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The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

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Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#31

Post by joecool1029 »

cookiengineer wrote: post #28
colechristensen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your microwave uses 2.4 GHz specifically because it's particularly well absorbed by water :)

A friend told me once that his mouse stops working when someone is using the microwave. His room was on the backside of the kitchen. When I took a look at it, it turned out that his (proprietary) wireless USB adapter for the mouse was very close to the band of the noise of the microwave. The microwave was also not properly grounded and shared a circuit breaker with his room, as apparently the kitchen was formerly lar…

> A friend told me once that his mouse stops working when someone is using the microwave. His room was on the backside of the kitchen.

I had to disable a 2.4ghz access point a couple years ago because a bathroom had a passive IR detector for the light switch that would never let the light shutoff. Because detecting IR is a pretty weak signal, I guess these switches amplify it. The issue is the circuit also acts as a weak antenna for 2.4ghz and thinks its seeing IR when it's actually just amplifying and seeing the 2.4ghz beacon signal.

RF gets weird. Something I've thought about over the years is how my FM radios at my old house would sometimes pick up aviation radio which should be AM well above a tuned FM frequency. Apparently this is due to the common design being a superheterodyne receiver which comes with a few quirks (such as causing some small interference itself when it's receiving).

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#32

Post by jarnes5 »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For GHz signals water is a pretty good dampening material, I can tell on some links whether it is foggy!

Your microwave uses 2.4 GHz specifically because it's particularly well absorbed by water :)

That's a common myth. There is no special water resonance at 2.4GHz, it's just a frequency allocated for general use. Early microwave ovens didn't use 2.4GHz

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#33

Post by userbinator »

My first thought was atmospheric effects, i.e. along the lines of "The radio only works at night": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station

Also worth reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E_propagation

I must say, the AI-generated "stock image" doesn't add that much to the article and could be done without, especially when its alt-text contains the prompt.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#34

Post by jvm___ »

joecool1029 wrote: post #31
cookiengineer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend told me once that his mouse stops working when someone is using the microwave. His room was on the backside of the kitchen. When I took a look at it, it turned out that his (proprietary) wireless USB adapter for the mouse was very close to the band of the noise of the microwave. The microwave was also not properly grounded and shared a circuit breaker with his room, as apparently the kitchen was formerly lar…

> A friend told me once that his mouse stops working when someone is using the microwave. His room was on the backside of the kitchen. I had to disable a 2.4ghz access point a couple years ago because a bathroom had a passive IR detector for the light switch that would never let the light shutoff. Because detecting IR is a pretty weak signal, I guess these switches amplify it. The issue is the circuit also acts as a…

If you strum an electric guitar and let the hertz of the string fall through the range of AM radio the amp will briefly pickup AM radio stations. Not that you can decipher anything but you recognize voices as it travels past the station.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#35

Post by dnmc »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

Here's another for your collection.

- Putting the car in reverse sets off the neighbor's home security system. https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/7k12fs/neighbors_hous...

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#36

Post by foobarbecue »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

Ok I swear I had a printer that would do some kind of internal cleaning noise thing every time I plugged something else in to a 120v outlet anywhere in the same apartment. I never really tried to figure it out.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#37

Post by EvanAnderson »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For GHz signals water is a pretty good dampening material, I can tell on some links whether it is foggy!

Your microwave uses 2.4 GHz specifically because it's particularly well absorbed by water :)

This happened in my life too!

I had a Customer complaining about bad WiFi in a conference room. Every time I checked it I had good performance. Eventually I attended the meeting most of the of the complaints related to just to observe.

What I observed was workers from cubes near the conference room microwaving food for their lunch in the break room right across from the conference room.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

vghaisas wrote: post #13

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up: - Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt - Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... - OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

[deleted]

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#39

Post by protocolture »

Man having dealt with so many wireless issues I already had a shortlist when I read fixed wireless was involved.

Either the radios were misaligned and the rain was reflecting it back towards a stable link just enough to improve throughput.

Or

The rain took a bad link all the way down, failing over to a different link.

Or

The rain/wind was moving an obstruction.

I have about a million of these stories sadly.

"The internet goes down on tuesdays"

Crane.

"The internet goes out in the morning"

Temperature inversion.

Re: The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

#40

Post by taneq »

protocolture wrote: post #39

Man having dealt with so many wireless issues I already had a shortlist when I read fixed wireless was involved. Either the radios were misaligned and the rain was reflecting it back towards a stable link just enough to improve throughput. Or The rain took a bad link all the way down, failing over to a different link. Or The rain/wind was moving an obstruction. I have about a million of these stories sadly. "The inte…

“The car won’t start after I buy ice cream”

The old classic, I think it turned out that in hot weather the fuel line vapour locked a few minutes after turning off, and the ice cream was at the back of the store, and took just long enough to walk there and back to trigger the issue.

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