New wireless router, can't 'see' 2 Macs...

[MacLoon]

Hi Allen,

There are several possibilities:
1. That the router is really crap at picking the best channel.
2. That there were no other routers in that vicinity at the time your router selected the channel that it did.
3. That your router doesn't work well on the channel 1 frequency.
4. That your router is crap... not a major surprise with Netgear, although I do like the interface and the way the menus are laid out... unlike the Draytek Vigor I've been struggling with this week which really is bloody awful!
5. That the Router Fairy was having a bad day

[eric]

Hi Allen,

There are several possibilities:
1. That the router is really crap at picking the best channel.
2. That there were no other routers in that vicinity at the time your router selected the channel that it did.
3. That your router doesn't work well on the channel 1 frequency.
4. That your router is crap... not a major surprise with Netgear, although I do like the interface and the way the menus are laid out... unlike the Draytek Vigor I've been struggling with this week which really is bloody awful!
5. That the Router Fairy was having a bad day

Those are pretty good.

Also other wireless devices (not necessarily WiFi), e.g. cordless phones, baby monitors, etc. can cause interference along with the aforementioned microwave. So even if it picked a channel not problematic with other WiFi, it might have picked one problematic with everything else -- maybe?

At any rate, I usually set my channel manually, checking against other networks, as well roaming around with my wireless devices trying to get the strongest and most stable signal.

Glad you got it worked out.

[MacLoon]

At any rate, I usually set my channel manually, checking against other networks, as well roaming around with my wireless devices trying to get the strongest and most stable signal.

I think that the 'auto' is a fairly recent development with Netgear. For years, including up to when I bought the DGN2000 it wasn't in evidence. The default was always 11 and a suggestion that if 11 wasn't stable to try 6... that was in the days, presumably when wifi was nowhere near as prevalent as it is now.
Maybe that's why they introduced the auto feature... shame it's rubbish!
As a result, I've always picked my own channel as well.

[billybobski]

All the other wifi devices might well be a factor.

In this part of NW London, it's all flats, and as it happens, mostly young professionals (apart from us - although we were once!), so everyone has got gadgets galore, and the flats aren't very big, thus close together (upstairs and downstairs).

I'm glad it turned out to be simple, but I still have a hankering towards MacLoon's No.5.


Allen.