Best Wifi Router Recommendations

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This topic contains 24 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by Profile photo of Mike C Mike C 3 years, 4 months ago.

Viewing 10 posts - 16 through 25 (of 25 total)
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  • #96224
    Profile photo of Mr. Oldschool
    Mr. Oldschool
    Participant

    Thank you! I really appreciate your detailed and straight forward explanation. I think I understand enough to follow what you are saying.
    On the underside of the router, on the left there is a user name and default password which match what it says in the user manual. On the right, it lists the serial number, mac address, SSID, and a different password. I’m taking a wild guess that the right side is the default standard user password, and the left is the default admin password, which is the one I need. Unfortunately, I already tried it amd it didn’t work, which means it was changed at or after installation. I haven’t seen the hard reset button, but I’m not there right now to look again. I will be back to it on Thursday, so I can try to get an early start before rehearsal and maybe get things going. I’m assuming that when I do the hard reset I will have to redo the user password too, and I can do all of this in the browser window, right? In theory, we are thinking I can tell the router to only do 5Ghz (thanks for clarifying about wifi vs cell), and that I should be able to tell the router to not broadcast itself (is that like when my computer asks if I want it to be discoverable?). Once I have it hidden, people can still locate it by manually searching for the network name in their wifi settings on their phones, correct?

    Would the IP address be the same for the desk and the router, or is that where they would be the same to a point and then end with a different digit or two?

    I really appreciate the help. Yes we do have computer volunteers who know network equipment, but they are afraid to touch the new sound equipment which is my department. I did have a conversation with one of them today about getting some help working on the router when I found that I couldn’t log into it.

    In reaponse to @volunteer, I’m not sure what NFR means. I was on sabbatical at the time the church decided now was the time to upgrade. As my handle implies, I am a rather oldschool sort and was reluctant to move from analog to digital for years. The elders eventually decided that they wanted new digital stuff anyway, but they did keep me included in the planning process. Coming from a 36 channel GL3300, I asked them to get an SQ-7 because I wanted more faders. They made contact with a guy from upstate that had some hotshot qualifications who came down, looked at our setup, and made some recommendations. I wasn’t there for that meeting, and was very wary of these “hotshots”, of which there have been plenty over the years, and they always want to sell us a Bentley when we can barely afford a Pinto, and they “are the only ones who can fix all of our problems”. He made his pitch to some of our elders and deacons, they discussed what he said to them with me, I advised caution, they went back to him and said they were interested in a basic setup that would replace our console, our house speakers, and the snake to the stage. He came back with a revised estimate that was significantly higher than what he initially had said it would be. They decided to go ahead anyway and tried to reassure me that it was still within what they had budgeted. The installation went forward, and I was invited to meet with the guy so he could show me how it worked. At this point I found out that he had sold us an SQ-6 instead of a 7, but the 6 is sufficient as long as I lay things out reasonably in one of the custom layers, and I will readily admit that many of the onboard tools in this board exceed my expectations. I am quite happy with it, and it is tons easier to train new people on. The guy (and I’m deliberately not using names) did a reasonable job of explaining things. I was not overly thrilled with how he set things up, and have had to fix some of that. Like most of these type of people, he’s quite adept at talking about how great he is and how successful his work has been both in installing equipment, and in training people. I don’t tend to impress too easily. He does seem to know what he’s doing, but he also makes plenty of mistakes along the way, and he pushes what he thinks is a good sound pretty hard. I tend to use far less fx than he likes, and I know what kind of audience we have at my church… So to make a long story short (too late!) yes he did show and explain the equipment, we sort of had a discussion about our needs, and he did hang around long enough to make sure we could use it. As I said before though, that was under the cover of lockdown, so it was a few weeks later when we started having troubles. It was even longer before my iPad was delivered and I got to see firsthand the difficulties the musicians were having with getting booted off. By that time he had gone off somewhere else. We did have to have him come back to fix that he hadn’t given us enough monitor channels at the stage head, but any time you talk to this guy it costs money and I can’t say I am totally confident of the results, so I would rather figure it out for myself with the help of all of you who I figure have probably been through this before.

    Whew! Time to catch my breath!

    #96237
    Profile photo of Mike C
    Mike C
    Participant

    Once I have it hidden, people can still locate it by manually searching for the network name in their wifi settings on their phones, correct?

    No, your everyday phone, tablet, computer user will not be able to find or see the hidden SSID.
    Everyone that needs to connect to the mixers 5g WIFI network will need to know the SSID and manually input that into their device.
    Once it is entered into those devices it will be on their WIFI list.

    Would the IP address be the same for the desk and the router, or is that where they would be the same to a point and then end with a different digit or two?

    No they cannot be the same.

    The first three groups of numbers “octets” identify the network and will need to be the same the last group identify the device and those need to different.

    I feel like many do that using a static IP on the mixer is better but it does require a little more set up in the router.
    You will need to limit or at least check the range of IP addresses the router will automatically hand out know as DHCP to devices that connect to the router via WIFI like your iPads or hardwired like the mixer.

    The router default IP address is 192.168.1.1 so maybe look at setting up the router to automatically assign IP address starting at 192.168.1.100 through 192.168.1.110.

    Go into the mixer network setting an set it up for a static IP of 192.168.6.1
    The gateway setting is the routers IP address and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0

    That all said setting the mixer to DHCP mode will work.

