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I don't know why I'm posting at this early hour in the morning, but something about your post just made me reply. Unless the hardware's really a POS, the only thing that affects range is a matter of placement. If you're going to stick the router in the basement then complain it doesn't work out in the backyard, you're going to have problems. Ditto for if you've got the router behind a brick wall and you complain it doesn't work on the other side. Figure out where the best place for the router is and you'll get some results from that.

As for speed, if you want some reliable speed, use Cat5.

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For this specific situation only.

tilhasbb wrote:itsnotme > I am doing a comparison of router range and speed.
All 3 routers are being placed upstairs with the same antenna alignment (Canadian homes usually have top floor, middle and basement). Reason its set upstairs is usually we use our laptops there so we want best signal and speed there also that’s where the modem is installed.
Kitchen is also great but when we go to the basement the signal is "very good". To better test speed with signal degradation i decide to go to the cold room.

Also another test I am doing is I am connecting and streaming music on my laptop then walking away from my house. When the music stops I steps back to my house. Since its upstairs and I am walking on the street facing the same room it should be a good test of range.

You would be wiser to run CAT5 from the top to the basement and then add a second AP on another channel down there.

tilhasbb wrote:itsnotme > I am doing a comparison of router range and speed.
All 3 routers are being placed upstairs with the same antenna alignment (Canadian homes usually have top floor, middle and basement). Reason its set upstairs is usually we use our laptops there so we want best signal and speed there also that’s where the modem is installed.
Kitchen is also great but when we go to the basement the signal is "very good". To better test speed with signal degradation i decide to go to the cold room.

Also another test I am doing is I am connecting and streaming music on my laptop then walking away from my house. When the music stops I steps back to my house. Since its upstairs and I am walking on the street facing the same room it should be a good test of range.

Ideally having 1 AP in basement, and one on the top floor would give you the best coverage. However it will be important to set both up so that you can hand off from one to the other should you want to walk around.

If you are just wanting wifi because you do not want to run cable to non moving workstations, best set them up on different non overlapping channels, different SSID's so that the basement AP and the top floor AP can breathe better.


I am having to do something like that over girlfriend's mom's house. She is moving in with mom to save up some $$$ and right now they have 1 machine hard wired (mom's) and her younger sister's laptop is wireless. My job (because I have NO say in the matter, I GOT "volenteered") is to set up the home network so everyone is wifi'ed and there is a common print server etc..

I have already done a site survey and no-one around them has any wifi, least thats what kismet says so that is good. I will still be locking it down with the usual tricks.

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tilhasbb wrote:I was about to release the test results from the WRT300N but i refused to touch it and put it back in the box.

-chop-

As for the Range. Again i am not impressed with the N.
Here's how i did my test. I turned off all the laptops and set my router to WEP 64bit security just so nobody would would jump on an unsecure wireless. Tried the wide band and standard and auto. also tried auto channel and channel 1 (all the routers are channel 6 or 11 here).
I turned in Winamp streaming music from di.fm and looked at Du-Meter.
I started walking away from my house down the street away from the house, and looked at Du meter to stop downloading.
Here are the results

-chop some more-

And all of this is COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS based on the lack of information given regarding the environment that you are testing under.

What is the material that the house is made of? Balsa? Brick? Cement? Freeze dried donkey dung?

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tilhasbb wrote:Airstreamer> I will tell you but first I would like to know Why would it matter what the house is made out of if all 3 routers are being placed in the SAME position with the antennas in the same position and placing the laptop and antenna in the same place. This keeps the test fair for all 3 routers.

I am keeping all the test condtions the same.

Its a Canadian house so its LOADS of insulation (aka Air) and wood. Only area with cement is the Coldroom.

mboglian??

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