[LUAU] wlan question

[Tim Newsham]

I've been having some wlan issues here off and on for a while and it seems 
like it has been getting worse.  Where I'm at I can see about about 7 APs, 
including my own.  Sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less.  Typically 
the other APs are on channels 2,6 (several), 10 and 11 (several).  I have 
tried various channels trying to avoid the crowds, usually 8, 9 or 4 
(since the 6's and 11's are closest to me, at least in terms of signal 
strength).  I am sitting about 8 feet from my AP right now and still 
getting 15-25% packet loss! I'm receiving about -57db from my AP and -79db 
from the nearest competing AP, so its not clear to me that the 
interference is necessarily coming from other APs.  One other thing to 
note, sometimes I start getting a lot of drops (usually when I'm further 
away from my AP) and resetting the AP (d-link, 802.11g) seems to "fix" the 
problem for a while.

Any ideas on what might be causing the poor performance?  Is this normal 
performance for this amount of congestion?  Is this due to a cheap AP? 
Is there anything I can do to track down the interference or make 
adjustments that will increase my reliability?

Tim Newsham
http://www.lava.net/~newsham/