Tech Soup?ByRaymond D. Matkowsky
Many people have heard the fable of “Rock Soup” (some know it as “Stone Soup”). This fable was originally published in 1808 in London, England. It comes in many versions. The main character is a hungry soldier, traveler etc. searching for food with no one in the village wanting to help.
For those of you that don’t know the story, he finds an old kettle, boils some snow, and then adds some stones he finds lying around. He tricks the on-looking villagers into supplying all the ingredients by telling them all he needs is to add one more item to the mix to make the best tasting Rock Soup anyone has ever made. Soon he has a full bodied soup encompassing a half dozen different vegetables.
I was reminded of the story while trying to implement several simple tech enhancements to my daily environment. Whereas our character’s Rock Soup was very successful, my experience had an unfavorable outcome.
My business has two computers that operate almost simultaneously. Add to this an occasional third and two tablets. All of these are equipped with wi-fi. I have always been bothered the tangle of wires behind each computer.
To this let me add that it is amazing how many radio frequency items are in a home or office. In my case besides the five items I mentioned above, I have a router, wireless printer, two phone landlines that have portable phones attached to them, three cell phones (two for business; one for personal use), a wireless mouse with receiver attached to one computer and as I subsequently found out a microwave oven that emits its own EM wave. Even the water company made it mandatory to install a wireless meter so they wouldn’t have to send someone out to read it. That is sixteen items that emit a radio signal of some kind. Tech soup?
My problem actually started two years ago, although at that time I did not realize it. My cable company notified me that one of their trucks picked up EM signals emanating from my place and that I must have a leakage somewhere and they will have to check their equipment. No leakage from their equipment was found. However, this did not stop them from sending me a notice every month or so. It got to be so annoying, that after 30 years of service I dropped cable.
I did not give it any second thoughts until I got a wireless printer. Again my goal was to start eliminating some of the wires attached to my computer plus have several computers utilizing it. Occasionally, I would get a “communication error” from the printer. Attaching a wireless phone made this error more frequent. Again I did not think twice about interference. I entertained the possibility of something being wrong with the printer. To further my goal, I planned to attach a wireless mouse and keyboard. At this point everything with the printer fell apart. The errors were constant. Disconnecting the wireless mouse and phone improved the situation immediately. The interference was coming from these and other items present. The tech soup was overloading the system!
One computer is situated in another room with its wireless mouse. In testing that mouse, I learned that its signal from 50 feet away (20 meters) was still strong. According to the manufacturer of the phone, it has a range of 600 feet (240 meters). I do not know what the range of the water meter is, but it must be more than 600 feet. In the process of looking at all these factors, I discovered that anytime someone uses the microwave oven, it also causes interference.
What is a person to do? First of all, it is most likely that you cannot eliminate all sources of interference. More expensive phones and routers have automatically switchable channels. If they sense a great deal of interference on one channel they will switch to another. Check these out. Otherwise you only have two choices other than refraining from using such equipment. The first is to question the manufacturer about the interference generated, the wavelength of such interference, the range of interference, and what can be done to shield from such interference. The second is to hard wire all your equipment. The choices are difficult and there maybe some combination that works well for you. The only thing to do is test, test and test again!
Do you have any other suggestions, please share them with your fellow readers. Email me at rdm@datastats.com.
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