Steve's workshop - Painting the outside walls

[t0ne]

Didn't see it mentioned but you have set up authentication on your wifi (set it up as WPA2 if possible)?
MAC address filtering is trivially easy to circumvent if that's all you are relying on.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yes I do.

 

[NickWelford]

Seems to me that a new series of videos should be forthcoming about the various problems and solutions you have encountered. Pity you haven't been filming all the way through...... (Or have you?)

 

[nanscombe]

Might only be a few seconds if any swearing is edited out. LOL

 

[Eric The Viking]

Setting all SSIDs to the same name should overcome the problem of hanging onto a weak signal. The client device (at least Windows & iOS devices IMO) will then remain connected to the strongest signal at any location, although there may be a few seconds delay initially after you relocate.

That's how it ought to work, but it's entirely dependent on client firmware. The experiments with Samsung and iOs hardware I've done show it often doesn't do that. In the trade its known as the 'sticky client problem' - as long as the poor signal doesn't drop below the device's "totally rubbish" threshold, the device 'sticks' doggedly to the degrading one.

The current state of the art to fix it (and have big, seamless wifi networks) is to use smart access points from the likes of Cisco and Aruba (now HP), which log client connection quality and pass clients between APs without the user being aware of it. This requires a management protocol across the infrastructure, and some implementations need a separate wifi controller too (Aruba's entry-level one is peer-to-peer though).

802.11ac is at least 3x faster than 802.11n, but I don't think even that has any provision made to broadcast some sort of connected-ap table to allow clients to choose for themselves. And anyway, it needs the client to look for other connections whilst it still has a "good-ish" one, which is something the wifi subsystem's firmware isn't designed to do (and which would either cost a lot or hit performance).

The Cisco system has been around for a while and is pretty stable. I like the Aruba approach, but haven't yet used it. Aruba cite some big clients though, including Microsoft campuses globally, so it's not snake oil.

The trouble is that simple implementations of either start in the thousands, probably more than all the kit on a normal home network put together.

E.

 

[wcndave]

I was going to say that using same SSID rarely works. I use the Cisco POE Access Points, and they work well, do pass you around to nearest device, and are normally priced, but not wireless ac. I do have one wireless ac router but without 4 way ac devices it won't make a difference.

Aren't we hijacking this thread somewhat? Steve's got it working perfectly ;-)

 

[Eric The Viking]

I was going to say that using same SSID rarely works. I use the Cisco POE Access Points, and they work well, do pass you around to nearest device, and are normally priced, but not wireless ac. I do have one wireless ac router but without 4 way ac devices it won't make a difference.

Aren't we hijacking this thread somewhat? Steve's got it working perfectly ;-)

Agree on all points

 

[defsdoor]

The solution to wifi issues with multiple access points is Zero Handoff.

You only see a single wifi network - no matter how many access points you have (and beneath the SSID at BSSID level). They sort out which one is handling you amongst themselves - whereas traditionally your device decides which one to switch to. This can lead to issues if your AP is stronger transmitting than your device is as you can hear it but it can't hear you.

 

[Eric The Viking]

...This can lead to issues if your AP is stronger transmitting than your device is...

They always are, given battery power and compromise on aerial design and location.

Some clients are really rubbish: My Samsung phone's wifi aerial is at the bottom, and wrapped round the shell, right where you hold it in a cupped hand to use it. Put the thing on a table and the signal strenth often goes up one bar immediately. On which point, those bars are as accurate as measuring air temperature by how cold your nose feels.

It would be very useful to have an AP that shows analogue info about wifi clients: band used, received signal strength etc. I haven't yet seen a retail unit that has this, although open source router firmware might - haven't played with it.

Useful discussion, but perhaps we should move it to the General Chat section and not hijack Steve's thread.

E.

 

[Steve Maskery]

What a day.
Woke up to no hot water. Looked at the boiler and it was flashing. Never a good sign, I guess. So, being an ex-IT man I did what any self-respecting ex-IT man would do, I switched it off and switched it back on again.

