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Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

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Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 27 Jun 2022, 14:12

I'm after something (cheap if possible) and ideally directional to try and confirm where I suspect some interference in the %G band is coming from.

What sort of thing do I need to Google ? Radio receiver ?
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Lurker » 27 Jun 2022, 14:52

Complain to your provider, it’s their signal.

Or..

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/radio ... nd-the-law
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Robert » 27 Jun 2022, 15:08

I take it this is 5Ghz wifi band not 5G Mobile phone service?

There are apps for that. I use a free android one called WIFI Analyzer which shows access points and each ones signal strength and shows which channels are in use and what access point is using them.

No doubt there are plenty of other apps that do the same or maybe more.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby John Brown » 27 Jun 2022, 15:19

Robert wrote:I take it this is 5Ghz wifi band not 5G Mobile phone service?

There are apps for that. I use a free android one called WIFI Analyzer which shows access points and each ones signal strength and shows which channels are in use and what access point is using them.

No doubt there are plenty of other apps that do the same or maybe more.

I use that too, but I don't think it would detect jamming as such, either intentional or accidental, if that's what Roger is concerned about.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 27 Jun 2022, 15:20

John Brown wrote:
Robert wrote:I take it this is 5Ghz wifi band not 5G Mobile phone service?

There are apps for that. I use a free android one called WIFI Analyzer which shows access points and each ones signal strength and shows which channels are in use and what access point is using them.

No doubt there are plenty of other apps that do the same or maybe more.

I use that too, but I don't think it would detect jamming as such, either intentional or accidental, if that's what Roger is concerned about.


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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby spb » 27 Jun 2022, 15:24

For cheap, there are multiple free WiFi analyser apps that will use your existing WiFi card to display signal strength, channel use and so on.

If you want directional, you'll need a directional antenna (obviously) and a WiFi adapter that can take interchangeable antennae. Something like this and this (cheaper options may well be available). Connect those two together, plug it in to a laptop, and use that to run one of the analyser programs.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 27 Jun 2022, 15:48

Thanks chaps. I think that a spectrum analyser is what I'm after.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Robert » 27 Jun 2022, 16:23

Some time ago I had a play with SDR Radio.

Software Defined Radio. It uses a cheap USB TV tuner along with software to tune it to a wide range of frequencies. I didn't find anything that interesting and abandoned the idea but i do remember the computer display as being a spectrum view with active frequencies showing.

No idea if it will do what you want but may amuse/annoy you finding out :)
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 27 Jun 2022, 16:52

Thanks Robert. You've just reminded me that IIRC a mate of mine has played around with one of those.

EDIT: He's used the SDR receiver and RSP h/w. Only problem is that 2GHz is as high as they go.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby novocaine » 27 Jun 2022, 20:01

can you not slide your band over a few and see if it still occurs?

Edit, sorry, wrong terminology, slide your channel over not your band.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 27 Jun 2022, 22:07

novocaine wrote:can you not slide your band over a few and see if it still occurs?

Edit, sorry, wrong terminology, slide your channel over not your band.


Yes-ish. I can change the router to, say, Channel 40 but the AVM repeaters are tri-band (2 at 5G). One of them will follow and I can control ergo Channel 40. The other band is auto-channel.

TBH this is more of an academic exercise as 2.4G works fine for us and I've disabled 5G.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Eric the Viking » 28 Jun 2022, 07:27

Sir does indeed need an analyser, sir does. And a fat wallet, if it's to be effective. but SDR might offer a solution - you need something that can be coaxed into working at 5Hz, evidently. These are the sort of things a local amateur radio group would have access to, together with educated bods (wot knows stuff) to turn the virtual knobs and switch the, etc...

I use WiFi Analyser, and it's very useful, but it's only as good as the receiver you are using, obviously. It should tell you which channels have the most activity on them and/or interference. I also get very good reporting from the Ubiquiti access points on my meshed setup, about the local environment - I haven't tried, but I think they will produce channel usage over time graphs too, in case something hapens at specific timess of day. It's moot though, as they channel-hop as necessary. I don't interfere, as they are better at it than any manual intervention I can do.

The question is whether or not this is broad-sepctrum interference, or something on a specific WiFi channel.

Might one inquire of sir what sir's actual issue is? 5G WiFi doesn't carry very far, obviously: hardly beyond the walls of a normal house, and you're not exactly close to your nearest neighbour (see other thread, etc.). So are you trying to track down something within the house? Something like a Pringles can aerial with a PC 5G card (USB these days, at a guess) might give you the necesary directionality.

I'd be surprised if it was "smart" meter related: I don't know for certain, but it's likely those use 2.4GHz, for better distance and compatibility, and they shouldn't need 5GHz data rates.

If it's a persistent nuisance, I'd try to find the local radio hams - they love a challenge usually. Otherwise WiFi analyser will give you an overview of which channels are crowded (either intentionally or by interference).

