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

On 18/08/2026 14:36, Rich wrote:
> c186282 <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 8/17/26 20:47, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> On 2026-08-17, Rich <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Good point.  There's a reason microwave ovens operate at 2.45 GHz.
>>
>>    Alas 5ghz interacts poorly with STRUCTURES.
> 
> 5Ghz is much more easily absorbed by structures.  Brick and concrete
> are very good absorbers of 5Ghz signals.  Brick and concrete also
> absorb 2.4Ghz signals as well, just not to the attenuation level that
> 5Ghz is absorbed.
> 
>>    I doubt there's a 'perfect frequency' that will
>>    get thru structures, veggies AND offer a good
>>    data rate.
> 
> There is no "perfect frequency".  Ignoring FCC rules that mean you
> can't use every frequency anyway, if you want more penetration (less
> attenuation) from structures you want lower frequency.  But lower
> frequency comes along with lower bandwidth for data, so lower data
> speeds.
> 
Its ironic that I could probably build a reliable data transfer for 50 
baud running on 27MHz


> Reality is you have tradeoffs, and have to decide which tradeoff is
> acceptable to you.
> 
>>    Best, shitty, fix is to have multiple repeaters in house and then
>>    pick the BEST one to connect to in any given part of the structure.
> 
> Yes, that is the best way, but also the more complicated way, so most
> non-techie folks won't end up going that route.
> 
The best way is to wire the house with CAT 5
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