Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with signal

Imac has lost its once strong wireless signal

ranunculus — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:25:41 -0800

My girlfriend's imac keeps losing its wireless signal, despite having functioned perfectly for over a year at its present location. How can I remedy this? The wireless router - a linksys wrt 54g - is located at my desk about 50 feet and one wall away, where it is hardwired to my pc. For the past year, her imac received the signal perfectly. And now it's extremely weak. Rebooting her computer, my computer, the router, or the cable modem does nothing to improve her signal. Yet my other computer - a pc laptop - receives a perfectly good signal next to her imac.

She is running osx 10.4.11
I'm on vista

Help, I need a stronger wifi signal!

OuttaHere — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:53:19 -0800

Help! I live in a basement and need a stronger Wi-Fi Connection! I live in a Basement of a townhome and pay for internet which my landlord provides via Wi-Fi.

The problem is that he has the router on the third floor of the house, and I am in the basement. It probably doesn't help that it is an old building, so there is a lot of brick and mortar. Anyways, he uses Comcast so in order for us to have a land line in our residence we would have to pay for a completely new cable package/modem etc.

In my room I am getting like 25% signal, 2 bars out of 5 pretty much, and get a really shitty and slow connection. If I move my computer out to the main room my speed and connection increases 10 fold.

Anyway, I'm not the greatest with this kind of tech stuff so I was wondering if people out there had options for me. I haven't talked to my landlord about it but wanted to confront him with some options.

Anyone have ideas, especially if you are familiar with comcast. Are those "Range Extenders" worth it? Can you add a router to a lower level somehow to increase the range? Is there anything comcast can do?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Why-Fi?

Rhaomi — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:17:19 -0800

What's killing my wi-fi connection? The last few days I've been having some odd problems with my wireless network. I'll be browsing on my laptop when all of a sudden things get really slow, as if I lost the connection. But instead of being sent to "This page is not available" or "server not found" pages like when there really is no connection, I just get stuck loading forever. So if I open a tab and go to Google, it will sit and load saying "Waiting for www.google.com" in the status bar for a minute or two, then eventually say "Done" -- even though the only thing that has loaded is a completely blank tab (even the source code of the page is empty) with the raw URL in the title bar.

But throughout all this, there's no indication that I've lost my connection. The wifi icon in the system tray doesn't change, and says I'm connected if I hover over it. When I open up the Command Prompt and enter ipconfig /all, it says all my internet connection stats are normal. The subnet mask, DHCP server, DNS, etc. are all there. The IP address doesn't start with 169. It's all okay.

Weirdest of all, despite the fact that I can see that all the connection info is normal, if I enter my router's IP address into the address bar (which usually takes me to the router's settings page), it just does the same thing. Load... load... load... blank tab. I understand not being able to connect to the internet, but if I can see all my connection and router info in Command Prompt, why can't I connect to the same router with my browser?

The only way to fix it, I've found, is to disconnect from the wireless network and reconnect. It'll then work fine for anywhere from one minute to fifteen, at which point the connection drops again. This is only affecting my laptop, by the way -- iPods and other laptops connect fine.

I've tried restarting my computer, restarting the router, and repairing the connection -- nothing works. It seems that getting closer to the router improves things, but I'm not sure since the problem comes and goes randomly. And besides, the router is in the same place as it's always been, so unless it's suddenly lost broadcasting power I don't see what would cause the problem. And in the "View Wireless Networks" window, it says the network has an Excellent signal when I'm not connected (though that decreases a bar or two once I do).

The only incident I can think of is that a power surge recently burnt out the power supply, and I had to buy a universal one with an adapter to get the router up and running again. But this was a week or two before the trouble started, so that's probably not the source.

Is there anything that would cause a wireless router to lose signal strength like that? Is there something I can do to fix it, or should I just spring for a new one?

Details: I have a Dell laptop running Windows XP SP3. I have a Bellsouth Fast Access DSL internet connection. The router is a 2Wire HomePortal 1700HW. The loading problem happens on Firefox, Chrome, and IE7.

One more detail I remembered: For awhile when the problem first started, ipconfig /all was giving me some weird info. For instance, it said that the "lease" for the connection expired one second after it was obtained. But it's not doing that anymore.

