Wireless network performance

Mark_WS7M · January 2016

I am not sure what is going on but I have reset/restarted every piece of network gear between my laptop and the 6500 and still running SmartSDR 1.6 results in initially good network that drops rapidly to poor and pretty much stays there. I'm on a new Microsoft Surface book, connected to my best WiFi router, a netgear nighthawk. I've restarted the radio, all switches and the nighthawk but still see the same behavior. The strange thing is that while it sits there showing network poor the latency is down around 1 and the display doesn't seem to chop or lag. I've tried connecting to other wifi devices I have, some apple devices and pretty much the same behavior. I tried an internet speed test to this laptop and it cranked 50mb down, 12mb up which should show that the WiFi connection is just fine. I'm just puzzled and surprised at the same time. Anyone else see their network drop down to yellow or red on a WiFi? Also nothing else is connected like DDUTIL or even HRI.

Mark_WS7M · January 2016

Ok I might have just figured this out. I think my laptop had connected to the 2.4ghz LAN which is prone to interference from phones and stuff. I reconfigured it to use the 5.0 ghz mode and it seems MUCH better.

KY6LA_Howard · January 2016

I was going to suggest a channel scan to see if there were other devices sharing the channel but looks like u figured it out. You can always change the channel number to a lesser used number.

K1VL · January 2016

Yes, running WiFi analyzer software on a laptop should be a standard practice for anyone using WiFi for UDP based streaming services such as SmartSDR remote. These days you have to be your own home FCC and allocate spectrum to avoid interference, particularly in the 2.4 GHz band which tends to be very congested in urban/suburban settings. This means doing a wireless channel study for 2.4 and 5.8 GHz and picking a channel(s) for your WiFi router to operate on with the least QRM around the house, deck and yard. Neighbor's routers, microwave ovens and some cordless phones all operate at around 2.4 GHz.

Remember that choosing a 40 MHz wide WiFi transmission bandwidth at 2.4 GHz may not be the best choice where there are a lot of neighboring routers in use. The "N" wireless standard requires the router to dynamically reduce bandwidth to the more typical 20 MHz bandwidth which may cause erratic operation on a audio/video stream. Also there are are only three usable 20 MHz channels at 2.4 GHz generally that don't overlap each other - channels 1, 6 and 11 (in the U.S) and maybe two at 40 MHz if you live in a rural area - channels 1 and 11. 40 and even 80 MHz bandwidth works great on 5.8 GHz as the channels don't overlap up there. The challenge is that 5.8 GHz WiFi has shorter range and does not "****" obstacles as well as 2.4 GHz.

The auto channel feature in many routers does not do a particularly good job of finding an open channel and only checks once at boot up of the router. I find it is much better to do a channel study, walk around the house and set the channel manually.

There are lots of free software analyzers out there such as Acrylic WiFi Free
https://www.acrylicwifi.com/en/wlan-software/wlan-scanner-acrylic-wifi-free/ for Windows and there is a free analyzer available for Mac in the Apple Store.

Carmine
W1EQX

Bill W2PKY · January 2016

Thanks for the Analyzer tip.

Wireless network performance

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