Does Extreme Weather Affect AP's?

NviGate Systems

NviGate Systems

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Where I am in Vancouver, BC we are going through another heat wave.

I noticed when walking around many of the free Shaw Access Points behaving oddly. Sometimes, full signal bars, other times no bars. Now my phone isn't the greatest, but this behavoir seems to only be in the heat.

I wonder, do major AP makers warn of performance issues in heat? I wonder if certian wavelengths actually travel better with heat (or not?)

I also noticed glitches in GPS when playing Pokemon Go, I occasionally get "teleported" to other streets or other cities. (Not that I'm complianing!)
 
Heat is the enemy of all electronics. That being said, here in Phoenix is a bucket hotter than the hottest you'll ever get, and things work fine.

Now, that being said... All wireless technology utilizes the atmosphere as a conductor. The humidity of the ambient air does muck with things. Lightning also mucks with things. But I don't think the temperature really does, and if it did the tech should be able to deal with it.

You're more likely just dealing with your phone going crazy shutting down services to save itself from high temps itself. Because it will do that... kill CPU power, kill GPS, etc.

P.S. 30C is not hot...
 
A quick check shows the upper temp limit for a MR44 is 104F. Knowing manufacturers it's probably another 20-30 before it really stops working. That being said it's the medium that being used and the signal itself. The lower the frequency the longer the wave length therefore the greater the distance. That's why one can get better reception flipping to 2.4 if 5 isn't working so great. The energy from the temperature itself doesn't impact transmission, unlike what it does copper, etc. But temperature does change the properties of the medium, air. The higher the temperature the great the water content it can hold, aka humidity. That will impact transmission, just like heavy rain can. Back when I had satellite TV i'd loose reception whenever we had heavy rains. Vancouver, being a coastal location, humidity probably never drops below 65-70%.
 
Sure it does... Seems to cause some Aruba 315's with bad solder joints to play flappy ports... weather changes make more of them act up kind of like an old man who's knee can tell it will rain.

Basically, the AP heats up disconnecting a solder joint then cools down and it reconnects and continues....

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Thanks for the replies.

Seems my phone is acting up, could be the heat. It's an IP68 phone, so it's sealed, this I imagine the cooling has a harder time.

I got a second hand router at home for basic stuff and loaded ddwrt on it, but it's dropping connections, so that's a separate issue. I got it because my ISP router wouldn't allow my PC's to communicate with each other and my Synergy software wouldn't operate. Now with a dedicated private network it works as expected. The move to ddwrt was because copying files from one PC to another caused the router stock firmware to crash.

Isn't wireless networking and networking in general a pita? I keep myself only to basic stuff and I keep busy with debugging.

As regards to AP's I think the issue is poor support and cheap routers. Apparently Shaw has a thing where if you are a home internet user, by default your router acts as a hotspot for Shaw WiFi clients. So some are really consumer units with horrible placement, poor connections and so forth.

I find WiFi when on the move is a bit tricky, sometimes the phone gets confused when travelling on the bus or even walking. Sometimes a quick flip of Off/On of WiFi gets it back in line. But I've seen that even on expensive devices. WiFi works best when both devices are stationary.
 
I'd say it had to be extreme (or in direct sun)
Inside, if you can stand being there, an AP will be alright. (Although there always shitty electronics designs..)
 
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