Does the reception of an airport card degrade over time?
I have one in my iBook that has been giving me poor reception over the
past few months, compared with what it was doing when I first bought it.
It's fine when it's close to the base station (five green lights), but the
reception in my office (one floor up) has been degraded -- often around
two green lights and last week briefly down to one. I used to get three
green lights consistently and often four.
Moving the base station closer to my office has not improved the situation.

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca

More likely the antenna setup rather than the card. Either the antenna
wires are coming loose or you may have a crimp where the wire goes
through the hinge. Apple replaced the antenna wiring in my daughter's
iceBook when it was less than a month old.


In article <dotlyc-0708031231350001[at]10.0.1.2>, <dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca>
wrote:

> Does the reception of an airport card degrade over time?
> I have one in my iBook that has been giving me poor reception over the
> past few months, compared with what it was doing when I first bought it.
> It's fine when it's close to the base station (five green lights), but the
> reception in my office (one floor up) has been degraded -- often around
> two green lights and last week briefly down to one. I used to get three
> green lights consistently and often four.
> Moving the base station closer to my office has not improved the situation.

In article <dotlyc-0708031231350001[at]10.0.1.2>, dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca
wrote:

> Does the reception of an airport card degrade over time?

No.

> I have one in my iBook that has been giving me poor reception over the
> past few months, compared with what it was doing when I first bought it.
> It's fine when it's close to the base station (five green lights), but the
> reception in my office (one floor up) has been degraded -- often around
> two green lights and last week briefly down to one. I used to get three
> green lights consistently and often four.

What else has changed? This suggests a new source of interference.
Maybe you got a new cordless phone that uses the 2.4GHz range? Maybe
there's some new metal object nearby interfering with the signal?

--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 1.4: Best cleanup yet, gets files other tools miss.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

In article <tph-0C69B5.11253807082003[at]localhost>, Tom Harrington
<tph[at]pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote:

> In article <dotlyc-0708031231350001[at]10.0.1.2>, dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca
> wrote:
>
> > Does the reception of an airport card degrade over time?
>
> No.
>
> > I have one in my iBook that has been giving me poor reception over the
> > past few months, compared with what it was doing when I first bought it.
> > It's fine when it's close to the base station (five green lights), but the
> > reception in my office (one floor up) has been degraded -- often around
> > two green lights and last week briefly down to one. I used to get three
> > green lights consistently and often four.
>
> What else has changed? This suggests a new source of interference.
> Maybe you got a new cordless phone that uses the 2.4GHz range? Maybe
> there's some new metal object nearby interfering with the signal?

Nothing has changed as far as I know, except for the change in
location. In the old location, the base station was beside a cordless
phone, but it isn't a 2.4 GHz. (It's around 900 MHz(?) I think.)
In the new location, it's near a regular land-line phone, a DVD player,
VCR and TV set.
In general, the reception seems to be worse at night than during the
day, although that's not invariably the case.
I have an eMac that also has an Airport card and it maintains a pretty
steady four green lights with the base station in either location.
Should I try re-seating the iBook card?

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca

In article <dotlyc-0708031231350001[at]10.0.1.2>, <dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Does the reception of an airport card degrade over time?
> I have one in my iBook that has been giving me poor reception over the
>past few months, compared with what it was doing when I first bought it.
>It's fine when it's close to the base station (five green lights), but the
>reception in my office (one floor up) has been degraded -- often around
>two green lights and last week briefly down to one. I used to get three
>green lights consistently and often four.
> Moving the base station closer to my office has not improved the situation.

This could be the result of damage to the internal antenna cable. Or
it could be the result of external interference or other changes.
Without another card to compare to, it's hard to tell.


--
Matthew T. Russotto mrussotto[at]speakeasy.net
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue." But extreme restriction of liberty in pursuit of
a modicum of security is a very expensive vice.

In article <070820031322322957%pmevans[at]nospam.mac.com>, Phyllis Evans
<pmevans[at]nospam.mac.com> wrote:

> More likely the antenna setup rather than the card. Either the antenna
> wires are coming loose or you may have a crimp where the wire goes
> through the hinge. Apple replaced the antenna wiring in my daughter's
> iceBook when it was less than a month old.

The card was working fine for the first year I had it -- this is a
recent development. Can moving the iBook around cause the wires to come
loose? I'm pretty careful with the iBook but it does get moved quite
frequently.

