[TriLUG] WiFi quality monitoring

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2014, Igor Partola wrote:

> So a quick update.

I was wondering how you were going with this.

> I took my secondary router (Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH2) out for a couple of field 
> trips. This router did better at these away locations than at the house, but 
> not overwhelmingly so. The ping times still periodically jumped but were not 
> as bad: round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.032/11.079/101.937/18.223 ms, with a 
> 1.0% packet loss.

this is still showing problems. Are you using the same laptop for all these 
tests? (ie could it be the laptop's wifi card?)

everything in my house is wifi. Here's a one hop ping to my x86 linux router, 
through a wrt54g running openwrt

PING 192.168.2.252 (192.168.2.252) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=2.06 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=1.87 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=2.15 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=4 ttl=64 time=2.05 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=5 ttl=64 time=1.92 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=6 ttl=64 time=2.38 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=7 ttl=64 time=2.09 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=8 ttl=64 time=1.90 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=9 ttl=64 time=2.45 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=10 ttl=64 time=2.92 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=12 ttl=64 time=2.60 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=13 ttl=64 time=2.51 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=14 ttl=64 time=1.90 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=15 ttl=64 time=2.70 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=16 ttl=64 time=2.14 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=17 ttl=64 time=1.98 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=18 ttl=64 time=2.15 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=19 ttl=64 time=1.94 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=20 ttl=64 time=2.60 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=21 ttl=64 time=1.86 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=22 ttl=64 time=1.85 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=23 ttl=64 time=2.11 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=24 ttl=64 time=1.77 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=25 ttl=64 time=1.91 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.252: icmp_req=26 ttl=64 time=1.99 ms


> I also set up airdump-ng on a Linux box I have with the 9dBi antennas and
> looked for any hidden SSID's in the area. Nothing was found there, at least
> in the 2.4 GHz range (this box does not have a 5 GHz card).

no wap even sitting right next to your wap is going to cause this problem. It 
has to be at least 1W sitting next to your wap. I use stacked wrt54g's without 
problems.

> Other possible interference sources I thought of since the last message on
> this list:
>
> - an ADT security system with a wireless base station.

don't know anything about these, but they're likely to be relatively low power, 
so no.

> - Roku 2 & Roku 3 players that use Wi-Fi remotes (though the remotes are
> not in any use while I run my ping and bandwidth tests).
> - Some type of power issue, though all the equipment is plugged into surge
> protectors.

not real likely.

> What other options would you explore? Would getting completely different 
> equipment (I was looking at Ubiquiti's UniFi AP's) be of any use?

possibly, but I wouldn't try it first. I think the first thing to track down is 
the ping problem in your first para. It can only be the laptop, the wap or the 
environment.

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!