Help me find a rangy router!

jckll — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:51:38 -0800

Help me buy a Wireless (WiFi) router with exceptional signal/range for not a boatload of cash. I am, right now, using a cheapie Netgear b/g refurbished router I bought about 6 months ago. It has no external antenna. It disconnects randomly, seems to have terrible range, and needs to be recycled all the time. I only get about 2Mbits download when connected to it from about 2 feet away (20Mbits cable connection). It sucks.

I live in a dense apartment building with about 20 wireless connections, lots of walls, etc. Help me find a wireless router that will break through all that without breaking the bank (ha!)

I have been looking at this one, and it seems OK. Pretty good reviews, but it's hard to know with those things.

Am I under the right impression that an 802.11n router is going to give me better signal? Especially if most (if not all) of the "competing" routers around me are a/b/g?

If anyone has personal experience with a router with great range, that's bonus points! Or if there is a website/page with comparisons of a bunch of available consumer routers, that would be great too.

PS, I don't have any plans to use enhanced (Linux) firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato as I don't have much use for it. Don't want to run a server or a PBX or anything like that. If that would help me with range/power, I definitely would, but it's far from a requirement.

Thanks!

Wherefore art thou, iPhone reception?

nevercalm — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:37:32 -0800

I have an iPhone and AT&T and no reception at my house. What are my options? Last year I moved to a nice property in a valley. Unfortunately, I only get spotty reception on my land, and nothing in the house. The addition of the Griffin Clearboost has at least allowed me to get notifications that I have voicemail, but I still can't use the damned thing as an actual phone. My wife gets fantastic coverage with her Verizon phone, of course.

A friend of mine is insisting that all I have to do is hassle the company to have a cell tower added to my area. I am fairly convinced that I lack the constitutional requisites to do this. Is there any sort of booster or repeater available that doesn't cost $500? Have any Mefites had any success with getting AT&T to accede to their demands, or found any better options?

I'm not looking to change carriers, get a Blackberry, or any of that. I just want my damned iphone to work.....

"On Demand"? Well, I'm DEMANDING already!

EmpressCallipygos — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:27:20 -0800

Shouldn't I be able to get "on-demand" wireless networks to WORK on my computer? Why can't I? After another frustrating train trip during which I was unable to get online, I need an explanation.

When I'm looking for a computer network to log onto on my laptop, I usually see three different kinds of signals -- "secured" and "unsecured" I understand. But then there is a third type, called "On Demand". My wireless manager is often able to connect TO whatever "on Demand" signal I select, but then when I try to open Outlook or a web browser, it doesn't work, and the troubleshooting for my web browser tells me it cannot see the very "on Demand" signal that my wireless manager tells me I am connected to. (Fortunately, at least this time, I know that I'm not the only one with the problem -- I asked a couple guys on the train who were also trying to log on, and they were having the same problem.)

What in the name of hell is behind all this? Why is one program telling me I'm connected when another one is not? Doesn't "On Demand" imply that it is a functioning signal which works when people need it? What's really going on here?

What is the name of this short film about a strange radio station?

Pastabagel — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:48:49 -0800

[NameThatMovieFilter] I'm looking for the name of a short film about a radio station that sends out a mysterious signal. The film either has not come out yet, or came out in the last 4-5 years. The director is a well-known producer of DVDs for major films. I think it may have been the producer of the Memento DVD, or some film like that. The film is an extended short, running about 40 minutes long. I never actually saw the movie, just the trailer, but it piqued my interest.

The plot is generally about people who at night receive a strange radio signal from a particular radio station and come together to investigate or search out the source. The title is something like "AM 1140" or "AM 1420". The problem is that I don't remember the number in the title. The poster was dark, a nighttime photo, with the title in a thin, Helvetica-like white font. Google and IMDB have failed me. Please help!

A Graphic Equalizer for Images?

jfrancis — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:12:16 -0800

Is there such a thing as a graphic equalizer for images? Can I obtain it? In Photoshop you can high pass filter an image (edges and details) or low pass filter it (blur it). But there isn't continuous control over a range of frequencies.

Does some software exist that I as an average user can get a hold of that does the necessary Fourier analysis (or whatever is necessary) to give me fine control over any frequencies in an image I wish to address?

Sort of a graphic equalizer for photos?

