NetSurveyor Review – Wireless Network Strength and Detection Utility
I recently stumbled upon NetSurveyor while trying to find the more well known NetStumbler utility. NetSurveyor seemed to also do what I was looking for, so I decided to give it a try.
NetSurveyor 802.11 Discovery Tool Features
As with NetStumbler, the standard usage of NetSurveyor is to scan the airwaves and find all of the 802.11, or wireless networking, signals in the area. It then plots each signal’s strength and from that data, you can select the best channel for your home wireless network that will have the least interference.
In my case, I have recently moved my home office to the basement. I get a wireless network signal in my new office and both the Windows XP and Windows Vista computers connect to the wireless network. However, the signal strength is relatively low and just by using the tray icon, I noticed that higher isn’t necessarily better for signal strength. Fortunately, there are no other wireless signals in the area, so interference is not my concern.
However, signal strength is an important consideration for me. The Linksys Wireless Router, WRT52G2, is on the main floor of the house and moving it isn’t a possibility because it is attached to a Comcast cable modem which also happens to supply our home phone connection. (I got the bundle deal because it saves me some money.) So, moving the wireless router also means moving the telephone, which wouldn’t be a huge deal except, there really isn’t a better place available at the moment.
My PCs wireless connection is provided by a USB wireless adapter attached to a USB cable / stand, so I have some flexibility in where I locate it. I want to put it where it will get the best signal.
NetSurveyor detects my wireless signal and then displays its strength. By putting it in “Channel Timecourse” mode, it graphs the signal strength every few seconds. Moving the adapter placement around the small home office allows me to determine where the best placement is for the wireless adapter to get the strongest signal.
In wireless networking, intuition and common sense are not very helpful in setting up anything other than the most basic wireless network. That is because when it comes to multi-floor, multi-room wireless networks, one never knows exactly what interference and signal blocking occurs. For example, a large steel beam hidden between floors might make what logically seems like a great wireless adapter location into a terrible spot.
In my case, the bookshelves apparently cause a lot more signal degradation than I thought they would, so locating the adapter in one of the shelf areas is bad. A location that I figured would be lousy, actually turned out to be pretty decent.
It also turns out that there is a slight difference between channels which was a surprise.
NetSurveyor is a free utility that can help you both locate any other wireless signals and select the best channel, and one that gives you solid strength measurements so that you can properly locate your equipment.
I wouldn’t say it is better or worse than NetStumbler for what I do, but rather its equal, which is pretty high praise.
Improving Home Wireless Networking Signal Strength and Performance
I recently moved my office down to the basement. It’s a nice space and everything, but it’s in the back of the house and the wireless access point is attached to the cable modem up in the front of the house.
Now, I after the cluster-screw up I had with Windows random wireless network disconnects in the past, I figured I knew a thing or two about home office wireless networking. I was thinking about getting a repeater, or seeing if a longer Ethernet cable might allow me to position the wireless router somewhere else, and so on.
But, when I got to the basement I got a signal. Not a great signal, but good enough to work with. The little wireless network status icon in the system tray fluctuated between low and very low signal strength and the bandwidth sat in the 20 to 36 Mbps range, but since Internet access is my primary concern, those numbers were not a problem since that still is faster than my cable modem based Internet connection runs anyway.
Then, I hosed up my wireless Internet connection and I figured I would move the wireless USB adapter to a better spot while I was at it. The idiot system that Windows XP is required me to insert the CD so it could install the drivers despite the exact same thing being installed two seconds ago in a different USB slot! Arrrgggghh!
I didn’t have the CD handy, but I had my old wireless USB adapter that I replaced while troubleshooting the Microsoft browser caused wireless network connection drops that I was getting before. I plugged it in (and for some reason didn’t need that CD, whatever) and it worked, but the signal was stronger.
So, I started to wonder, was the D-Link wireless adapter more powerful than the Belkin USB wireless adapter that I moved to?
To find out I tried moving them both around and looking at the system tray icon. That was an exercise in lameness. So I found a utility called Netstumbler but it was all cranky about working and rebooting and whatever, so I found Net Survey at the same time and installed it. Both utilities are actually designed to scan the airwaves and see how many wireless networks are around and which channel would be best for your wireless network. My neighbors don’t live that close, so it’s a blank slate.
But, they also show the signal strength of each wireless signal, including yours. So, I used it to play around with the adapters and the locations and found out some very bizarre things.
First, it matters which way the USB adapter faces! That’s odd considering you are just supposed to plug it into the USB slot. I use the connecting wire because the adapters are too big to allow me to fill up all the USB slots that are in a row on my computer. Turns out that if the “Belkin” on the front of the adapter points in the direction of the wireless access point I get a signal that is 40% instead of something in the low 20% range if it points in another direction.
Second, despite the fact that the wireless router is on the level above me, higher is not better for signal strength. In my case, the adapter sitting on my desk near the back wall (which is also the outside wall for the basement) provides a better signal than running the thing up higher.
I have no idea why the height thing works the way it does, but I’m betting it likes to be back by the wall because that means there is zero signal coming from behind it since that wall is underground and I’m guessing wireless interfering signal earth penetration is fairly low. I guess that might explain the higher anomaly as well. However, there is a maximum lowness that works. Any lower and the signal starts to fade.
So, if you are trying to get better performance out of a wireless network, don’t just assume that you need to tweak configuration settings or buy a better, or more expensive, router or wireless network adapter. Instead, download Netstumbler or Net Surveyor and then move your adapter around and watch the signal. You might be surprised where the best spot is for your network adapter to be.
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