[Ti] Airport Interference

[Kynan Shook]

Two things to try.  The easiest is to turn on Interference Robustness 
in your Airport menu.  Also, try turning it on in the base station's 
settings. Play around with it both on and off on both the client and 
base side; I've found some odd cases where, for example, having it on 
on the client and not the base works better than having it on on both 
client and base.
After that, try changing channels.  I'd recommend jumping as far away 
from your current channel as you can, and then try about every 3rd 
channel.  I've also had cases where 1, 6 and 11 won't work, but 9 will. 
  To avoid interference, you should be above or below any other 2.4 GHz 
signals by about 5 channels, but this isn't always possible, nor does 
it always work.  It's just the best way to avoid other signals bleeding 
in.  IOW, the best channels to use are 1, 6, and 11.
As far as sources of interference, lots of things can be a problem; 
cordless phones, some types of lights, microwave ovens, etc.  Maybe 
somebody is calling their mother every night at 10 PM, or taking a 
shower in a bathroom with a light that generates a particularly large 
amount of RF radiation.
As far as blocking the signal, you can put yourself inside a faraday 
cage; either a solid sheet of metal completely surrounding you and your 
airport, or some metal mesh with holes much smaller than the wavelength 
of the Airport (which is about 5 in/12 cm); something with a mesh of a 
few mm would certainly work well.  Not very feasible to surround your 
whole apartment with this, however.
Anyway, if you're interested in seeing what channels other people 
around you are using, download MacStumbler.  KisMAC can also show you 
closed networks, but doesn't work as well on Macs with Airport Extreme 
cards, and can interfere with your internet connection whenever you use 
it.  You can find both at versiontracker.com.

"John M. Hughes" <hughesjohn at mac.com> writes:
> I have a Ti 400  running 10.3 with an airport card and an airport
> extreme base. I live in a large apartment building and normally have
> good reception except that every night about 10:00 PM my signal dies
> for 30 minutes to an hour.  When I check the menu bar I see that there
> is another signal coming in although it is too weak to log onto.  Is
> there anything I can do to block the other signal(s)? Do you think this
> is causing my problem?