What can I do about local interference that wipes out both N wavebands?

I had impeccable wireless performance for years in this house - and
then, 3 months ago, something turned up in the vicinity that regularly
takes me offline completely. I bought a better 2.4GHz wireless N-
Router (Billion), then hung a 5GHz AP off it, thinking the
interference would be restricted to that frequency(ish). But no: In
the evenings, in particular, someone turns something on... and I can
lose sight of both router and AP. This is not another 802.11x
network. It doesn't make any difference what channel the comms are on
- it wipes it out completely.

I leafleted all the local houses a couple of months back, but no-one
owned up to anything - so, the question is: What can I do next? Does
anyone offer diagnosis of the source as a service? I'd glafly pay,
it's driving me to despair...

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:14:17 -0700 (PDT), tim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I leafleted all the local houses a couple of months back, but no-one
>owned up to anything - so, the question is: What can I do next? Does
>anyone offer diagnosis of the source as a service? I'd glafly pay,
>it's driving me to despair...

bless, I'd pay the gladfly too ...

--
vic

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:14:17 -0700 (PDT), tim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I had impeccable wireless performance for years in this house - and
> then, 3 months ago, something turned up in the vicinity that regularly
> takes me offline completely. I bought a better 2.4GHz wireless N-
> Router (Billion), then hung a 5GHz AP off it, thinking the
> interference would be restricted to that frequency(ish). But no: In
> the evenings, in particular, someone turns something on... and I can
> lose sight of both router and AP. This is not another 802.11x
> network. It doesn't make any difference what channel the comms are on
> - it wipes it out completely.

It maybe not a reception problem. I had similar symptoms and found the cause
was that the DG834Gv2's AP wireless would shut down when the router was
located too close to a DECT cordless phone base station.

tim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I had impeccable wireless performance for years in this house - and
> then, 3 months ago, something turned up in the vicinity that regularly
> takes me offline completely. I bought a better 2.4GHz wireless N-
> Router (Billion), then hung a 5GHz AP off it, thinking the
> interference would be restricted to that frequency(ish). But no: In
> the evenings, in particular, someone turns something on... and I can
> lose sight of both router and AP. This is not another 802.11x
> network. It doesn't make any difference what channel the comms are on
> - it wipes it out completely.
>
> I leafleted all the local houses a couple of months back, but no-one
> owned up to anything - so, the question is: What can I do next? Does
> anyone offer diagnosis of the source as a service? I'd glafly pay,
> it's driving me to despair...

How well do you know your neighbours? In your situation I'd ask a couple of
houses each direction to see if they have the same problem. It may turn out
that it is something localised to your house, or maybe your house and one
each side, which would suggest it is something in your house that is doing
the damage. Or it may be that your neighbour to the left has no problem,
but all your neighbours to the right do. It'd let you determine the
direction of the source if it's small and local.

Maybe ofcom, or whoever deals with illegal broadcasts could be convinced to
get involved if it's covering a fairly large area.

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:14:17 -0700 (PDT)
tim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I leafleted all the local houses a couple of months back, but no-one
> owned up to anything - so, the question is: What can I do next? Does
> anyone offer diagnosis of the source as a service? I'd glafly pay,
> it's driving me to despair...

Someone nearby installed homeplug Ethernet-over-powerline crappy
networking gear? It's a notorious cause of wideband interference that
many users don't even associate with wireless communication because it
runs over the mains circuits, and that Ofcom seems unwilling to do
anything about. You might be able to track down the source by
wandering up and down the street with a laptop, or even an AM radio.

Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:14:17 -0700 (PDT)
> tim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> I leafleted all the local houses a couple of months back, but no-one
>> owned up to anything - so, the question is: What can I do next? Does
>> anyone offer diagnosis of the source as a service? I'd glafly pay,
>> it's driving me to despair...
>
> Someone nearby installed homeplug Ethernet-over-powerline crappy
> networking gear? It's a notorious cause of wideband interference that
> many users don't even associate with wireless communication because it
> runs over the mains circuits, and that Ofcom seems unwilling to do
> anything about. You might be able to track down the source by
> wandering up and down the street with a laptop, or even an AM radio.

You mean the mains adaptors that make it nice and easy to get signals
through thick Walls and so on - hardly crappy by any reasonable definition.
Also nothing to do with wifi interference, I know many people who use both
in the same house with no problems at all.

