What's required to make wireless reliable?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:24:33 -0600, Otto Haliburton
<ottohaliburton at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mark Knecht [mailto:markknecht at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 6:14 PM
> > To: Otto Haliburton
> > Cc: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> > Subject: Re: What's required to make wireless reliable?
> >
> > > > I've moved the router to all the convienient places. It got
> > > > significantly better, but not nearly good enough.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks Otto!
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > I don't think it has to be metal to work, in fact I am sure it does not
> > and
> > > move it vertical also, I mean to a higher location and I also have heard
> > > that some brands are not as good as others so you might use the old Frys
> > 15
> > > day money back thing and try a different brand to see if it is better.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > I'm trying to set up my laptop with ndiswrapper so I can run around
> > the house and do some tests. How do I change the default routes to
> > stop it from using the eth0 as the default route and make it use
> > wlan0?
> >
> > I.e. - currently uses eth0 to get to the gateway and I want it to use
> > wlan0?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mark
> I think you go to either system or system utilities and there is a network
> device under there and you can change it there.  I am currently under xp and
> I can't tell you exactly, but you will see it in the menu and you can use
> its help to see how to use it.  Better still just google wlan0 it might help
> better with the problem you are having.
> 
> 

Well I figured out that I can do

ifdown eth0
route del eth0
ifup wlan0
route add default gw Netgear

I can switch to wlan0 and it works. Actually I'm sending this from the
laptop using wireless.

However it's sort of strange but the results from iwlist wlan0 scan
are not valid unless I do ifdown wlan0 ifup wlan0. Unless I do that
the value stays the same no matter where I am in the house.

-13db 12" from the router
-36db here at my desk
-50db in my son's room
-63db in my wife's office
-63db in the kitchen