I am looking for a signal booster that will play nicely on my laptop which has Vista.

cheero — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:45:18 -0800

I am looking for a signal booster that will play nicely on my laptop which has Vista. People recommended EnGenius USB Device but from what I gathered on Amazon, it does not work past XP. I basically need something that I can take with my on the go. Intel GMA 4500MHD / Intel Wi-Fi / 10/100 Eth is what came with my laptop. Is there a signal booster compatible with Vista?

At what moment will the analog TV signal die?

k7lim — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:23:11 -0800

My friends and I would like to observe the switch-off of analog TV. The FCC has mandated that all analog TV stations stop on February 19, 2009. I'm planning to procure a bunny-eared TV to watch the signal go dead. Can anyone help me pinpoint when this moment is going to be? (This is going to be SO much better than New Year's)

only connect

grumblebee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:37:58 -0800

Two Macbook Pros, same model, same room, one gets a lot of bars and a strong connection via airport; the other gets just a couple of bars and a low connection. I recently acquired a slightly-used (as in used for one day) Macbook Pro (15" -- not one of the models Apple just released).

I tried it in my apartment next to my old Macbook Pro (also 15", about a year older than my new-used one).

My older one got a good wireless signal. My newer one got a crappy wireless signal. They were both equidistant from my
Linksys router.

I thought maybe the older one was somehow interfering with the newer one, but I tried the newer one by itself, in a different location. In this new location, everyone else (some on similar macs) got a good signal. I still got a crappy one.

The previous owner told me that he had the same problem with it, and he took it into the Apple Store. They ran some kind of diagnostic program on it and insisted that nothing was wrong. The previous owner concluded that the signal was just weak where he was trying to use it. But unlike me, he didn't test it next to another computer.

I can sometimes get a good signal by turning airport off and on or by going into Network Preferences and hitting Renew DHCP Lease. But the boost in connectivity only lasts a few minutes. (This also might be my imagination. The signal waxes and wanes, so maybe I'm seeing a cause/effect where there isn't one.)

I have also been able to get a strong signal by placing my Macbook right next to the router. If I move even a few feet away, the signal degrades.

Vitals:
- Mac OS X Version 10.5.4
- Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- Memory 4GB 667 NHz DDR2 SDRAM

sad accesspoint drama.

beerbajay — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:52:08 -0800

Netgear access point weirdness. Wireless roaming. OMG, why does the AP do this and as a result cause my internets connection to connect/disconnect frequently? INTERNETS <-- modem <-- (Netgear WGR614v7 router w/ wifi) <-- (both Netgear WPN802v2 access points)

Trying to get wireless roaming working, but one of the APs doesn't even play nice in a single room. As shown in the graph, there is hella strong signal in the room until suddenly and inexplicably it drops off hard until the power is lower than that of the other AP/router which are in another room behind a heavy wall. Windows disconnects, sometimes picking up one of the other signals, sometimes not.

Router is on channel 1, APs on 7 and 11. I'm in an apartment building so there's a number of other wireless networks on channel 1, 6, and 11.

Help me sleep again!

mmf — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:50:44 -0800

I have to listen to the radio in order to fall asleep. I have used WHYY 91 FM in Philadelphia as my crutch for the past 8+ tears. We live near Princeton, NJ, and I have always had good reception through several previous address changes. We moved 2 weeks ago, literally 4 houses away fron our old place, I have perfect reception all day, but sometime after 1:00 in the morning, I lose the signal, and the sudden silence can actually wake me up. I've gone online and confirmed thathe station is broadcasting -- I can stream the audio on my computer -- but no signal comes through the radio. Then, at 8:30, I wake up and there is a normal signal again. I am literally losing sleep over this, so would appreciate any suggestions, explanations or help,

Robots 3, Humans 0

TeachTheDead — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:59:56 -0800

Wireless Internet Woe - I recently switched from the horrific Verizon wireless to Alltel wireless. I need to boot my signal in a home with 6 computers, desperate times calls for desperate questions... After 5 months of watching how much data I and the 8 other people in my home had to use per month (5 gigs by the way) from Verizon, we have had it finally.
So yesterday I switched to AllTel, with, well, no limits on bandwidth per month. Now, I live in a very rual area (23047) and knowing this, when I moved from San Diego, I got prepared. I have a wireless mobile router and an appropriate large external antenne that is compatable with the card I have, UTStarcom and plugs right into the back.
So, my real question is, after calling Alltel I was told my signal would increase, but in fact it is a bit worse than when I had Verizon.
We really need to get this going if for nothing else than we need and unlimited amount of data...we do work, games and a fair amount of downloading. Broadband internet service is NOT offered in my area so I am at the mercy of the airwaves.
What can I do here? How can I solve this huge dilemma.
I know this isnt technical at all, but when we had the Verizon connected we would get 2 sometimes 3 bars, with Alltel we are getting 1....and thats it.
Would really appreciate helpful comments and no bashing of one company over another. We dont have an option for the money and the data other than Alltel and again like I said, we dont have many/any other options...just check out my zipcode if you think I am fooling friends.

