@#^^$*$ Internet

My Internet happens to be working at the moment. I have wireless service with the transmitter on top of a grain elevator five and a half miles away and a reciever on top of our house.

For the last week, it's hardly worked at all. Yesterday, the company replaced the antenna on top of the elevator as part of a planned upgrade. No improvement on my part.

Called in this morning, and the manager spent the biggest part of the day in my office trying to get it to work. He replaced the reciever on the roof of my house and had a stronger signal than he even expected. At the power supply under my desk, it still just fades in and out. He plugged in his laptop with the same result. That eliminated the possibility of the problem being in my computer. We'd already bypassed the wireless router that sends the signal to my wife's computer in the next room with no change.

I asked the manager if the problem could be the cable between the reciever on the roof and the power supply under my desk. He mumbled, "That could be a possibility", and continued what he was doing. Apparently he didn't think it was much of a possibility.

We'd already replaced the power supply, and bypassed the router, sending the signal directly to my computer only.

When he left this afternoon about 4:30, he said, "See what it does over the weekend, and if you don't see me or hear from me by 9:00 Monday morning, call me". He said that over the weekend he'd think it through and talk to some other people.

That cable is the only thing left that hasn't been replaced or eliminated as a problem in the entire system. After years of trouble shooting avionic systems in jet fighter planes in the Marine Corps, I'm aware of how easy it is to overlook the obvious on a problem.

Guess we'll see what happens over the weekend and on Monday.

BTW, the system worked great for several years until it began acting up intermittently last fall, so it's not like it's something new and untried.

Is it only you having the problems? We"ve had something simliar to you for a year and a half and it has it"s ups and downs. It"s good 90% of the time, and aggrivating as heck the other 10%. The only thing left to replace is the cable. If things don"t improve over the weekend, replace it. The company may have replaced their antenna, but did they check all cables for damage? I know one of the times our internet was giving problems, the internet provider finally traced it down to a bad cable on their antenna(or somewhere on the silo).It also acted like it is for you, it would work on and off, no rythm or reason to it. Worked perfect after they replaced that. Find out if your neighbours are having problems.

Get some Cat 6 cable and connect it just strung the easiest and quickest way to test performance with a new cable. Then if you prove it to be better with your "patch" cable, install new cable using the old cable for a pull string. Do you have a high gain parabloic antenna outside your house or just the receiver with it's built-on little square antenna? Performance is greatly improved with a high gain directional antenna. Good Luck!

-Jim

That was my thought. I"ll see if I can round some up.

Thanks for the response.

Tried to keep the money at home (in the hood). Local boy worked for a local startup company. After 3 years of putting up with intermittent operation and nothing but excuses, I bit the bullet this spring and went with satellite. I am very happy with the "uninterrupted" (other than a heavy thunderstorm with heavy rain)service.

In the transition I learned that my router (have 3 computers, wireless) was outdated and new ones are a lot faster. I went to Best Buy and dropped about $75 and sure nuf, it is. Additionally it has WIFI so that my sweetie can read internet available books on her "Nook". Nook is an electronic book with a large screen version of what you see on ipad; downloads books from the internet a for your reading pleasure.

Mark

I'm ready to try satellite, if this wireless company doesn't get their act together.

At someone else's suggestion, I patched in a new cable from the unit on the roof to my office and nothing changed.

Being rural satellite was about the only choice and Hughes had the equipment. I used to work with that company and they are a very innovative company and build good equipment. If you get a $500 rebate offer with your installation, don't wait for them to contact you. They tell you where the rebate site is located. You have to take the initiative to get the ball rolling. I goofed and didn't do that and by the time I figured it out, the rebate window had expired.

My local company put their antennas on things like water towers and all. It was a line of site thing. I am 3 miles from the tower and it is hilly. The last straw was when I finally got them to tell me what my problem was and they said that my signal strength was weak and that as a result service could intermittently drop out, which it did.

They said that if I cut my trees down, between my antenna and the tower, it would surely help......click, buzzzzzz. Hello satellite.

Mark