Hey everybody. I have a little problem with my wireless router's range.
Aren't a wireless router's range supposed to be 50 meters or something like that??
Cause, when I sit with my laptop out in my backyard (which is approx. 20 meters away from my wireless router), there is no signal ...
Geez, any number of things could cause this. Here's a list to get you started:
Construction style and material of your house
Ambient EMI (microwaves, cordless phones, baby monitors, etc.)
Chipset of your wireless AP and wireless card
Location of AP within your house
Antenna types
As you can see, there's no way anyone is going to be able to accurately answer this for you. But, I will say that for most of the $50 commercialized routers, 10-15 meters indoors is about what you can expect to reliably get.
About the only thing you can do is experiment with different placement of your AP. For example, if you have it near the front or back of the house, try putting it closer to the middle. Ideally, you want it to be physically located in the middle of the areas where you need coverage, so it's covering everything uniformly.
You could try using Netstumbler or Kismet to look at the various signal properties as you walk around. Netstumbler is available for Windows and is easy to use. Kismet is Linux only I think, but offers more features. I believe the Knoppix STD liveCD includes Kismet, so it SHOULD be a simple matter of booting off the CD and running it. Assuming it supports your wireless adapter.
The only way to accurately determine the cause of a problem like this is to walk around with a spectrum analyzer and do a site survey. You might also consider a "range extender". I have absolutely no experience with them, but it seems like they would "extend" the range. Or if you can sling some ethernet somewhere close to your backyard, you could always get an el cheapo access point from eBay and install it closer to the backyard. Just make sure you set it to use a different channel so the access points don't step on each other.
Phew, that was probably way more info than you wanted/needed.
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