Can you fix the Internet I broke?

Airhen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:29:28 -0800

My computer is showing that I'm connected to the Internet, but it's not actually connecting. My usual trouble shooting tricks aren't working, so does anyone have any ideas? I'm sorry if this has been answered before. I don't seem to have specific enough terms to search here or on Google.

The Interwebs were working fine, and then I restarted because I was prompted to for an update. I have a PC (an HP laptop) running XP. The laptop is about four years old. It shows that I'm connected (wirelessly) to my signal, but I can't get to any Web sites, use instant messenger, etc.

I've tried: repairing my connection (that seemed to happen as usual, but with no results), restarting, restarting and repairing again, turning off the wireless router and turning it back on, connecting to another signal, turning off my computer's wireless card (do we still call it that in 2008?) and turning it on again, restarting and repairing again, just for good measure.

One of those usually works, but not this time.

Any other ideas?

How do I find the lack of radio waves?

mdbell79 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:06:24 -0800

What town in the United States has the lowest amount of detectable radio waves? Obviously, there are a lot of places (or used to be, anyway) where you can't get anything to come up on the radio dial. Which of those places would have the absolute least radio? As in, even though there are maybe hundreds of remote locations in the US (and let's say the continental US, because Alaska is probably the winner here anyway) where it's impossible to pick up anything listenable, would there be any place where there wasn't any radio that could even be detected?

Is there even a way to find this out?

Even better, is there any way to find out what the answer would have been in 1970? 1980?

I'm thinking mainly commercial AM/FM radio, and I don't even have a clue how to start looking into this. I figured that if anybody could help me figure it out, it'd be the metafilter crowd. If you need more information about what I'm looking for before you can help, I'd be glad to offer what I can. This is research for a project I'm working on, and although it's not vital it's a detail I'd like to be able to incorporate.

name that documentary!

ddaavviidd — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:15:01 -0800

Help me find the title of this documentary with pirated, never-seen tv clips. A couple of years ago in a movie class I saw a documentary that presented a bunch of clips which were not meant to be shown on screen: a guy had set up his satellite dish to pick up the signal from live broadcasts. We basically saw what was going on during commercial breaks, or rehearsals. There were clips from Larry King talking about his pharmacist, and another one with a us presidential candidate preparing for his speech, and asking his assistant to go get some stuff at the corner store.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? I'm trying to find the title of that documentary. Thanks!

Getting more range on a WiFi card

chips ahoy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:07:44 -0800

How do I get more WiFi range on my laptop computer? More info follows. I know the obvious answer here is to stick an antenna on my wireless adapter card. The problem is that none of my cards appear to have an antenna jack!

I looked on my Office Depot site for something quick I could pick up today, but all the PC card models shown only have internal antennas and there is no indication whether any of them can take an external antenna.

Googling this I'm coming up empty, and I looked on some of the wardriving forums, specifically the netstumbler forum, but mostly what I found were soldering mods and snarky answers to people asking the same thing.

I use Windows and have a Dell laptop, if it matters, and I'd prefer not to have to spend more than $80 on this. Please no suggestions for fixing the base station; thanks.

What is the strongest Wireless Accent Point that I can buy?

chime — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:49:42 -0800

What is the strongest Wireless Accent Point that I can buy? I need to cover about 100m radius inside a single building at a manufacturing company where we have lots of big machines running constantly. I would prefer one strong device over a mesh of 6 as the wireless barcode scanners we have apparently have some trouble switching from one AP to next smoothly. If it's impossible to have a WAP device with this much coverage, then what's a good WAP I can buy that will mesh well.

