Re: The best Wi-Fi upgrade I made wasn't a new router, it was moving one piece of furniture

The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 17/08/2026 20:26, Rich wrote:
>> c186282 <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On 8/15/26 10:13, Lars Poulsen wrote:
>>>> On 2026-08-14 18:35, c186282 wrote:
>>>>> On 8/14/26 19:33, rbowman wrote:
>>>>>> <https://www.xda-developers.com/the-best-wi-fi-upgrade-wasnt-a-new-
>>>>>> router-it-was-moving-some-furniture/>
>>>>>
>>>>>     Heh heh ... YEP !
>>>>>
>>>>>     Esp with 5ghz.
>>>>>
>>>>>     Had a little remote unit, crappy crappy connection.
>>>>> Literally moved it six inches and suddenly a pretty damned GOOD
>>>>> connection.  Not sure WHAT in the path was blocking the wifi, but
>>>>> even that tiny move got the obstruction out of the path.
>>>>
>>>> Classic multipath interference.  Signals arriving by different paths
>>>> (some of which may involve reflections) arrive with different phase
>>>> and may cancel each other out.
>>>
>>>    Yep.
>>>
>>>    And the higher the freq, the worse !
>> 
>> Higher frequency matters not for multi-path interference, destructive
>> interference is still destructive interference.  What is worse for
>> higher frequency is propagation losses (the signal is weaker at the
>> same distance from the antenna for an identical transmit power).
>> 
> Well not really, Go far enough and you run into light and that seems to 
> work OK at a billion lightyears plus.

While true, I was leaving things like that out, our "speed of light" 
nym seems to get confused too easily otherwise.

> It all depends on what you are travelling through.  50 miles is an 
> effective range of a 35GHz microwave link before the earth's curvature 
> renders that a bit impractical

Speed of light nym was talking about WiFi links, so given current, 
affordable, home tech, that's 2.4G and 5G WiFi links.  And presuming 
the 2.4G and 5G signals begin at the same access point (a normal 
assumption for a typical install) then at the same distance away 
(assuming a reasonable WiFi type distance), in general, the 5G signal 
will be more attenuated than the 2.4G signal.

> 2.4Ghz will happily do a miles as many RC modelers have found. Just not 
> with trees in the way.

Living trees are quite full of lots of water, which is a very good 
2.4G signal absorbing medium.

> There is an argument that scattering and destructive interference is 
> precisely how propagation losses happen anyway...

In general it is, which is why "light, in space" can propagate such 
distances.  There is little matter in the way to produce that 
scattering.  And what matter there is is very dispersed, so it reduces 
the scattering.

For "speed of light nym's WiFi signals" and presuming a fixed AP and a 
fixed laptop/phone there is plenty of matter in between for scattering 
(or outright absorption).