Electronic Interference

[DaveW]

One by one, all the devices in my house are turning wireless. I have a wireless desktop, and a wireless mouse downstairs. We have a wirelss network, and use wireless land-line phones. There's 3 mobile phones in the house. I'm sure there's more, but nothing comes to mind right now.

Unfortunately, they seem to be interfering. I suspect the phones (landline) are the culprit. My LinkSYS router can't seem to get a good signal a measly 10m away. My wireless keyboard seems to be hitting a few snags, missing letters and such (so i apologise for any mis-spellings i've made).

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? A cheap device to detect airborne signals and interference? Possible interference from a mobile phone mast, or something wireless in my next-door neighbor's house? The nearest electrical transformer is about 50m away from the house. And what about high powered electrical devices? Any thoughts on this? The interference borders on trivial problems, but i still want to find out what's causing it.

All suggestions appreciated. Thanks! -Dave

[Malatory]

Phone's if they are the 2.4G phone they will mess up the Lan, Other things will be walls (Steel beams / Sound proof Wall board ), floors.

Keyboard used the 2.4G bluetooth so that is more noises as well.

802.11G used the 2.4G band as well. something to think about is finding out if you can adjust the antena's gain or get stronger ones (On PC and Router).

also you will get some interferance from the microwave as well.

Other things to thing about most routers are configured to do a 360 Degree ball with the signal and it only can travel so far. If adjusted to do a 90 Degree cone you can get ~4x the power to penatrate the walls (this is more advance stuff).

[DaveW]

The microwave is clean out of the way, but that other info is pretty useful. If they're all using the same band...i can alter the LAN, and probably get more stuff if neccesarry. This old house is almost all wood, so the only interference could be electronic. I'll have a look and see what i can do.

-Dave

[Malatory]

You will run into some interferance with wood, if its an OLD OLD house with splaster walls that will cause a little more problem (Plus Lead Paint).

other thoughts if you just picked up the wireless maybe try the new 802.11n where it used the theary of RAID with the signal (MiMO) typically has 7 Antena's per-device.

[Rankenphile]

honestly, it's probably your phone. Unplug all your phones for a little bit (couple hours, to be sure you get a good "data sample") and plug in a corded phone. A lot of times, that's it. You can find cordless phones that use a different frequency, and those usually solve the problem - it did for me in my last house.

Also, the neighbor's microwave or phone may interfere - I used to lose my connection every time the neighbor used their microwave.

[crenn]

For the wireless network, I'd change the channel it uses (from default) to 11 or something else. AT least +/-3 channels from your existing one and see if that helps. I remember our wireless network had a similar problem. We still have problems, but they are most likely related to the heat issues with our router.

[DaveW]

I think it's most likely to be the phones if anything. The house is just old wood, not very good quality, no lead or insulation or anything. :)

We're on channel 11 right now, i'll try another channel later. Thanks guys. I'll let you know if i fix it.

-Dave