On 19 Jul 2011 16:32:14 GMT
Simon Finnigan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > Someone nearby installed homeplug Ethernet-over-powerline crappy
> > networking gear? It's a notorious cause of wideband interference
> > that many users don't even associate with wireless communication
> > because it runs over the mains circuits, and that Ofcom seems
> > unwilling to do anything about. You might be able to track down
> > the source by wandering up and down the street with a laptop, or
> > even an AM radio.
>
> You mean the mains adaptors that make it nice and easy to get signals
> through thick Walls and so on - hardly crappy by any reasonable
> definition.

Some common implementations fail by a wide margin to meet RFI emissions
standards, and are known to cause problems with radio equipment
including Wi-Fi. So crappy by a "we've only got one electromagnetic
spectrum so don't be antisocial with it" definition.

Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On 19 Jul 2011 16:32:14 GMT
> Simon Finnigan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>> Someone nearby installed homeplug Ethernet-over-powerline crappy
>>> networking gear? It's a notorious cause of wideband interference
>>> that many users don't even associate with wireless communication
>>> because it runs over the mains circuits, and that Ofcom seems
>>> unwilling to do anything about. You might be able to track down
>>> the source by wandering up and down the street with a laptop, or
>>> even an AM radio.
>>
>> You mean the mains adaptors that make it nice and easy to get signals
>> through thick Walls and so on - hardly crappy by any reasonable
>> definition.
>
> Some common implementations fail by a wide margin to meet RFI emissions
> standards, and are known to cause problems with radio equipment
> including Wi-Fi. So crappy by a "we've only got one electromagnetic
> spectrum so don't be antisocial with it" definition.

Isn't there an argument that the occasional amateur radio bod who wants to
stop everyone using mains networking is the anti-social one?

On 19 Jul 2011 19:42:22 GMT
Simon Finnigan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
lectromagnetic spectrum so don't be antisocial with it" definition.
>
> Isn't there an argument that the occasional amateur radio bod who
> wants to stop everyone using mains networking is the anti-social one?

I'm sure there is, but views on how a good society should function will
vary.

On 7/18/2011 3:14 PM, tim wrote:
> I had impeccable wireless performance for years in this house - and
> then, 3 months ago, something turned up in the vicinity that regularly
> takes me offline completely. I bought a better 2.4GHz wireless N-
> Router (Billion), then hung a 5GHz AP off it, thinking the
> interference would be restricted to that frequency(ish). But no: In
> the evenings, in particular, someone turns something on... and I can
> lose sight of both router and AP. This is not another 802.11x
> network. It doesn't make any difference what channel the comms are on
> - it wipes it out completely.
>
> I leafleted all the local houses a couple of months back, but no-one
> owned up to anything - so, the question is: What can I do next? Does
> anyone offer diagnosis of the source as a service? I'd glafly pay,
> it's driving me to despair...

Is your internet connection to the house wireless or does it use some
form of wired feed, like DSL, ADSL, Cable, or Fiber?

If your feed is a wired one try hooking a PC directly to the feed (no
router) and see if it continues to function properly. Possibly
something is totally hosing your inbound feed resulting in a overloading
of the router.

As for problems with the neighbors, or even with in your house, I have
had a problem which would take out all wireless connections. It took a
week of trying to track the signal along with power company people once
we convinced them that the signal was showing up on our power feed.

That problem was tracked down to a defective thermostat control in a
neighbors water heater. The relay was arcing badly as well as cycling
on/off rapidly, but only under full load, as when they came home for the
night and took showers and ran the dish washer. The arching was not
enough to cause the circuit breaker to trip. Once the relay was
replaced the problems were gone.

Another thing worth trying is the freeware program called inSSIDer 2
which can be found at:

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

It can be used to view wireless signals in your local area and with luck
the interference as well. It inSSIDer shows the interferrendce try
turning off the mains breaker at your place and see if the interference
is still covering the "N" band. If the signal goes away when the mains
are off then most likely the problem is inside your home. Then it is
time to power individual breakers on/off until the problem feed/device
is identified. Installed on a laptop you can use inSSIDer to walk
around to try and narrow down the area of the interferrence. If your
laptop radio supports an external antenna you could plug in one of those
cheap directional antennas and use it along with inSSIDer to track down
the source of the signal. With a little added aluminum foil shielding
you could restrict the range of your laptop to try and narrow down the
source if your laptop does not support an external antenna, just don't
block the cooling vents.

The Metageek site also has some commercial programs/devices like the
WiSpy series of products you could purchase which plug into a laptop to
turn it into a spectrum analyzer which also could be used to track down
the offending signal.