E. (who remembers on 1970s outside broadcasts when we used to manually tune around VHF (band 1?) to find a quiet space for our radio mics!).
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 28 Jun 2022, 07:47

It's more of an academic scientific interest. I'd been having lots of dropout streaming audio. Intermittent. As you say, these mesh networks 'do their own thing'. A chance comment by a technical support lass at Zen took me down the 'radar' route. And we all know who's just up the road ;)

So I played around tweaking what I could such as forcing the router to work only on channel 40. But then I found, digging deeper, that the repeaters were still doing their own thing. Pushing out Channel 100 etc. And, as I said, it was intermittent.

So I've now turned off 5Ghz across the estate and all is now good. Fingers crossed. Even if I did track down RF interference from them up the road, nowt would happen about it. Maybe a compensatory flight in a Chinook :eusa-whistle:
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 26 Feb 2023, 15:09

This is still very much an issue.

Lightbulb moment and I put a stopwatch on to see if the dropout was regular. It was. The period of dropout is every 12 seconds...give or take. The duty cycle a few days ago was approx 2.5 seconds dropout and 9.5 seconds music. Today, the duty cycle has changed to about 4 secs dropout and 8 secs music.

I do have an app on my mobile phone but it shows nothing. That's not definitive as I have no idea what the spectrum sampling rate is of the app.

I've tried forcing to Channel 48 but, when I came back to this thread, I realised I'd been down this route before and the Repeaters don't follow that channel but I will check again. OK...just checked...AVM have done an update and both repeaters are on Channel 48.

Nothing in the AVM log.

Any other suggestions very welcome.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Cabinetman » 26 Feb 2023, 16:01

That’s way beyond me Roger, best of luck!
I will just relate what happened with my Wi-Fi in case it’s of any use, signal was very poor in my rural area in Lincolnshire and after pressing Three quite hard they got an engineer to test (Remotely) and we agreed to reduce it from 5G to 4G which improved things enormously.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 26 Feb 2023, 16:19

Cabinetman wrote:That’s way beyond me Roger, best of luck!
I will just relate what happened with my Wi-Fi in case it’s of any use, signal was very poor in my rural area in Lincolnshire and after pressing Three quite hard they got an engineer to test (Remotely) and we agreed to reduce it from 5G to 4G which improved things enormously.
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Appreciate the reply, Ian, but we're talking wi-fi and not mobile. :)
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Cabinetman » 26 Feb 2023, 16:51

Sorry yes it was SIM card based home WiFi, and now I remember it was reduced from 4g to 3G, worked fine for what I needed but no doubt Stone Age to most of you haha.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Eric the Viking » 26 Feb 2023, 20:06

Roger:

My Unifi (Ubiquiti) access points tell me how good the RF environment is via the WiFi controller/dongle - you can have them listen for you and then select channels accordingly (or lwet the controller choose.

I'm in an urban area, and can see many other networks, but ours is pretty fast and bomb-proof.

That said, last time I reconfigured it, I tried to use higher bandwidth 5GHz channels (there's an option to steer clients towards 5GHz). It wasn't a success, so whilst 5GHz is available I had to turn off the "prefer" option.

If it's repetitive interference, is it something electromechanical, such as a motor controller or possibly a data blast from a "smart" meter?
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 26 Feb 2023, 22:47

Eric the Viking wrote:...
If it's repetitive interference, is it something electromechanical, such as a motor controller or possibly a data blast from a "smart" meter?


No. It's an effing radar or something secret squirrel from 'them' up the road.

I did check my throughput on 2.4G and we should be OK for video streaming.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 28 Feb 2023, 15:23

Interference was a red herring and down to user error and lousy diagnosis. :oops:

Yesterday

You’re going to find this explanation very strange but I have checked and rechecked and as far as I can see…

0) streaming via wi-fi from Qobuz

1) the periodic cycle of 12 seconds is consistent - X secs of no music followed by Y secs of continuing the song - repeat

and the really weird thing is that

2) it ONLY happens on SOME (consistently so) albums and ONLY happens on my old Samsung A71. My Samsung A23 will play the same album faultlessly.

I cannot even begin to conceive how/what/why

and Ta Da...today :idea: :idea: :idea:

Cache. In the apps and desktop program.

Confusing us all. When comparing the two phones, we’re not comparing apples with apples because of the cache. So if the A23 has a good copy in cache then it will always play that and it will sound OK.

So..deleted cache in both Android apps, the iphone app and the desktop program. The fault is now consistent and exhibits on both Android phones and also the iPhone. Desktop is fine and plays OK.

Ergo…Qobuz have an issue with that album. There may be others. Reason why the desktop plays OK is that I think it has a deeper look-ahead buffer which masks the disconnect.


EDIT: Qobuz appear to have fixed it :obscene-drinkingbuddies:
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby TrimTheKing » 28 Feb 2023, 16:17

Haha, did you tell them it was an issue or pure coincidence that when you find the reason, they fix it...?
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby RogerS » 28 Feb 2023, 17:23

TrimTheKing wrote:Haha, did you tell them it was an issue or pure coincidence that when you find the reason, they fix it...?


I messaged them.
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Re: Seeking a gizmo to monitor interference on 5G wifi

Postby Andyp » 28 Feb 2023, 21:24

Bang goes your helicopter ride then. :)
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