Topband: WIFI and 160m

[Tom McAlee]

> I would really appreciate feedback/advice from topbanders who have 
> installed WIFIs with regard to good low noise products and the siting of 
> these.

Hi Steve.  Others may have different experiences, but I had not had any 
trouble with a wireless router that sits 4' from my transceiver, 150' from 
the tx/rx antenna and 100' from the rx-only antenna.  All of my antenna 
cables run right below the desk the router sits on.

I switched from a wired network to all wireless just a couple of months ago. 
At first I went with a cheap D-Link router.  But, my laptop seemed to lose 
connection to it often enough to make it annoying when I was sitting on my 
couch (in the room above the router).  So, I switched to a cheap LinkSys 
instead.

Neither brand made any noticeable difference at all with regard to noise on 
any band, and these are cheap ($50 to $80 USD) routers.

I was more concerned about the opposite problem:  transmitting affecting the 
network.  I had problems in the past with RF-based wireless keyboards. 
After a few hours of transmitting (high power) on the higher HF bands, I had 
a hard time getting it to recognize keystrokes.  That wasn't good for the 
contests, so the wireless keyboard went from the operating desk to the scrap 
pile.

But, so far no problems with the network with regard to rx or tx on any 
band.

73,
Tom, NI1N