My low/lack of WiFi signal? I live on the third floor of an apartment block,I am sttuggling with getting full reception for my mobile broadband dongles ( 3G, Vodafone and 02)I get various messages at various times of the day......Limited connectivity,local access only etc,etc. However, if I head off to the car park on the lower floor I immediately am swamped with so many network connections it makes my head swim. I cannot sit in the car park for as long as I live here.......Can I ?

After purchasing several, and I mean several signal boosters,installing a Belkin Mimo wireless card and a Netgear N series wireless card, still no joy. I then called in a friend who repairs, deals in and has a degree in computer science,for several hours he prodded, poked, updated my Toshiba firmware and every concievable drive there was to be updated on my system, he came to the conclusion that the RSJ's in the roof of the garage ( which is just under the windows of my flat) is hampering my reception. Has anyone heard of this before, and if you have how do I get around this problem?

Any thing is possible
I had some electrical problem when they went to the apex of the rooftop (England) there was a skeleton of a mouse with his teeth clearly in the position of chewing the wire and that my friend was the way in which he met his maker

Fried mouse. I am beginning to agree with my friend when he says the metal beams are responsible, I go into the hall way away from the window and have full reception......

I am not sure if this will help at all but from what I gathered you stated you have a wifi router in your home and still cannot use it correctly as you have a weak signal.

I would suggest two things that may help despite building construction. First of all you could get a wifi access point such as those sold by OnQ (they look like smoke detectors)and hardwire (Covering the wires for appearances sake)it to your existing router. This would effectively enable you to extend and move your signal away from anything that could be interfering with it.

The second option would be to consult the building management and possibly look into a parabolic antenna centered in your home or apt typically used to put wifi in large outdoor areas but placed in your home should flood your home immensely with signal. While their name may make you think were talking about a big huge ugly thing many look like a white box a few inches square.

I am off to get a parabolic antenna tomorrow........

I had the same problem. The IT guys fought it for awhile then went and got an extension cord for my aircard connection. He hung the aircard by the window and the problem went away.

I've tried the window thing, now if the new antenna does not work I will be changing apartments at the end of the month.

I thought you said diabolic antenna

get an external antenna and hang it out the window

????????????????

I have a remedy................ I have had to move my set up to the middle of the room ( a bit akward) as I now have a desk in the middle of my room BUT, I now have full signal.

Well,
I would have thought that your tech guy would have put the router or access point in the center of the home or apt and if it had multiple floors it should be in the lowest one unless your hard wiring in access points for other floors coverage.

I still think that the access point that ONQ makes hardwired in would also have solved your issue. The parabolic antenna was really overkill for your situation. You would have had to match it up with your particular router as well.

The onq wireless access points I was talking about are a bit expensive but really neat here is a link to them for you all to see what they look like.

http://www.onqlegrand.com/products/nav=a0f30000000BdHCAA0

Hey, that ceiling router is a bit of a neat kit.Thank you for posting the link.We could not house the router on the lower floor because the metal beams (RSJ's) would block the signal. The lower floor used to be a petrol station, so the entire ceiling was reinforced with steel beams to add the other two floors.It is costing me the earth to live here, my sub woofer is picking up radio signals from Russian radio, police cars and even taxis. My wireless ear phones are no longer useful because it broadcasts local radio stations, so I need to look for a solution to solving this other problem too.

From the description of your situation it is quite likely that you are locally shielded from your desired wireless signal. There are paints and window film products out there which are designed to shield electromagnetic signals and Wi-Fi particularly well. But wireless shielding and attenuation can also certainly be an unintended consequence of the architecture or construction of the building.

What you really want is a hardwired signal coming into your home and a wireless router inside your room. If the wireless signal is generated inside your apartment you should be assured of good reception.

Your only other alternative is special placement of your antenna...

here's a couple videos for ya...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBoBPaLZ1NA



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOBfxbpxosA&NR=1

The problem is that you likely do not have access to the firmware to boost the external router signal nor the external router antenna to focus the signal - besides, you are shielded. That is why you want to get it wired into your apt if possible. Then you can re-broadcast the signal throughout your apartment yourself.

Is demolishing the building an option?
I know a guy in Yorkshire who is a professional demolishing expert I give you his phone number if you want.

Understood I am nothing more then an old networking geek in reality. That is why I thought of this solution in the first place. I was hesitent at first as you mentioned it is an apartment and most landlords are not really receptive to hard wiring anything or holes in the walls for any reason. However, if you were to show them the picture of those access points you may be able to get permission granted to do it. Especially if your absorbing the cost of the access point. I can also tell you that there are some specialized tools available to make the installation easier as well. Things like flexible drill bit and possibly a wire snake come to mind off hand.

As far as your other radio frequency anomalies I am not sure what to tell you. Maybe when you get your wifi running right you can research other solutions on google to help you out with them.

Your input has been valueable, I am in the process of getting a celing router ( have to get it through mail order) My landlord has been very helpful and is co-operating fully. I will be allowed to install it.

I am allowed to install a hard wire router.Most of the residents have their own hard wired router ( fibre optic) There are a lso a number of satellite dishes on the back of the apartment ( two right outside of my window)Because I am on the third floor I have a good view and can see a good distance and have noticed ( and counted) over 50 satellite dishes on various buildings.

There is also some sort of tower with THE largest satellite I have seen.I was told it is a communal set up for the apartments on the other block.

Hi s1ow Thank you so much for the information.

Now there's a thought!

my brother has an issue with people stealing his wireless reception.apparently he has the strongest reception around here and people can get reception off of his.i fight with his every night because out of the blue it will slow down really bad and i get all kinds of errors on web pages.their laptop does it too,so i know it's not just my computer