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Wi-Fi Connection to HD/HDR-FOX

Black Hole said:
No need now - the WebIF provides network management facilities.
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Which is no use if you can't get a network connection in the first place. It's helpful if everything is already installed and connected, I used it to check at my Aunt's that the wifi ssid and password were set correctly and it was just being recalcitrant and not working in maintenance mode.
 
Black Hole said:
I don't rate it as useless. Many users on this forum rely in it, and although I mainly use powerline networking for mine, I spent several months trialling the Edimax dongle and alpha-testing the WebIF extension to configure it for my impossible-to-enter-on-the-SUI WiFi credentials.
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I've had nothing but trouble with the wifi on four different HDR Fox T2s, failing to connect to the wifi automatically, bandwidth so poor I couldn't stream anything including iPlayer SD, and on some occasions the entire HDR Fox T2 needing a power cycle. The Edimax dongle with the hi gain antenna is merely bad, the Humax dongle is worse than useless in my experience.

To solve all this, I managed to get cabled ethernet to my two boxes via a gigabit switch behind the hifi. This requires a 5m drop lead (to feed the switch) that I haven't quite managed to hide to my satisfaction everywhere, but at least it works.

At my parents I ran some Cat6 under the floor between my dad's study (where the broadband router is) to a socket on the floor behind the TV rack. And for my parents' HD Fox T2 upstairs (remote client), I had to run some more Cat6 (external grade) under the floor, through the house external wall to go up the wall outside (and this is 18 feet in the air due to the lie of the land, huge ladders needed), back in through the house wall and into the dormer bedroom under eaves space to reach a socket on the wall. I assure you if the wifi worked to a usable degree I would not have gone to this much trouble at my parents. And it's not wifi congestion, I can only see one other wifi network at my parents.

Which leaves my aunt's where I thought wifi would be enough to run a standalone non networked HDR Fox T2, since all I need it for is occasional maintenance. Apparently not, even this is too much for the HDR Fox T2's crappy wifi. I have ordered a TP-LINK TP-WR702N thanks to Black Hole's suggestion, this will be configured specifically for the task and then left at my aunt's house so I can use it to manage the HDR Fox T2. With luck it will join the hotspot my iPad Air2 creates, freeing up an iPad3 for anything I can think of to use it for.
 
Black Hole said:
In that case you just use a temporary ad-hoc wired connection while you configure the WiFi. I did not experience the problems you have reported.
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I have had significant wifi problems at three different physical locations (in two counties), on three different wifi networks using four different models (from three manufacturers) of wifi base station over time (plus the iPad hotspot), using five different HD/HDR Fox T2s, with three Humax dongles and two Edimax dongles. That seems pretty representative to me. No combination ever worked reliably, yet the relevant wifi networks work fine with all other equipment. Given this experience I am amazed anyone can get wifi to work reliably on the HD/HDR Fox T2.

One constant is I always use WPA2 encryption. Could this be my undoing or have people got that to work reliably?
 
I have had no problems with WPA2 security. I have noticed that the connection tends to drop out if your router is set up for dual channel operation (40MHz bandwidth).
 
MontysEvilTwin said:
I have had no problems with WPA2 security. I have noticed that the connection tends to drop out if your router is set up for dual channel operation (40MHz bandwidth).
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I didn't think it was possible to WiFi with an HDR-FOX T2 using 40MHz, or I'm I miss-understanding what you are saying?
 
MontysEvilTwin said:
I have had no problems with WPA2 security. I have noticed that the connection tends to drop out if your router is set up for dual channel operation (40MHz bandwidth).
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Two of the four routers I tried won't do 40MHz bandwidth on 2.4GHz, Apple correctly (by the specs) forbid this in the 2.4GHz band and the TG585v7 does 802.11g at best. This might explain why the iPad Air2 hotspot won't work if Apple have relaxed that recently and breached the specs like almost everyone else. So I don't think that's my problem generally, plus my 2.4GHz network is usually set up for 802.11g only (I use 5GHz for most of my gear).
 
Luke said:
I didn't think it was possible to WiFi with an HDR-FOX T2 using 40MHz, or I'm I miss-understanding what you are saying?
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The network itself can be set to use 40MHz channels when talking to 'N' devices, but it can't use that when talking to the HDR Fox T2 on 802.11g.
 
Owen Smith said:
The network itself can be set to use 40MHz channels when talking to 'N' devices, but it can't use that when talking to the HDR Fox T2 on 802.11g.
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If you have your router set for single channel operation, the HDR-FOX reports a connection of up to 65Mbps, if you configure the router for two channel operation, the HDR-FOX claims to be connected at up to 130Mbps. I am not sure why, but in the latter case streaming is poor. It does not sound like this is your problem though.
Even streaming high def. content does not require 65Mbps, but I regard the wifi speed (as presented by the HDR-FOX) as an indication of the quality of the connection: if it reports the connection as less than about 50Mbps, streaming will be poor. The use of WPA2 security will significantly increase the network overhead compared to unencrypted traffic, however I don't think WPA2 is significantly worse than WPA in this respect. The Edimax EW-7711UAN dongle (high gain with antenna) is the best in class: if you can't get a good connection with this you won't get a good connection. The later version of the Humax dongle (2.4GHz) is essentially an Edimax EW-7711UMN in a different case (with some minor changes) but because of its lack of high gain antenna, it is not as sensitive as the EW-7711UAN: you might need to connect with a USB extension cable and move it around to get the best signal. I don't know how good the older Humax 2.4GHz dongle (rebadged Intellinet 150N) is. Also don't use the short, semi-rigid USB extension cable that comes with the Edimax dongle it will make the connection quality worse: the bin is the best place for these.
 
I have one Edimax EW-7711UAN, it is what I use at my Aunt's and I have tried it in some of the other locations. It seems marginally better than the Humax dongle but still doesn't work reliably. I don't use the stiff USB extension lead.

I forgot to say earlier I've tried the front panel USB sockets with clear line of sight to the router or iPad, again it helped a bit but not enough to make wifi usable.
 
I gave up on attempting to use the Humax wifi connection. I ended up getting a Netgear WNCE2001 Wifi adapter that connects by cable to the Hummy Ethernet port, and that works just great, despite being right beside the Hummy (which hasn't changed position) to the same wifi router as I tried to connect using the Humax adapter.

Since using the Netgear adapter I haven't looked back with the Hummy network connection.
 
I just had a look for another reason, and the WR702N is currently available on eBay for about £15 (even Currys/PC World is offering it discounted from £23). For that price I might get a couple more (very handy to program up for specific purposes and keep in the kit bag without having to reprogram for something else).
 
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