How many wireless signals can you get in your area?

Krusty · Nov 14, 2003

As of today, I have 3 wireless signals in my apartment, all connected to cable modems. One is mine. The other two belong to neighbors but I have no clue which neighbors. My bedroom gets such bad reception from my own access point that I have taken to connecting to the neighbors internet while on my laptop in my room.

So how many signals can you pick up in your area?

** Edited By Forum Mod - RED Hot Machine ** keep this legal **

**Edited by Krusty as well. I didn't even know there were illegal issues involved in this. I guess the whole hacking thing kind of goes hand in hand with this topic now that I think about it.

{PMS}fishy · Nov 15, 2003

More than I want. Depending on where I am up to 8.

mbentley · Nov 15, 2003

i can't see any except my own. then again, i don't exactly live in the city or a heavily populated area...

Miknow · Nov 15, 2003

wish I could get some so I dont have to pay 49.95 for my high speed hehe

nealric · Nov 15, 2003

3 from my home.

In a 15 minute drive along the major thoroghfare near my home, about I get about 150 netstumbles

kaltag · Nov 15, 2003

1 in my own home and thanks to the booster on it you can pick it up over most the neighborhood. I've got a few netstumbler logs that exceed 300 entries.

macklin01 · Nov 15, 2003

Miknow said:
wish I could get some so I dont have to pay 49.95 for my high speed hehe

Let's do be careful and not steer the conversation towards theft of others' connections ... a survey is one thing, bootlegging another's connection is another ... -- Paul

fiji · Nov 15, 2003

seeing as how east tennessee isnt exactly the technology mecca of the world...

none

Exiler · Nov 15, 2003

I dont understand this. Isin't this the reason you use the encryption? to make sure noone can use your internet connection, but only the ones with the same SSID, Channel?

Or is the whole concept of that is useless?

P.S I dont have any wireless stuffs yet, so I dont understand this. I will be getting 2 wireless lan to connect to each other to share the net. Does this mean no level of encryption is useful?

mdcomp · Nov 15, 2003

Only one in my house, which is my own. When I was in a hotel once in Johnstown, PA, I got a signal from an office across the street, no encryption either, heh. I was there for a family event. It was great, I was on my laptop the whole time.

Matt

macklin01 · Nov 15, 2003

Exiler said:
I dont understand this. Isin't this the reason you use the encryption? to make sure noone can use your internet connection, but only the ones with the same SSID, Channel?

Or is the whole concept of that is useless?

P.S I dont have any wireless stuffs yet, so I dont understand this. I will be getting 2 wireless lan to connect to each other to share the net. Does this mean no level of encryption is useful?

Ah, this is a tricky issue. The vast majority of people don't know to and/or don't bother to enable encryption and set a unique SSID. Once that's done, in theory, the network cannot be connected to. However, most of those networks will still be visible, even if they can't be connected to. (And in truth, WEP encryption isn't very strong, and so the keys should be changed regularly as a starting point.)

I guess the good analogy is that you can see many doors (wireless signals). Some of them may be locked (encryption, etc.), but you'll generally still see the doors.

Hope that helps. -- Paul

SniperXX · Nov 15, 2003

I get mine and my friend (neighbor like 200ft away). I need to get a PCI adapter for my wifi card so I can plug it into my gaming pc then we plan to try gaming on it. Has anyone played games over wifi? BTW: We got the Dlink with 22mbps 802.11b.

In San Diego this past August I picked up over 200 signals in a small 3 block radius! Too bad I live more north, lol.

ArBiTaL 24 · Nov 15, 2003

Woah! Talk about a thread on the edge

Be careful where you go with this guys

I dunno bout me, i don't do wireless, not secure enough and i don't care about wires

Plus wireless don't have fast speeds, reliable connections, easy setup and it costs more than wired

hkgonra · Nov 15, 2003

I can't even get my signal all over my house much less pick up anyone else's signal.

Krusty · Nov 15, 2003

ArBiTaL 24 said:
I dunno bout me, i don't do wireless, not secure enough and i don't care about wires
Plus wireless don't have fast speeds, reliable connections, easy setup and it costs more than wired

Don't care about wires? Try telling me that while sitting in the John checking your email on your laptop. It's unbelievable convenient to have wireless in your house if you own a laptop. My apartment is wired for all the desktop computers and we have wireless for the laptops.

As for the security issue, I don't really care if someone accesses my wireless that much. I'd only have a problem if they were attempting to do something malicious or were sucking up my bandwidth. Either way, I can log into my router and see who is/has been accessing my network. If I begin to notice people attempting to use the network, I'll encrypt it. Any time after that in which I notice someone using it, I'll change the key.

SniperX, whereabouts you live in SoCal? I've got an apartment in Clairemont in San Diego.

SniperXX · Nov 16, 2003

Krusty said:
Don't care about wires? Try telling me that while sitting in the John checking your email on your laptop. It's unbelievable convenient to have wireless in your house if you own a laptop. My apartment is wired for all the desktop computers and we have wireless for the laptops.

As for the security issue, I don't really care if someone accesses my wireless that much. I'd only have a problem if they were attempting to do something malicious or were sucking up my bandwidth. Either way, I can log into my router and see who is/has been accessing my network. If I begin to notice people attempting to use the network, I'll encrypt it. Any time after that in which I notice someone using it, I'll change the key.

SniperX, whereabouts you live in SoCal? I've got an apartment in Clairemont in San Diego.

My network is very similar to what Krusty said. We too just use the wifi for PDAs and Laptops. I dont really worry about the security on the wifi since its basiucally for fun websurfing. The laptops and pda are as secure as they can get with software and windows settings. When we do stuff we want secure aka bills/online orders/file transfers we just plug in to the wired, its that simple. I just love WIFI as a way of working away from my desk and outside in the nice weather.

Edit: sorry if some of that doesnt make exact sense im very tired and brain dead now, haha.

ArBiTaL 24 · Nov 16, 2003

I have a laptop too, but when it's at home, it's just sitting on a desk with a keyboard and mouse in it, i don't see the need to move it much, and when i need to, i just work on it somewhere else, bring it back, put it back on the network, and transfer the files again. No big deal.

RED Hot Machine · Nov 16, 2003

I'm watching this thread, It will stay aslong as it stays on the route it has taken so far.

Falcon-K · Nov 16, 2003

at my apartment i get one....my own, kinda strange i even tried to get my gf's apartment to be networked but signal wasnt strong enough.

mbentley · Nov 16, 2003

well one thing i would suggest for those of you who don't have any security/encryption on your wireless network, make sure you turn of dhcp. then i would suggest not using 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x for your networks. pick a random number like 192.168.213.x so it would be harder for people to guess because without the proper setup, they will not be able to gain access. also set your internet gateway to something besides the default of xxx.xxx.xxx.1 because that is easily guessed since that is what the default is for most. it may be a pain to configure the first time, but it is well worth it if you ask me.

How many wireless signals can you get in your area?

Insane Overclocking Clown

Senior Member

Gloriously Lead, Overclockix Chief Architect

Member

Member

Senior Member

Computational Oncologist / Biomathematician / Mode

Member

Member

Classic Administrator

Computational Oncologist / Biomathematician / Mode

Member

There is no spoon

Member

Insane Overclocking Clown

Member

There is no spoon

Inactive Moderator

Member

Gloriously Lead, Overclockix Chief Architect

Similar threads