Using wireless networking at home? Have a ton of neighbors with wireless too? Check your channel (and here’s a tip on how)

Derek Hatchard’s Information Flume Ride - Find the Right Wireless Networking Channel

“The hard core geeks know that to optimize your wireless networking experience you want to select a channel that is unused by other nearby wireless devices.

If you run Windows 7 (or Vista), use the following command at the Command Prompt to see the channels and signal strength of nearby networks:

netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid

The channel numbers will be in the range of 1 to 11.  Find a hole, ideally at least five channels away from your neighbours, and change your wireless router configuration to use that channel.  If you are in an area with lots of wireless networks, focus on avoiding interference with the strongest competing signals.

Slightly Deeper Explanation

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I love learning something new every day… I’ve used netsh in the past, but never for this (so I guess I’m not a hard core geek… lol…).

We’re a huge UVerse neighborhood and I’m surrounded with everyone’s 2Wire WAP’s (6-9+ WAP’s are in range of my home office). I’ve been changing my channel to try to find a good one, but was obviously doing it the lamer way (i.e. hit and miss). With this knowledge I can now take a much more methodical approach.

[Insert normal disclaimer here. YMMV. Keep arms and hands inside the car. Filmed on a closed track with a professional driver… In short, if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it…]