Help evaluating my home wifi network?

[PecanEater]

After months of having problems with my home wifi network, I'm working to improve it. In the past I've been a plug and play user but I'd like to learn more. New to the forum and this is my first post. I'm doing a lot of reading but I thought I'd ask for a little help too.

Can someone point me to software and perhaps an online tutorial on how to empirically evaluate the quality of my wifi network? Something for a intelligent beginner. The catch is it is all Apple/OSX equipment.

I’m interested in learning what parameters I be judging my placement by? How I can evaluate those parameters, etc.

My main goal at this point is finding the best placement for my wifi router. I have two options and I'm trying to decide which is better.

Thanks.

 

[DaveMcLain]

A tool similar to Inssider must be available for an Apple machine. With that said what you could do would be to place your router and then make a "test run". Take your computer to several locations where you might be using it in the future. Just let Inssider sit there and graph all of the detected wireless signals in each location. Then look at the graphs and see how your AP's signal strength looks relative to any other AP's that might be also in that area. See how many are on what channel etc. Then do this with the router in the other possible location, run the same test and compare.

I'm thinking that while this sort of test won't give you a lot of insight in regards to signal "quality" what it will show you is how strong your signal is relative from one location to the next and it should give you a pretty good indication as to how well things will work.

 

[stevech]

After months of having problems with my home wifi network, I'm working to improve it. In the past I've been a plug and play user but I'd like to learn more. New to the forum and this is my first post. I'm doing a lot of reading but I thought I'd ask for a little help too.

Can someone point me to software and perhaps an online tutorial on how to empirically evaluate the quality of my wifi network? Something for a intelligent beginner. The catch is it is all Apple/OSX equipment.

I’m interested in learning what parameters I be judging my placement by? How I can evaluate those parameters, etc.

My main goal at this point is finding the best placement for my wifi router. I have two options and I'm trying to decide which is better.

Thanks.

YOu'll need to add a WiFi access point (AP) if the home is more than about 2000 sq. ft. or is 3 story or you cannot place the WiFi router centrally located, or if the structure has lath/plaster walls rather than drywall, etc.
No need for fancy software to assess this (such as AirMagnet).

 

[thiggins]

Pop over to the Wireless basics section and read the "How to fix your wireless network" series.