Nada.

So I phoned the guy who installed it over a year ago and he told me, in about a minute, how to fix it. It was just underpressurised and was surprised I never had to top it up before now.

I was quite pleased, really, in a way, because it is not that long ago when something like that would have sent me really frit, whereas I handled it without going all wobbly. I must be getting better.

Then my tumble dryer was on its way, having been in for repair for just over a month. But as I was clearing out the laundry room for its return, I noticed that the floor was all wet. Not paddling wet, but wet, and over a large area.

Just then Ray turned up, as did the delivery men. Ray helped me clean up, the delivery men left the TD in the hall and we tried to find out where the water was coming from. The washing machine wasn't leaking, so it's not that. We came to the conclusion that it must be coming in from outside, since we removed the downspout to install the Cat5 and power. So I'll just have to keep my eye on it. The whole room is damp at skirting level, that part of the house is below ground level and these houses were built without a DPC.

So it was 10.30 by the time we did anything constructive.

I say "we" but as usual it was Ray grafting and me running about. He re-laid the block paving we'd had to lift for the services,

I went out and bought a couple of bags of sand and made 1,872 trips to the tip with rubble and general waste. Then, after lunch Ray started digging the soakaway

Actually that is Ray's little joke. He was pretending he'd dug it rather deeper than it really was:

while I made another couple of million tip trips. It's a good job that the tip is only a couple of streets away.

Then I had a thought. A late thought. Is it OK where it is? So I rang Kevin the BCO. "It needs to be 5m from the building". Well it was only 2m from the workshop, but if it was 5m from my workshop it would be less than 5m from the log cabin. "Just get it as far away as you can, then".

So with much more cheer than I would have, Ray started to fill in the "practice" hole with the contents of the new hole.

He soon hit concrete, a buried fence-post base, as well as thick plastic membrane, a wiper blade, a wiper motor, loads of glass again and lumps of clay.

We knocked off at about 4, I had a quick turn-around and drove for 2 hours to my mum in hospital. I've just got back and now I am knackered.

 

[Baldhead]

Sorry Steve I missed your earlier post about your mums fall, how is she?

BH

 

[Racers]

Digging holes and filling them in sounds like Cool Hand Luke to me, has Ray got his mind right?

Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

Ronnie Barker: Futtock's End (the "Gardeners" carefully moving a hole from one end of the vegetable garden to the other...

 

[Steve Maskery]

Mum's old and frail. I've seen her looking better.

Pete:
<welsh accent>
"I'm the only loony in this village!"
</welsh accent>

 

[Titch]

Looking good. Can I ask how big a soakaway are you using ? Anymore details on this . I've been looking but there's loads out there

 

[Steve Maskery]

We are digging it until the BCO says it's big enough. He wants it 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5m. If we reckon the roof is, in round numbers 80 sq m, and an inch is 1/40th of a metre, then an inch of rain is 2 cubic metres. It's not often we get an inch of rain, is it? The problem is that the ground here is higher than at the workshop itself, and the cavity has to be below infeed level.

Ive just done a couple of hours out there (Ray's not here today). I'm still finding man-made rubbish 3' down. Glass, bits of electrical stuff, off a car, I think. A badge. A bag of sweets, minus the sweets themselves. And today I have come to a terracotta pipe of some sort. Goodness knows where it is from or to. It runs straight down the garden, about 8' from the fence. No idea how far it goes. I just hope it is a drain of some sort and not sewerage...

And lots and lots of clay

 

[Titch]

Thanks for that. I was digging out and leveling some ground last week. Got spoons forks wiper arms glass. Shoes I feel your pain and I haven't dug down yet. Just top ft or so.
Great thread btw

 

[John15]

Steve,
With all those hidden treasures you should have called in Time Team.
John

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well Ray has said more than once that he hopes we find a body; that way someone else will dig up the garden.

 

[Racers]

Well Ray has said more than once that he hopes we find a body; that way someone else will dig up the garden.

Ex-wife? :shock:

Pete