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca

In article <UrFYa.671391$3C2.15820835[at]news3.calgary.shaw.ca>, Tony Hwang
<dragon40[at]shaw.ca> wrote:


> dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca wrote:
> > Does the reception of an airport card degrade over time?
> > I have one in my iBook that has been giving me poor reception over the
> > past few months, compared with what it was doing when I first bought it.
> > It's fine when it's close to the base station (five green lights), but the
> > reception in my office (one floor up) has been degraded -- often around
> > two green lights and last week briefly down to one. I used to get three
> > green lights consistently and often four.
> > Moving the base station closer to my office has not improved the
situation.
> >
> Hi,
> Antenna orientation?
> Tony

I've heard that some people have had problems if they mount the base
station on the wall but mine is sitting on a desk.

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca

In article <AZBYa.1222$GW4.500442[at]newshog.newsread.com>, M-M
<nospam[at]ny.more> wrote:

> m-m
I'm using 2.0.4, which I know is an older version, but apparently it
doesn't need updating. I just ran Software Update and it didn't kick up
the Airport program as an option.
I'll give the channel changing a try. Do I have to do this with the eMac
as well? I'd hate to muck it up, since it's been giving me rock solid
reception and it sits right beside the iBook.

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca

In article <dotlyc-0808031018320001[at]10.0.1.2>, dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca
wrote:

> I have an eMac sitting right beside the iBook and it also has an
> Airport card. It gets a steady four green lights almost all the time. So I
> suspect this must have have something to do with the card in the iBook.

That's a logical leap there, since there are other factors that can
affect signal strength. Mainly related to the antenna, either its
orientation or its connection. Plus, while iBooks generally do pretty
well with Airport reception, there's really no reason to assume that two
Macs should get the same reception unless they're the same model. As
in, the difference might be more relevant if you were comparing two
iBooks instead of an iBook to something else.

--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 1.4: Best cleanup yet, gets files other tools miss.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

In article <dotlyc-0808031021290001[at]10.0.1.2>, dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca wrote:

> In article <AZBYa.1222$GW4.500442[at]newshog.newsread.com>, M-M
> <nospam[at]ny.more> wrote:
>
> > m-m
> I'm using 2.0.4, which I know is an older version, but apparently it
> doesn't need updating. I just ran Software Update and it didn't kick up
> the Airport program as an option.
> I'll give the channel changing a try. Do I have to do this with the eMac
> as well? I'd hate to muck it up, since it's been giving me rock solid
> reception and it sits right beside the iBook.

Following up my own post -- tried changing channels and it didn't make
much difference.
Actually, one of the channels I tried bumped the eMac up to five green
lights and the iBook down to two. Macs have a mischievous sense of humor.

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca

In article <tph-073074.10333708082003[at]localhost>, Tom Harrington
<tph[at]pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote:

> In article <dotlyc-0808031018320001[at]10.0.1.2>, dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca
> wrote:
>
> > I have an eMac sitting right beside the iBook and it also has an
> > Airport card. It gets a steady four green lights almost all the time. So I
> > suspect this must have have something to do with the card in the iBook.
>
> That's a logical leap there, since there are other factors that can
> affect signal strength. Mainly related to the antenna, either its
> orientation or its connection. Plus, while iBooks generally do pretty
> well with Airport reception, there's really no reason to assume that two
> Macs should get the same reception unless they're the same model. As
> in, the difference might be more relevant if you were comparing two
> iBooks instead of an iBook to something else.

I guess I figured that since the two cards were the same, it indicated
something was off with one of them. But it makes sense that interaction
with the particular model of Mac may also play a role.
In the case of the iBook card, I can only compare it to itself. It used
to be better than it has been lately (although today I've been getting
three green lights -- which is what I used to get most of the time.)
I may get a tech to look at it, just to see if there's anything
obviously wrong.
One thing that puzzles me is that the speed at which web pages,
newsgroups and email load doesn't seem to be entirely correlated with the
reception lights. If things are dog slow on the iBook, they're usually dog
slow on the eMac too, regardless of the differences in the Airport control
panel. This, I suspect, has more to do with my ISP than the Airport cards
so I'm wondering how much practical difference there is between four
lights on the eMac and two lights on the iBook.

--
dotlyc[at]sympatico.ca