    I do like limiting the router to a smaller number range of IP address that it can hand out. You can start that number at any point except 1 and not over 255.
    Anything set for a static IP address needs to have an IP address outside the range set for DHCP.

    #96257
    Profile photo of volounteer
    volounteer
    Participant

    @Mr. Oldschool

    NFR = NON functional requirements
    They tell how good the functional requirement is met

    I agree with the problem of having a consultant tell you what to buy.

    You apparently asked for a mixer and got one. Smaller than you wanted but big enough.
    So far so good, at least for the church budget.

    But did anybody specify all the connections and specify the distances they had to cover and the number of users??
    Those are the NFRs. Sure your mixer mixes, but only in a situation that is different from reality for you.

    Suppose your car worked well to take you someplace but not on Sunday’s? Or what if the car needed an oil change every week?? NFRs are far more important than the functional requirement of a car taking you from A to B.

    I am very olde school having bought stuff for the govt, sold stuff to the govt, and determined specs for the govt to ask for stuff, and also testing stuff for the govt, as well as reviewing proposals for technical ability to do what the govt wanted.

    If it is not in writing with all the info spelled out then you have a mess.
    And as Barry Boehm showed in an old IEEE publication NFRs determine feasibility. Over specify and there is no solution.

    #96266
    Profile photo of volounteer
    volounteer
    Participant

    @Mr Oldschool

    This is far past sound , analog ,computing , or technical issues.

    It has to do with using a Logical correct systems based process like most experienced procurements use so as to minimize the risk of not getting what you thought you were buying when it is installed and you start using it to discover it does not do things (which you had not specified in most cases) you need.

    I recall a church spending multi millions to build a beautiful new facility and then found out the sound was awful. They asked the architect why the sound was so bad. He said “sound?” “you never specified the sound quality you wanted”. They were stuck with a brand new building that was unusable along with the mortgage for a useless building.

    The good news here is that you should be able to throw money at the problem and completely fix it. The bad news is that you have to spend money that could have been used for other desirable purposes instead.

    #96268
    Profile photo of Mike C
    Mike C
    Participant

    The good news here is that you should be able to throw money at the problem and completely fix it. The bad news is that you have to spend money that could have been used for other desirable purposes instead.

    The problem in this case probably does not need any more money thrown at it, just proper set up and deployment of the router they have.

    Worse case it’s a hundred bucks for a new router.

    #96271
    Profile photo of volounteer
    volounteer
    Participant

    @mikec

    worst case is a lot more than a hundred bucks
    should their actual situation be that bad

    they got a cheap low end router
    no extenders or testing for interference
    can that be made to work like you say?

    maybe proper set up and deployment of what they have would work
    or maybe they need more gear to reach the distances they have through walls and hallways
    or maybe they need different gear due to interference issues

    but that still leaves them with the issues of HOW they procure things
    as noted in my reply above to Mr Oldschool’s post which has since been deleted

    #96313
    Profile photo of Mr. Oldschool
    Mr. Oldschool
    Participant

    I have no idea what happened to my post. I had written a response to @volunteer and I think I was editing a typo and all of a sudden my text window shut down and my rather lengthy reply was gone. I didn’t think I had hit any kind of delete post button, and if I did, those thing are supposed to have a safety where they confirm you want to delete.
    Anyway, I agree that it doesn’t appear that there was a very good job done in clearly specifying what it needed to do. I wasn’t involved in that. Taking the iPad down the hall is me pushing the limits to see how far they will go, it was never designed in. The router’s dropouts are the key problem at this point.

    At today’s rehearsal, I was able to get into the router’s setup and poke around. Whoever initially set it up had turned the 5G off entirely. Netgear doesn’t have the most intuitive interface, but I was eventually able to get it turned on and logged into it with the iPad. How it will work on Sunday remains to be seen, but we are able to use the 5G range. I haven’t made it go stealth yet because I didn’t have time to walk everybody through getting set up on it, so I’m going to do this in steps until the results are satisfactory.

    One concern I have is that some of our internet routers are also set on 5G, so there may be interference anyway(?) I think I should be able to talk to our volunteer that works on our network equipment about specifying non-competing channels to set them at. Does that sound right, or am I over-simplifying what can be done?

    #96317
    Profile photo of Mike C
    Mike C
    Participant

    Mr. Oldschool

    Sounds like your making progress!
    In the router I would turn off the 2.4 broadcast.
    Did you set a different SSID name for the 5g broadcast?

    At least the last time I looked there were no WIFI scanner apps for IOS.
    Find someone with an Andriod phone or tablet and download a WIFI scanner app
    that shows the area WIFI networks, signal strength and the channel they are
    broadcasting on.

    I use one called WIFI Analyzer and a Netgear WIFI scanner app.
    Use something like those to scan the area and note what 5g channels
    are in use.
    I have the best results using the higher 5g channels.

    #96327
    Profile photo of Mr. Oldschool
    Mr. Oldschool
    Participant

    I will likely turn off the 2.4 next, but I would have had to interrupt the musicians at their practice to effect that switch last night. At the end of the night I was able to make sure they all could access it.

    My phone is Android, so I can look up those analyzer apps.

    Thanks for your help. I will post back here as I make progress with this.

    #96329
    Profile photo of Mike C
    Mike C
    Participant

    I would get the 2.4 turned off as soon as possible.

    Get everyone connected to the 5ghz SSID and then hide the SSID name broadcast and
    it should still be on there devices WIFI list.
    Don’t change the name.

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