Dear members:

After using Airport some a while I have noticed lately (last few months) a
degradation of the signal strength between my Powerbook and the Airport
Extreme base I have connected to my Powermac G5 and the cable router that
brings the Internet signal. Nothing has changed in regards to how I use the
Internet and I am always seating with my notebook approximately 5 ft from
the Airport base.

There have been instances (too many to count) when the communication between
the notebook and the Airport base would simply drop. The Powermac that is
connected to the base by an Ethernet cable continued to have access to the
Internet without any problems. In many of these situations I attempted to
restart the notebook but it didn't solve the problem.

I was instructed by one of Apple's tech support agents to reset the base,
doing both a soft reset first and then a hard reset in case the soft one
didn't work. I performed both and the problem was solved for a few days but
soon it began to do the same.

After reading a thread on another discussion forum about encryption and
security of wireless transmissions I decided to change the encryption I was
using from WEP to WAP Personal and made the changes on the Airport base.

Since this change I've noticed that the signal on my notebook has reduced as
the icon that represents Airport only shows 3 arcs instead of the 4 arcs
displayed when the signal is at or near full strength.

Questions:

1. What is the most secure encryption method I can use with my Airport
wireless transmissions to ensure that others can't access my network ?

Lately I've noticed that the number of wireless networks in my area
(residential) has gone from only two when I first acquired the Airport base
to as many as 13 functioning at any given time. Sometimes with the aid of an
application named iStumbler I check the different wireless networks and some
show signal that is as strong as or sometimes slightly stronger than mine.
How can this be ? Second question:

2. How can a signal from a network that is far from my computer and provided
by what I assume to be a wireless router in the same category as my Airport
Extreme base, be stronger than mine when the base and the notebook are only
5 ft apart ? My Airport Extreme base didn't come equipped with an antenna.
Can one be installed to strengthen the signal even if it doesn't have the
antenna jack in the back ?

Since I noticed that all wireless networks were using channels 1, 6 and 11
to communicate I decided to change my Airport configuration so that instead
of using "Automatic" which is the default setting for channel it would use
channel 3. Was this a good change or should I modify it ?

Please forgive me for the long post but I didn't know how to cover the issue
in a shorter message.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,

Joseph Chamberlain

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" <drjchamberlain@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:C02436F1.40A54%drjchamberlain@earthlink.net.. .
> Dear members:

I don't own an airport base station, so I can't really comment. I do know,
though, that using a pre-shared key is more secure than not, and the
strongest the encryption the better. Usually that's indicated by higher
numbers.

> Since I noticed that all wireless networks were using channels 1, 6 and 11
> to communicate I decided to change my Airport configuration so that
> instead
> of using "Automatic" which is the default setting for channel it would use
> channel 3. Was this a good change or should I modify it ?

It's a good idea. Remember that any other electronics operating on the wifi
frequency will be effectively jamming your signal. Cordless phones, etc.,
can seriously freak with it.

> Please forgive me for the long post but I didn't know how to cover the
> issue
> in a shorter message.
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Joseph Chamberlain

I'm sorry I don't have any more information for you. I know Google does,
though ;)

Good luck!

dave

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" <drjchamberlain@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:C02436F1.40A54%drjchamberlain@earthlink.net.. .
> Dear members:

I don't own an airport base station, so I can't really comment. I do know,
though, that using a pre-shared key is more secure than not, and the
strongest the encryption the better. Usually that's indicated by higher
numbers.

> Since I noticed that all wireless networks were using channels 1, 6 and 11
> to communicate I decided to change my Airport configuration so that
> instead
> of using "Automatic" which is the default setting for channel it would use
> channel 3. Was this a good change or should I modify it ?

It's a good idea. Remember that any other electronics operating on the wifi
frequency will be effectively jamming your signal. Cordless phones, etc.,
can seriously freak with it.

> Please forgive me for the long post but I didn't know how to cover the
> issue
> in a shorter message.
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Joseph Chamberlain

I'm sorry I don't have any more information for you. I know Google does,
though ;)

Good luck!

dave