I have 6 LinkSys WAP54G (Firmware Version: 3.04) and they constantly cause the barcode scanners to connection or lock up.

one signal bar, two signal bar. three signal bar, four?

twistofrhyme — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:45:13 -0800

i live two floors above the wireless router, and my powerbook can't get a strong enough signal. what's the most cost-effective solution? i'm subletting in an old house- i'm on the third floor. the ethernet jack and router are on the ground floor, and they can't be moved-- ethernet must be plugged into an computer that apparently didn't take well to an expensive wireless card-- and i'm not comfortable asking the other tenants to change their established system and run cables all over the place for the new persson.

we have this bell sympatico router. it's in the back of the house. (specifically, it's one room away from the main stairwell, and it's sitting on a table near the doorway of that room, pointed towards the stairwell / centre of the house. given that it has to be in that room, i think it's in the optimum position). its signal has to either go through 2 floors, or follow a slightly bendy route up the stairs and through one wooden door in order to reach me.

i have a 2005 12-inch powerbook g4 (the aluminum one), which is apparently notorious for its crappy wifi antenna. in my apartment, i can get at best 2 bars of signal- not good enough. i've found a couple places in the apartment where the signal kind of works better, but even that's unreliable. previous tenant had a 2007 macbook and he didn't report any net problems, so i think my laptop is mostly at fault.

i guess my options are:
get a stronger antenna for my laptop (i don't know what kind though- suggestions?)
get a signal booster to attach directly to the wireless router, (again, don't know what kind and the guys in the bell store had no idea what i was talking about), or
get a signal repeater and place it halfway through the house, maybe in the stairwell or in my apartment? (again, what brand?)

does anyone have insight about which of these options will work best, and suggestions of where to get whatever bits i need, cheap? i'm in toronto.

thank you in advance.

How to find information on an old business?

Lactoso — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:48:07 -0800

How can I find out information about corporations from the early 20th century (1910-1950)? I'm looking for info on several different companies (none of them public I think), most of them based in New York City. The most elusive one (the one that I haven't been able to find any mention of anywhere) is the Ruleta Signal corp, but I'm also looking for information on the Marbelite Signal Company and the Horni Signal Company among others.

This if for a sort of hobby historical research project, so the lower the cost (free is good), the better, but I'm willing to pay whatever record fees are necessary. Although I'd love to find a www.vintagecorporations.com type website... :-)

Thanks!!

How does autotune work?

phrontist — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:48:45 -0800

How does autotune work? My best guess is that it does a Fourier analysis to guess the fundamental of the incoming sound, finds the closest pitch in the scale you've set it to, and does rate adjustment of a ring buffer to try to make it match.

Answers with as much technical/mathematical detail as possible would be great, as would a "dummy with basic understanding of DSP" breakdown.

Weird shortwave radio signal

knave — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:38:56 -0800

Screwing around with my shortwave radio tonight, I found this signal. [MP3] Anyone care to shed some light? It sounds distinctly like a conversation between two or more parties, but the voices are all scrambled up. Is that essentially what it is? Or maybe aliens? Or something more mundane?

Do doooooo, do do do dooo, do dooooooo.....

mykescipark — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 01:59:31 -0800

IntervalSignalFilter: So, I have this archival recording of an interval signal from shortwave station WSHB, Cypress Creek, SC. Is it an excerpt from any particular song? The station itself went off the air a few years ago, but this recording dates from around 1992, when WSHB was still an active official outlet of the Christian Science Monitor media group.

Does this haunting little tune ring a bell to anyone? Is it an excerpt from a classical piece? A religious hymn? Or just a particularly ominous micro-composition?

(Pop culture side note: Yes, I know that Pere Ubu ripped off the lick for their 1993 song "Sleep Walk.")

What are these things for?

aerotive — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:32:20 -0800

Why do the traffic signals at a particular intersection have light-blocking louvers on them? These traffic lights were installed about six months ago. There are two lights in quick succession, then an overpass, then two more lights. The first set of lights is about 30 to 40 yards apart, the same distance for the second set.

These louvers, or slats or whatever , prevent the light from being seen until you are very near the first signal in the set--then the light becomes visible quite abruptly. The slats are not effective at night, though they dim the light somewhat.

What is the purpose of these slats? Why would you want to make a traffic signal less visible?

No idea if this is relevant, but the replacement lights with these louvers are LED-based. The previous ones were old-style lights and none of the signals had these louvers.