PREMIERE ISSUE! - Park Model Living Magazine

WIFI paradise. In December we
rekindled a family tradition of
hers and cut down a live tree for
the living room.
So what has this to do
with WIFI? Well, that wonderful
tree was put in between the
wireless router and me. After
the tree was decorated with all
the lovely ornaments (many of
them metal, including of course
the tinsel), my wireless signal
instantly fell from excellent to
low. Although I am usually able
to connect and work, the speed
has decreased as well.
The moral of this story is:
When it comes to WIFI, what
you have now may not be what
you have tomorrow. Many
things in our environment effect
the quality of WIFI connections.
What can you do when
you get an inadequate or inconsistent
signal? You can purchase
a more powerful device. This includes
(but is not limited to) a
wireless bridge, which is an external
WIFI client device that
will let you move the location of
the device to get a better signal.
In some cases you will
need an antenna attached to the
outside of your park model or
RV. This outside antenna is the
best solution. It eliminates the
interference caused by being inside
of a structure and generally
results in a clear line of sight to
the nearest transmitter. This solution
almost always solves signal
and connection problems.
There are two ways to implement
this solution. First,
you can purchase a wireless
bridge that allows you to connect
an external antenna cable.
You can then connect a network
cable from the bridge to your
computer. Second, if you prefer
not to connect a cable to your
computer, or if you have more
than one computer you want attached
to the internet, simply
connect the wireless bridge to an
inexpensive wireless router.
Then connect your computer to
that router using your wireless
client devices.
The second method actually
creates your own little WIFI
www.ParkModelLiving.com
network. However, if you
choose this option be sure to set
some security in your new WIFI
router. You can use WEP security,
which essentially encrypts
all the information sent and received,
or you can use MAC address
authentication so that no
one else with WIFI can get into
your computers. - Dr.C.
Be sure to check out the rest of
this series -
Part II: Wireless Security
“H ow m u ch do I n eed?”
Part III Using multiple
computers from
a single WIFI account
Part IV Connecting with
your friends over WIFI
Send any comments or questions to:
TheComputerTech@parkmodelliving.com
Questions must include an e-mail address, telephone
number, your full name, city and state.
Requests for confidentiality will be honored
w ith the disclosure only of the correspondent’s
first name and state
Park Model Living Magazine 7