Slacko can't see my iphone when among hot spots

[puppyrodney]

When I am at my home with only a few other hotspots in the area, I have no trouble connecting to my iphone's hotspot.

But if I am in an area where there is a dozen or more hotspots in the vicinity, my iphone's hotspot won't even show up in the availability list. Is the strength of the other hotspots overpowering the iphone, or is it a Slacko issue?

[bigpup]

Could be, the list is so long that you are not seeing all available, in list window.
Does the list look like it goes past the desktop edge?

[puppyrodney]

No, I can scroll up and down through the list and see them all.

I carry a Netgear doggle with me, and will try that next time. When I was using Raring, I had to use it all the time because the "WL" module did not work in Raring. I switched to Slacko in an attempt to resolve that issue, but it may still be struggling with the Broadcom 4313? wireless card.

[mikeb]

Broadcom 4313

yes a total biatch on linux ...especially if in a HP or Dell it seems.

Those mini dongles from ebay/amazon seem to be the best answer if you are afflicted with one of these.

mike

ps...not ideal but ndiswrapper might actually work better in this case.

[puppyrodney]

I tried ndiswrapper, but if would not recognize the Windows inf? driver.

[mikeb]

hmm has to be the XP driver... just a suggestion...

Actually someone found a dongle which mentions puppy support...
http://www.amazon.com/Panda-Ultra-Wirel ... x+wifi+usb

There have been times when I have had to get the hardware to suit the operating system.

mike

[puppyrodney]

The Netgear WG111v3 Wireless Doggle works very well also.

XP? That is explains it. I was trying to use a Windows 7 version.

[mikeb]

Still think we should make voodoo dolls of broadcom hardware and stick pins in them.

mike

[greengeek]

I still see variable behaviour from Puppies when trying to identify wireless networks. I believe there must be some coding (deliberate or otherwise) that changes the attenuation each time the 'SCAN' button is used in the network wizard.

What I find happens is this:

Click SCAN and look at the list of detected wifi networks.

Then go back and click SCAN again. You will usually see a different collection of wifi networks detected (including some or all of those detected on the first pass)

Now keep trying the SCAN button a few times and see if the detected wifi networks list keeps changing. It does this on most of my Puppies. Hopefully you will see your hotspot detected during one of these scan passes.

My theory is that the signal detection attenuation is altered on different scan passes - which is helpful in situations where you may be TOO CLOSE to a wifi router and the signal may be too strong. (Sometimes it is easier to connect to a wifi router if you move further away...)

I don't know if this is deliberately coded into the firmware, or is a 'bug' of some kind, but anyway, I have now made it a habit to use multiple scan passes to get the best signal quality.

I have no idea if Frisbee alters this behaviour as I prefer not to use Frisbee. I only ever use the standard (classic) network wizard - not Frisbee or SNS.

EDIT : I doubt it will be a problem with the Broadcom device because you seem to be able to see the other wifi routers ok:

But if I am in an area where there is a dozen or more hotspots in the vicinity, my iphone's hotspot won't even show up in the availability list...

I can scroll up and down through the list and see them all...

[mikeb]

I do wonder about signal density.... one place I was helping at had a wifi based network.... it gradually became totally unreliable and i noticed a proportional rise in the number of wifi users/ acess points close by. As an ex rf engineer I feel there comes a point when such devices have too much high level clutter to deal with.

For the place in question I fitted cables and life returned to normal.

mike