[sadpandas]

Hi all,

My Mac Pro is in my studio which is across a courtyard and in another structure. Although the AEBS is in the main house it's just on the other side of a window facing the studio about 50 feet away. The Mac Pro (which has an N airport capable card installed) sees my 2.4 radio (only 2 or 3 bard but 4 on a good day) in the AEBS but does NOT pick up the 5 ghz radio. I am guessing it's just too far.

I do have a coax cable in here for the lcd but haven't gotten around to hooking it up as i should be working not playing . Anyway. can i set the the coax out here up to another modem from Time Warner (RoadRunner) and then just run cat 5 to the Mac Pro and just forget about getting N wireless in here (the studio). Hard wired (Cat 5) would be faster than N correct?

There is a lot in here so even if you have some insight into any of this please let me know, i would be forever grateful. I tried to give as much detail as possible but please let me know if i have left anything out.

thanks,
p

[ghporter]

50 feet with just glass between you and the AEBS should not be a problem. You could try reorienting the AEBS to see if you get both more bars and get a signal on the 5GHz band (assuming it's actually enabled on the AEBS).

Cat5 direct wired would indeed be faster than N, but not by a whole lot in ideal conditions. First, do the easy stuff-go back and forth between small turns and angles with the AEBS while monitoring your signal level. If that doesn't get you more bars in the 2.4GHz band and at least some in the 5GHz band, then go ahead and wire the machine with Cat5.

[sadpandas]

Thanks for the reply GH. I will try some different things tomorrow and report back. I did go into the airport from out here and turned the 5ghz radio on and chose n (5ghz) only on for one of the radios... My friends mac book saw the ssid name with the (5ghz) next to it while he was out here but was unable to join the network and was only able to join the regular ssid (2.4).... Hopefully you are correct and i can get this thing to work for the WHOLE reason i bought it .

love,
p

[Simon]

In my experience it's best not to force 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz but let the base station and the clients decide which band to use. Keep in mind that using the 2.4 GHz band does not mean you will be limited to 802.11g speeds. Also, recall that although 5 GHz operation offers higher bandwidth it also has less range and cannot penetrate structures as well as 2.4 GHz. So in principle you would expect to lose 5 GHz reception while still having 2.4 GHz reception as you increase distance to the base station.

Other than that, I second Glenn's suggestions. Make sure to try repositioning the antennae. Also, do you have large solid metal structures near the base station?

Finally, how do set channels? Automatic or manual? And in case it's the latter, have you confirmed you have actually chosen the best available band? Keep in mind hidden SSIDs or other sources of interference (microwave ovens, cordless phones, etc.) do not show up when using wifi utilities like AirStumbler or KISMac.