Poor signal wifi on maestro

iz7auh

My router is placed under my desk a few tens of centimeters from the teacher , but after an excellent start suddenly the signals decreases until losing so many packages and the sound will be broken are therefore forced to use the ethernet connection, I verified the channel of my wifi I also tried to choose a new one , nothing has changed , how do I fix ? it is a bug ?

Mike va3mw

Frank

There are many discussions regarding this that you can review.  Some routers work better with the Maestro than other.  Personally, I have found out that older less fancy work better.  

It has nothing to do with your channel and it is more complicated than that.  Again, you can read from the links on the right of this chat.

A bug, possibly and I new that Flex is working on it.  

Mike va3mw

WX7Y

Are you running 2.4Gb or 5.8Gb between your Router and radio? 
Here and at my friends house who runs a 6300, 6700 here have noticed that running on 2.4Gb really can have issues with SmartSDR and Maestro at times when the network gets busy. 
5.8 on the other hand works GREAT. 
And Channel does matter, if you have a lot of devices running on a single channel like CH6 for instance then this also uses up bandwidth on a couple channels above and below CH6.
There is a good android App called WiFi Analyzer that show what devices are on what channels and the less crowded the better things work.

Hope this helps
Bret
WX7Y

Mike va3mw

The channel has less effect than you think due to the design of 802.11.   Remember, there are only 3 channels.  1, 6 and 11.

On your router, turn off anything that has to due with B.  Fix your speeds at G or GN.  That might help (again, that is a router setting).  

If you can, switch to 5ghz.  

Mike

Burch - K4QXX

That is interesting.  My new $300 Asus won't run my Maestro but my old netgear runs it great.  I wonder what has changed with the newer, faster routers.  My new Asus works great with everything except my Maestro.

GI4FZD

Bought a Netgear Nighthawk x6 triband router with ac3200 and still having issues with wifi dropouts and it is definately not week signals or busy channels, the 2nd 5ghz band is totally unoccupied and the 1st 5ghz is occupied but i have shifted the channel not to coincide with others,
So I have tried the **** superhub3, Asus RT-N66U and now the netgear with the same results with all 3, I am not impressed and hope that Flex can come up with a fix or the Maestro will end up on the 2nd hand market. in fact any offers in the UK?
Cheers
Paul

Paul Bradbeer

I appreciate your frustration, Paul. I too have been flummoxed trying to get consistent wifi performance, and at one stage got so fed up that I disconnected the Maestro and went back to SSDR. In my case, it was fixed by putting in a wifi extender and using the ethernet connection provided by the extender to connect to my pc and 6500 via a 5-port ethernet switch. Maestro is running entirely via wifi. Normal Band 2...nothing special, and no need to upgrade the router. It now connects and maintains a link extremely well, and always connects with a 192 ip address (before it was 195....which apparently is a tell - tale sign that it is not fully network connected). I don't think there is an inherent fault with Maestro....but it does look like that, for some, it takes a bit of well-informed effort to get the connectivity and network stuff done. My opinion (and it is just that, folks) is that a much more detailed and diverse set of 'network set-up/troubleshooting' documentation from FRS would have given a number of us an easier ride. While I am very RF and electronics savvy I'll confess to being a real novice when it comes to networks, ip addresses, dhcp etc etc. I bet I'm not alone.... Try and stick with it, Paul (we can chat it through on the phone if it helps), once operating properly on your network, a Maestro and 6000 series radio is a fantastic combination! Regards Paul M0CVX

DrTeeth

@ Paul GI4FZD

Which firmware did you use in your Asus router? The later official and some third party ones use the latest (closed) wireless driver which has had poor performance issues. To try the older wireless driver, you would have to use another  third party firmware. I use this particular firmware myself as it opens all the legal frequency channels and power settings in the UK. The Asus routers are crippled in this regard due to FCC actions and Asus laziness.

Please let me know if you are interested in trying the firmware and I'll post a link.

