room surfing wirelessly when my signal suddenly dropped to nil (both PDA and laptop.)
As a test I carried my laptop into the room where my WiFi hub is (maybe 50 feet) and the signal returned but when I'd leave the room the signal would just disappear.
I was in my family room again the next day and the signal was again strong but an hour or two later -- same thing -- it just dropped to nothing.
Now it seems this is happening every night but during the day all is ok.
What do you think could be happening and how can I stop it?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

It's probably a Microwave or a neighbor with a new 2.4Ghz cordless phone. Anyway I had the same thing happen to me and I screwed with it for hours before I finally just connected to the router and changed the wireless channel it was using. Cleared things right up. Try that.

I found that the video senders like the x10 one can also do it. Had me baffled for days.

One of your neighbors has purchased a wireless device and began using it last week. That is why there are different channels you can change to on your WiFi hub. The neighbor with the new device is also likely wondering why he isn't getting the advertised range for the device. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

Well we just bought a 2.4Ghz cordless phone but the problem persists even when all of the phones are unplugged and off.
I've tried every channel that my router has but no improvement.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

GJW:

You mentioned the problem occurs at night. Does it start at dusk and end at dawn? If so, it may be an outdoor light that is on a photo sensor.

Chris

Re: WiFi jamming? *DELETED*

Duplicate Post deleted by James S, but it wouldn't really go away /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

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GJW said:
What do you think could be happening and how can I stop it?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
If you turn off your hub, can your laptop then pick up a neighboring Wi-Fi signal? I think the first hting to figure out is whether it's another Wi-Fi hub or some other device that's either in the same band, or is in a adjacent band and generating lots of spurious harmonics. Place your laptop in "sniffer" mode and walk around and survey the other signals. If your software can't do this, look at something like Netstumbler which can do a site survey.

[ QUOTE ]
chrisn1niq said:
GJW:

You mentioned the problem occurs at night. Does it start at dusk and end at dawn? If so, it may be an outdoor light that is on a photo sensor.

Chris

[/ QUOTE ]

Could be that a neighbor got one of those wireless "multimedia hubs" for Christmas, the thing that allows you to view photos, video and audio from your computer on your tv set. These use the Wi-Fi band also, and it would add up that it's only happening in the evenings when they turn on their tv set.

I've got a 2.4 GHz cordless phone that kills my WiFi connection cold every time it rings.

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ViciousCycle74 said:
I've got a 2.4 GHz cordless phone that kills my WiFi connection cold every time it rings.

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Figures. This is only going to get worse as more and more gizmos come out that operate in this unlicensed band.

Wifi channels 6, 10, and 11 seem to be the most resistant to 2.4GHz phone interference in my informal and unscientific tests.

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tylerdurden said:
Wifi channels 6, 10, and 11 seem to be the most resistant to 2.4GHz phone interference in my informal and unscientific tests.

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Interesting. In my informal surveys, I've noticed that channel 6 seems to be the favorite in my area for public hotspots. I don't know if this is because of the mobile phone issue, or whether this is simply the default channel that's configured on Cisco Aironet bridges, or for some other reason.

One other thing to try is to make sure that you are not using the default SSID on your wireless router. Using a unique SSID will make it easier to ensure that you are only connecting to your own router if (when?) your neighbor gets a wireless device.

PW, because of the limited frequency separation in the wifi band, as opposed to each channel's bandwidth, there is a lot of overlap on adjacent channels. Channel 6 is in the middle of the wifi freq range, so it is the logical default channel.

Joe

[ QUOTE ]
PhotonWrangler said:
[ QUOTE ]
GJW said:
What do you think could be happening and how can I stop it?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
If you turn off your hub, can your laptop then pick up a neighboring Wi-Fi signal? I think the first hting to figure out is whether it's another Wi-Fi hub or some other device that's either in the same band, or is in a adjacent band and generating lots of spurious harmonics. Place your laptop in "sniffer" mode and walk around and survey the other signals. If your software can't do this, look at something like Netstumbler which can do a site survey.


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Well without turning off my own hub I did find a competing signal.
"Extreme Wireless" is the SSID.
Now it's just time to knock on doors I guess.
Any tips on finding the right door?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

GJW, have you tried just changing the channel on your wireless router? Maybe go to channel 1 or 11?

Do you have a wireless strength indicator in your system tray? Short of using something like NetStumbler or Kismet, that may indicate relative strength if you are forced to knock on doors.

Joe

Did a yahoo search for "Extreme Wireless" and this keeps coming up:

Apple ®. Airport Extreme® Wireless Access Point

Someone nearby got a Mac?

Except that it's perfectly OK for several 802.11 networks to overlap, they automatically choose different channels. I doubt that your problem is coming from a neighbor with another legitimate access point, but rather some other not so well behaved device.

The real question is when your own device is unreachable, can you still see this new one /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Extreme Wireless is not the default SSID for an Airport Extreme basestation, but someone could have entered that...

If they do have an Airport Extreme station one of the neat things it can do is scale it's signal power, so you can ask them to turn it down a bit and see if that helps with your situation--although I don't think this is your problem, especially if you tried all the channels on your base.