Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

predr.ag

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 331 posts

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#281

Post by edpichler »

Once I had an Internet cable that stopped for a while whenever I turned on the microwave (understandable), and also stopped when started raining. The trickiest part was that it turned off just for a while and ONLY at the beginning of the rain.

I called the telecom company many times. They charge per visit in case no problem is found. I always had to explain the situation and ask the technician not to charge me and come when it started raining, a very hard thing to do because we cannot predict forecast and the network went down for 10 min only.

It does not seem a big problem, after all, I could just wait 10 minutes. After this happened multiple times a day every rainy week, making me lose meetings, work, server connections, etc... I had to patiently chase the telecom company and even ask for the personal phone numbers of technicians (to ping them when it was going to rain) until they finally found a solution.

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#282

Post by sundarurfriend »

hbn wrote: post #81

The unusual internet setup is pretty important information to bury a few paragraphs in. Once that was explained it seemed like they should have started by checking nothing was blocking the antenna before tediously running around plugging the laptop into things and following cables and checking power supplies on the networking equipment? Hindsight is 20/20 but I correctly guessed the ending as soon as that information…

I felt the same, but to be fair to the author, the information was probably buried in the back of their mind too - when you've had a set up like this for years, many of its details become invisible to yourself, part of "obvious" background information that your mind doesn't bother bringing to the forefront.

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#283

Post by TheBigSalad »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #282
hbn wrote: post #81

The unusual internet setup is pretty important information to bury a few paragraphs in. Once that was explained it seemed like they should have started by checking nothing was blocking the antenna before tediously running around plugging the laptop into things and following cables and checking power supplies on the networking equipment? Hindsight is 20/20 but I correctly guessed the ending as soon as that information…

I felt the same, but to be fair to the author, the information was probably buried in the back of their mind too - when you've had a set up like this for years, many of its details become invisible to yourself, part of "obvious" background information that your mind doesn't bother bringing to the forefront.

Sure, but the title has you thinking "Why would this external weather event effect my in-home wifi?" when the answer is "because I have a weird thing outside of my house that makes the wifi work". I feel used.

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#284

Post by navigate8310 »

edpichler wrote: post #281

Once I had an Internet cable that stopped for a while whenever I turned on the microwave (understandable), and also stopped when started raining. The trickiest part was that it turned off just for a while and ONLY at the beginning of the rain. I called the telecom company many times. They charge per visit in case no problem is found. I always had to explain the situation and ask the technician not to charge me and co…

Don't leave it at the cliffhanger

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#285

Post by saalweachter »

fabatka wrote: post #65
asadhaider wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First thing I thought of too. Anyone know if there a list of more articles similar to these three?

I remember one (might have been a hn-er's comment, dunno) about the computer restarting when the toilet was flushed. Turns out it was due to voltage drop when a compressor turned on to refill the reservoir of the toilet.

That's why in rural locales with spotty power it pays to have a UPS on any electronics -- you might not benefit much from 15-30 minutes of extra power in a day long blackout, but it keeps everything happy when the voltage fluctuates.

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#287

Post by hmhrex »

wrboyce wrote: post #163
asadhaider wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First thing I thought of too. Anyone know if there a list of more articles similar to these three?

https://500mile.email although I do wish it had more content!

Thanks for mentioning! I would love more submissions! I have a few stories in my backlog to read and vet, but not enough. I'll be going through this thread and adding more that haven't been added yet.

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#289

Post by SiempreViernes »

ozim wrote: post #271
rawbot wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading log files with really obscure error messages might as well be reading a magical grimoire. Especially when the solution turned out to have nothing to do with the error message.

Hey but that is not a discussion, that's just throwing anecdote to bring other person down or make yourself feel better.

The funny thing is this comment could have just as well been made on the grandparent and would read just as well.

Re: The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining

#290

Post by lupusreal »

vikingerik wrote: post #118
jordigh wrote: post #15

Let me see if I'm the first one to link to that classic story in the same series, "I cannot send email further than 500 miles" http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html Or the Magic/More Magic switch http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html It's fun when physical reality meets the abstract models that we have built in our heads of these machines.

My recent version: I was playing a pinball game in an arcade. One particular ramp shot was registering earlier in the day and then stopped working. Eventually I realized that the sensor is an optical beam, and the receiver happened to be in direct sunlight coming in through a window! So it was continuously receiving infrared and would never report the beam being blocked by a pinball. Sure enough, it started working a…

You missed an opportunity to cheat the machine by waving your hand between it and the sun. ;)
Post reply on HN