linksys wireless range problem?

I have a Linksys wireless router BEFW11S4, works fine except I don't seem to
have much range. New construction house, base is in bedroom/office in front
of house, signal is low, very low, sometimes good or very good, sometimes
signal drops when in living room. Laundry room is only thing in the way,
something like 50 or 60 feet. Is this normal? Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Drew

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:46:14 GMT, "DP" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have a Linksys wireless router BEFW11S4, works fine except I don't seem to
>have much range. New construction house, base is in bedroom/office in front
>of house, signal is low, very low, sometimes good or very good, sometimes
>signal drops when in living room. Laundry room is only thing in the way,
>something like 50 or 60 feet. Is this normal? Any suggestions?

I have the same BEFW11S4v4 at my house running part of a neighborhood
wireless network. It has the irritating habit of hanging ocassionally
but otherwise seems to have a superior radio. I have several
neighbors with very marginal line of sight through a dense redwood
forest, which is about the worst case system. Worse, there's a
vertical elevation difference that makes using an omnidirectional
antenna difficult. I've tried other wireless access points and
routers and found the BEFW11s4v4 to be the best of the pile without
going to high power transmitters.

Wireless does not like going through walls. New construction houses
tend to have fiberglass insulation with aluminum foil backing. The
foil is like a shield and will stop anything from going through.
Fortunately, there are usually gaps in the foil, so it's not a total
barricade. check for foil in the walls.

Try to guage how many walls your path goes through in a straight line.
My rule of thumb is:
One wall is usually no problem.
Two walls will usually work.
Three walls are a crap shoot.
If the wall is made of concrete, chicken wire, or aluminium foil
backed insulation, forget it.

50 to 60ft is about typical for going through a series of walls.
Actually, it's better than I would expect. What usually happens is
that you get a connection at 50 ft, but it's not stable or reliable.
Downloads hang or you get disconnected. That's because the path is
usually NOT a direct shot, but involves multipath and reflections.
Move a piece of furniture and everything stops working.

I'm not sure what to suggest to improve the situation. In general,
try to put the BEFW11S4 in the middle of the desired coverage area to
reduce the number of walls it had to penetrate. A 2nd access point is
another possibility. Reflective antennas are cheap and easy to build:
http://www.freeantennas.com
If at one end of the house, this might be a good idea to direct the RF
in the general direction of the coverage area instead of in all
directions.