Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 11:54 -0400, Peter Boone wrote:
Oh I know. Luckily it's located in an industrial area just on the outskirts of the city. There isn't a lot of other WiFi (in my opinion); 3-5 total SSIDs spread across 2 of the 3 physical channels (1,6,11) depending on which rooftop you measure from.
2.4 and 5GHz license-free Wifi is license free because the frequencies are shared with the ISM (Industrial/Scientific/Medical) services. In an industrial area, competing WiFi is the least of your worries. These frequencies are also used by industrial grade heating units. Got anyone in the neighbourhood running a large plastic shrink wrap machine, for example?
Motion sensors also run in the 2.4GHz range.
You can't directly detect these other users with a Wifi transceiver. Depending on the nature of the interference you *might* be able to hear it directly on a scanner (if you can find one that covers those frequencies), but you really need a good spectrum analyzer to tell what's going on.
Anyway, don't assume the competition for spectrum is only other Wifi units.
--lyndon