GI4FZD

Yes you could send me the link to the Asus firmware. i am ok on qrz thanks Guy

DrTeeth

Here's the link http://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-update-for-374-43-available-v17e8-v18b9.18914/page-196#post-26... . The file is 17MB so may cause probs if attached to an email.

GI4FZD

Thank Guy, I will give that a try over the next few days.

k3Tim

Hi Mike,

First - thanks for your time and expertise on the WiFi...

I am curious about the 2.4Ghz channels. Here the WiFI auto-chose 6, by far the worse selection. Using Netgear WiFi Analytics it showed chn 3 was wide open so I manually chose it.  Am I really on #3 or is the setup just messing with me?

Side note: Normally I run the Maestro direct connect to the 6500. This morning switched over to WiFi (5Ghz) and single channel. The Maestro / Netgear Nighthawk 4XS  are playing nicely with very few drops [11 out of 500k].  This is on battery - I've read some speculation the bat was causing drops but that doesn't seem the case at this station. 

Would turning off encryption help?

Regards,

k3Tim

Mike va3mw

Hi 

The channels overlap, that is why there is only 1, 3 and 11 on 2.4ghz.  As an example 6 uses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 and that makes up a 20Mhz channel.  For 1 and 11 they use space below 1 and above 11.  

If automatic feature chose 3, there is an issue as it can cause co-channel interference as well as be a problem when trying to work in its timing of when to transmit.   However, that is not your problem.

Personally (just me) I think this is an issue with router design called 'bufferbloat'.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufferbloat

However, I can't prove it as I don't have all the correct tools.  When it comes to streaming UDP packets, you do not want those buffered, you want those to overflow so that the receiving end can tell the far end to slow down.   

Maybe, just maybe, this is why older routers seems to work much better.  I found a TP-Link AC1750 that worked great once I updated the firmware to current.  It was bout $80 Canadian and you can find them on Amazon as well.  

I also have one of the first dual band Linksys units (the one with no antennas) and it worked great on both bands.  

I also tested some newer Linksys AC units and they were terrible.  I took them back.  
I was so impressed with the TP-Link that I bought 2 more for the house and the remote base.  

What I would do if you had the time and resources is go into a store (we have Canada Computers here in Ontario) and buy a few of their cheapest.  See what works and take the others back.  That is what I did.  

I also have some experience working in the commercial WIFI world and I am just starting to understand what I don't know.  

Flex will fix this and they will have to leverage their wifi hardware vendor and Microsoft to do it.  I do know they are concerned about it as well.  

Mike va3mw

GI4FZD

Guy, the new firmware file seems to have fixed the issue what is the difference, no dropouts at all now on the asus. Is there a difference between uk and usa wifi system that prevents the Maestro working?

DrTeeth

Paul,

The only difference is that the firmware that you just loaded has an older wi-fi driver based on SDK5 IIRC, and the later driver is built on SDK6. The latter had many issues when intoduced and 'those in the know' tend to shun it.

Rob G6EIH

Got my Maestro a few days ago and using a Dray Tek 2860 here, tried 2.4GHz and 5GHz and no dropouts, all working good. Decided to leave it on 5GHz since very little traffic showing.

Have been using this router for some time now and it has proven to be very reliable, I have one in the office and a second at home, it does take a little time to set-up however it's worth the effort.

iz7auh

OK I understand... possibility a WiFi problem and bug on Wifi of maestro... waiting resolution and change wifi router with a an asus N55U D1

k3Tim

Hi Mike

Thanks for the explanation of the low-band Wi-Fi channels. The test using the Nighthawk 4XS was okay and I'd be happy enough with that unit. Your post about the old Netgear 'antenna less" router got me digging up an old Netgear WPN 802 (patch antenna?).  It's working like gangbusters! Even with 2 slices active there are Zero drops after several million packets. Tried some 6M contest activity and that didn't phase it either.

The state of Maestro is fine at this point for my particular method of operation.

_..--
 TiM