Airport Extreme signal isn't good

[scooterguitar]

Do I need to change channels manually you think? I've read and read on this, but still get lost in some of the technical language.
It barely shows any bars for signal strength. Past several days it keeps going in and out.
one channel is 11 and the other 149, which I believe both are defaults. WHat shall I try to change them to?

Is there a way to see how fast the wifi is actually running? I hold option down and click on the airport icon on the top toolbar, but I don't know what all the info means

Thanks for any help.

 

[DaveTheRave]

According to this website, the best channel is 161 for the 5Ghz network.
http://www.macworld.com/article/151509/2010/05/speedupwirelessnetwork.html

You might want to download and run a program called iStumbler which shows all the nearby networks. In my area I see some 2.4 Ghz networks using channels 6 or 11. So I changed my channel to channel 1 so there's no interference. I also made my Airport Extreme Base Station use the same name for both the 2.4 and 5ghz frequencies (meaning the 5ghz network name doesn't have the "5Ghz" after it.) My Macbook will use whatever frequency it deems to be strongest. So far so good.

 

[scooterguitar]

Thanks Dave. That was informative. I messed with some of the manuals channel settings, but am still getting high interference and noise #'s.
Hmmm. More digging.

 

[jenzjen]

To ensure there isn't something wrong with the h/w, move your router to a wide open space and see what happens. If your throughput is much better, then maybe you just need to place it in a better location.

 

[scooterguitar]

iStumbler reads around 40% signal and 9% noise on g and only 25% signal on the n channel, only two rooms away :<(