Thursday, April 3, 2014

WiFi Tips & Tools

Episode 76 of the Know How show on TWIT.TV covered some good tips and tools for setting up and maintaining your 2.4 GHz WiFi system. (They promised to cover the 5 GHz band on a future show. I'll search for that after completing this post.) There's a brief summary in the show notes -- scroll down the page to the topics: WiFi Tools, AP/Router Setup, and Antennas.  I recommend downloading and viewing one of the video copies of the show. Jump ahead in your video player to 18:51 where the WiFi topic coverage starts. It runs about 13 minutes total.

Update: Now see this discussion of using multiple access points. 

Several WiFi tools are mentioned in the Know How show, to help with evaluating the coverage within your home or business. After viewing the show back in January I added the free WiFi Analyzer to my Android phone. I also like another program inSSIDer that is not mentioned in the show. I've used it with good results on my Windows laptop and my Android phone. The current version 4 for Windows and Mac is available here for $19.99, but the free version that I installed a while back is still available elsewhere. The Android version costs $9.99.

John