This describes moving equipment, positioning antennas, and avoiding obstacles. When optimizing your existing equipment, consider:

• Placing antennas in a good location, at a good angle.
• Avoiding physical things that block signals.
• Reducing the interference from other things that transmit radio waves.

Before starting adjustment, make sure that antennas and cables are securely fastened!

If your network has more than a couple wireless devices, before you move things, decide which wireless devices are transmitting the heaviest load. These links are important to optimize. NETGEAR products have automatic data rate fallback, which allows increased distances without losing connectivity. It also means that devices that are further away are inherently slower. Therefore the most critical links in your network are those where the traffic is high, and the distances are great. Optimize those, first. The ones that are least important are links that have little, occasional traffic, and which have a strong signal strength.

Picking Good Locations for Antennas

• Antennas should be in line-of-sight of one another, where possible. Put your face next to one antenna, to find whether the other is visible.
• Place high, and clear of obstructions as practical.
• Keep antennas 2 feet from metal fixtures such as sprinklers, pipes, metal ceiling, reinforced concrete, metal partitions. (However, antennas on roofs do not necessarily give the best results. )
• Keep away from large amounts of water such as fish tanks and water coolers.
• Antennas transmit weakly at the base, where they connect. So don't expect good reception from the bottom of a router or access point.

• RangeMax Equipment Location isn't as important if you have RangeMax™ products. If you have the 240 router with three antennas, the best positions for most situations are straight up for the center antenna, with the left and right antenna tilted 45 degrees to the side. For narrow or multi-floor buildings, putting the middle antenna horizontal may work best. Always avoid putting the tips close to each other.

  For multi-story buildings, placing antennas at 45 degrees (diagonally) or 0 degrees (straight out parallel to the floor) may be most effective.
  

Reducing Interference

Avoid windows unless communicating between buildings. (Windows let in interference from the outside world.)

Place antennas away from various electromagnetic noise sources, especially those in the 2400 – 2500 MHz frequency band. Common noise-creating sources are:

• Computers and fax machines (place wireless equipment no closer than 1 foot)
• Copying machines, elevators and cell phones (no closer than 6 feet)
• Microwave ovens (no closer than 10 feet)

Maximum wireless signal rate derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 specifications. Actual data throughput will vary.
Network conditions and environmental factors, including volume of network traffic, building materials and construction, and network overhead, lower actual data throughput rate.

Doc: n101318.asp March 24, 2004