WIFI interference – used to be fine and now's gone bad

[smithyjones]

Hi,

I live in a condo and have the following setup: iMac to wireless router to 4 airports, each of which has speakers attached to it for playing music from my iTunes from the iMac.

For the first three months this worked perfectly. I listened to my podcasts around the condo no problem. Now, I get dropouts every 3 minutes or so.

Here are the variables and I'm hoping someone can help me:

– the wireless router needs rebooting/refreshed
– iTunes needs updating
– someone else in the building is blocking my signal with a device (cordless phone or something)
– my cordless phone

Anyway I can troubleshoot this efficiently? For example, 9 times out of ten it's interference which you can stop by doing x and y.

Thanks in advance!

[smithyjones]

Two other things:

– it only happens during the daytime
– is there a way I can see if someone is piggybacking my wireless?

Thanks!

[arkayn]

You would need to check the logs on the router and see if there is a MAC address/Computer name that you do not recognize in there.

Are you using security on the router/AE's?

Wireless b/g routers are running in the 900 MHz range, so any phone in that spectrum can interfere with the signal.

[smithyjones]

It's happening when other people in the condo building are logging in to their wireless network (ie – when they turn their computers on and off). I know this because when the dropouts happen I look to see if there are more or less wireless networks than just before.

Is there any way I can set up my Airport so that it doesn't look for any other wireless networks but my own? Can I also set it up so that my wireless network is invisible to them?

Thanks.