[manchesterwireless] Warrington Wireless - interference?

[Andy Gauton]

Hi All,

Warrington Wireless celebrated it's 1yr anniversary of success. Over a 12
month period, running all 3 routers in WDS mode, they had only a couple of
minor issues - solved by router reboot, usually remotely using Telnet :)

However, just as we were about to celebrate this achievement in style
(champagne cooling nicely), the network has been experiencing some major
problems.

About 2 weeks ago, I (2 hops away from internet facing router) started
noticing serious bandwidth issues. Usual ADSLGUIDE speed test comes in
over 2MB, 1MB under load. But recently 15k (yes not a typo!) -> 900k, with
the occasional 2MB+

Initially thought it was Les (hop2) using the bandwidth, so we
disconnected his home network. Speed test shot up, but only briefly (5
mins) and shot back down. At this point we thought water in the system?
But 2 days later, whole network enjoying 2MB+  .... in heavy rain, so that
theory out of the window, then back to me getting very poor figures. Then
Les experiencing problems. Ping times 10ms to 4885ms, and the net went
down. All routers still connected in WDS but signal noise figures for both
routers seem to be around the same and quite low - BB (broadband) router
is x2 distance that Andy -> Les.

Network being:  Andy -> <- Les --> BB due to LOS issues.

I don't have signal / noise figures to hand. Will post well routers back
in lofts.

Anyway, last night all 3 routers were pulled down and set back to factoy
defaults and reflashed and "kitchen table" tested. Each pinging 2-3ms.
Good, so the routers seem OK.

Went round the road with a laptop. We were on Ch6 (changed last night to
Ch1). Netstumbler picked up a VERY STRONG BT Voyager router signal on Ch8,
which seems to be in the path of Andy -> Les. Could this be the cause of
the network going up and down like a yoyo? It's 11g, but for the signal to
be so strong, I'm wondering whether it's running at 108mb? And I assume
this would be created by combining frequency from neighbouring channels?
Why would it effect Les -> BB? I'm guessing due to being in WDS mode the 3
routers are classed as one entity?

BT Voyager router seems to be always on. I'm guessing when a client is
switched on, the signal it emits increases. At a guess, I'd say this
router was new (few weeks old), or a change to it has been made recently.

Les was doing some monitoring yesterday. I had no net access, Les couldn't
even ping me. Les to Steve was 2MS for about 10hrs, then at about 17.30,
very poor pings and then network went down and stayed down.

My initial thoughts. BT Voyager owners coming home from work and switching
wireless PC on? At this point, the signal is so strong it wipes Andy ->
Les, and then slowly effects Les -> BB

When I say strong signal, no figures on me, but netstumbler real time
signal graph was covering 75% of the graph!! This was walking the road
between Andy <-> Les   ... it was looking like a game of tetris in the
last few seconds before you die.

Apologies for the lack of figures. The routers have been setup as Ch1 now.
Andy and Les are pinging each other (make of that as you wish!) 2ms
average. This was at 07.30 this morning. BB router will hopefully be
connected up later today.... but I haven't got much faith in the network
staying up....

Figures to be released once testing has been done over the next few days.

Your thoughts please.

Andy :)

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