found_drama

Issue: Poor wireless performance in areas of the house.

Complicating Factors: Accounting for the “expected” signal decay (i.e., through several walls), there are 4+ WiFi networks detectable from our house. While not positive, it is relatively safe to assume that one of them is causing interference on our channel.

Solution: Change channels.

Methodology: U.S. standards allow for up to 11 channels in the frequency range covered by 802.11; this method takes 7 samples of signal strength over 60 seconds (starting with 0 and ending with 60, taking a signal strength sample every ten seconds) and compares the average signal strength for all 11 available channels. As we are using exclusively Apple hardware and software, the signal strengths were on a 0-15 scale, as defined in Apple’s “Internet Connect” application. That signal scale is circled in the figure below:

Signal strength samples were taken at a location where users commonly access the wireless network and also commonly report poor signal strength or else dropped connections. The network was configured to use channel 10 prior to this tuning experiment and so channel 10 was used for the baseline readings.
Results: Individual channel performances are illustrated on the figure below:

The seven signal strength scores were then averaged using an arithmetic mean and compared. See the figure below for these means:

Conclusion: Channel 8 ranked nearly 10% higher than all other channels in the 802.11 spectrum. The network was subsequently reconfigured to use this channel.

A.’s parents are in town smack in the middle of a most hectic week.  Everyone has work to do (they’ve even brought theirs to us.)  I wrap up a little bit of work (data analysis) and head into the kitchen to put some dishes in the sink.  I notice that there is water all over the floor and that someone has pulled the sink out of its usual location in the counter and move it.  The water appears to have spewed out of the pipes.  The sink isn’t just sitting out by itself though and this isn’t the sink that I recognize.  Someone has installed a new sink (with new pipes) closer to the oven and moved all of our dishes into it.  A.’s dad comes out and explains that he was responsible but that it’s OK.  There was some kind of accident and this was his fix for it.  He needs to explain it to me several times because I’m having a hard time understanding what was wrong with the old sink.  Eventually he just goes and shows me the old sink.  It’s utterly filthy.