What determines the range of your wireless internet connection?

Answer

Dear Nick,

The ideal case would be to forget your house and everything around it (including the high-voltage pylon) for a while: you, the access point and your computer remain. In that case, you might be able to work far enough (up to 50 m) from your access point.
However, the house itself weakens the signals considerably: the walls (thin plaster walls weaken much less than bricks of course) and anything that is damp (if there is a clothesline with damp laundry between your PC and the access point you will also have less signal , so can go less far). Metal objects (a metal cabinet or a large mirror, for example) behave in a more complicated way: sometimes they can even improve the signal.

In addition to these phenomena, interference may also occur. Download the program netstumbler (free) and check which signals you receive. If your neighbor works on the same frequency you can try the access point of frequency (or channel you can set it from 1 to 13; if possible stay 5 channels away from any existing channel; if you ever expect a visitor from America you will have 12 and 13, because then your guest will not be able to use your wireless connection). Indeed, this interference reduces the quality of the two connections. Also, don’t be surprised that your connection doesn’t work as well when your microwave is on: here’s only one solution: wait for your microwave to finish its work.

A power line should have only a very small, negligible effect on the quality of the wireless LAN connection. Here the PC itself will experience problems via the magnetic field, but then you have to hang almost to the maximum loaded high-voltage line (if you want to do tests anyway, stay a few meters away from any conductor under voltage: at the high-voltage line you don’t have to touch the wires before you can be electrocuted). Also on radio (especially the old medium wave, but that can go up to TV frequencies) spontaneous discharges on the conductors of a high-voltage line can cause disturbances (the Corona effect can even be heard under high-voltage power lines). The most adverse weather conditions for these latter disturbances are fog. Turn your radio or TV antenna a bit to minimize this effect, but here it’s not guaranteed to get rid of it completely.

Hopefully with this answer you can improve the quality of your WLAN (and possible radio/TV reception).

Success with it,

Manu