AirPort reception on AlBook 15"

boemaneboemane
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I bough an AlBook 15" about one and a half month ago. The AlBook promised better AirPort reception than my old TiBook 667. But when im in my home office (a whooping 5 meters away from the Base Station - a Belkin one), I only get about 75% reception. By girlfriends iBook gets close to 100% on the same spot.



Is there something wrong with my box (antenna), or is this usual for the new AlBook ?



Thanks,

.:BoeManE:.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    The new AlBooks DO NOT get as good reception as they could. I know mine doesn't get as good reception as my mom's G3 iBook on their wireless network.



    Base station placement does make a difference. The closer it is to other electronic equipment or the more walls, electronic equipment, etc. that the signal has to go through; the worse the reception is going to be.



    Try turning on "Interference Robustness" in the Airport menu, too. That might help, as well as changing channels on your base station.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    cj3209cj3209 Posts: 158member
    I'm not sure that just because the iBook reception is at 100% and the Powerbook is at 70% that you can make the generalization that the iBook reception is better. A better test would be to see how far you can go before the signal fades; I'm willing to bet that the powerbook has as good - if not better - performance in this regard.



    I'm currently using an Airport Extreme Base Station and the 15" Al PB beats the pants off my old Dell notebook in terms of how far I can go before the signal dies. Not that that's such a great example...



  • Reply 3 of 10
    machemmachem Posts: 319member
    We have an iBook and a 15" ALbook. The iBook gets MUCH better range and reception than the AlBook. But, compared to a TiBook, well the Ti sucks. I've found that the AlBook reception is pretty darn good, but overall reception is much improved if you mount the base station on the wall (with the mounting bracket), and let it "spray" out in the direction your machines are at.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Okay, there is something to consider here. The antennae for the Albook is located on the sides of the monitor. The antennae for all the other apple laptops is in the base of the computer. For Optimal reception, the antenna(e) on your base station should have the same orientation.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    It makes sense that the iBook would have better reception and more range than even the AluBooks with the improved antennas. An antenna inside a plastic lid make infinitely more sense than two antennas inside an aluminum structure (even with the two plastic "windows").



    BTW: AirPort reception is a factor that I had not yet considered in my choice between a 12-inch PB and a 12" iBook G4.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by machem

    overall reception is much improved if you mount the base station on the wall (with the mounting bracket), and let it "spray" out in the direction your machines are at.



    machem: By "spray out," do you mean that reception is better in the direction the cone of the ABS points? I assume that is with the Apple logo facing down when it is mounted on the bracket.



    My original ABS is sitting on my desk, with the Apple logo facing towards me. I ususally sit to the right of it (i.e. with the ABS to my left) when I work with the iBook at my desk. Since the ABS covers my entire appartment, I have not yet experimented with orientation of the ABS. Although I have always wanted to mount it on the fall for looks.



    Escher
  • Reply 6 of 10
    piwozniakpiwozniak Posts: 815member
    i have an ABS mounted in my basement under a ceiling tiles and got so-so reception throughout the house, (ALbook), it doesn't even come close to that of an imac (snow) ot any of the iBooks.



    With new ABS you can extend the range by adding directional/or omnidirectional antenna.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    nguyenhm16nguyenhm16 Posts: 203member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by piwozniak

    With new ABS you can extend the range by adding directional/or omnidirectional antenna.



    The Belkin Omni sucks. It sits in a box in my closet now. There's a hack that you can do to it to greatly improve its effectiveness, but I don't have a soldering iron. :-(
  • Reply 8 of 10
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,562member
    I suggest getting MacStumbler (version tracker) and checking the numbers you get with that. At about 3 meters I get a reading around 45 to 50 (three to four bars in the menu bar icon).



    When I first got the Al 15" PB reception was almost zero. It turned out to have a pinched antenna cable. It was repaired but was still not really good. I recently had the screen repaired for the white spot problem. I think when they did that they might have replaced the antenna. Now it performs better than ever and the power level is very steady.



    It now gets about the same reception as my Pismo but not as good as our Graphite iMac.



    Turning on Interference Robustness will help fend off noise but will reduce your range.



    You might try telling the base station to use a different channel. I haven't tried that. My base station defaults to channel 1.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    machemmachem Posts: 319member
    Quote:

    machem: By "spray out," do you mean that reception is better in the direction the cone of the ABS points? I assume that is with the Apple logo facing down when it is mounted on the bracket.



    sorry... just saw this. Yes, it comes out the top in a cone shape (saw the exact shape some years ago somewheres on the web), so even though the cone is very flat, it is directed up in the air more than side-to-side, so mounting it on the wall using the bracket makes it more directional, with all the associated advantages and disadvantages.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by machem

    Yes, it comes out the top in a cone shape (saw the exact shape some years ago somewheres on the web), so even though the cone is very flat, it is directed up in the air more than side-to-side,



    Thanks for your followup, machem. If this is true, then I could presumably improve the range of my ABS (in my large but single-level appartment) by setting in lower on the floor, instead of on my desk.



    I actually used to have my ABS on top of a Bondi iMac (ca. 18" above desk level). Reception in the yard improved noticeably when I lowered the ABS to desk-level. However, I attributed the improvement to the fact that the desk level was below my wrought-iron window bars, which I assumed were previously shielding the signal.



    I definitely need to look into the shape of the ABS signal, especially if I updgrade from my plastic iBook/500 to an AluBook with lower RX quality.



    Escher
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