Airport Issues?

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If your Airport connection quits regularly you may want to check out a few things. I will try to talk non-technical, but if you can’t catch some of  this, please email me so I can make it easier to follow. 

Do you have a 2.4 Ghz phone nearby?  Try moving it further away from the Airport unit.   These phones often use Channel 6, which is the same Channel used by default by most AIrport wireless systems.  Try changing the Channel,  use 1 or 2, or 11, and see if that makes a difference.  

Make sure your Airport Express is not too enclosed, but has some space around it.  The manual tells us to keep it at least an inch away from furniture, if you hide it behind furniture, and avoid having it “surrounded by metal surfaces on three or more sides”.

 Select your airport unit;  Click on Manual Setup at the bottom of the right pane.  You should then see a Summary of the airport set up, including which Channel is being used.  

Open Airport Utility; a quick way to find it is to click on Spotlight in the top right corner of the desktop.  Then type the word “Airport”.  Airport Utility will the the Top Hit.   Click on it once to open it. 

Steps:

Manual Setup

Channel

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To change the Channel, click on the Wireless tab. 

Now click on the channel bar, and select a different channel.  Don’t forget to press Update.

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Check  the Airport Icon in the Menu Bar.  Do you have other Networks listed there? If you are using Leopard, you can check them to see which channel they are using and choose a different channel.   To see the necessary information.  Press down the Option Key while you click on the Airport Icon.  You will see a lot more information about your own network.

Go back to step 4, and select a Channel that is not in use by another network if at all possible.

Thanks to Mac World, and Apple for these tips. 

Hover over another network, a tooltip opens, and you will see more information on that network as well, including the Channel the network is using.

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Still having trouble?   Check out the following as well. 

Open Keychain Access in the Utilities folder.  Look for and delete any old wireless base stations listed there which are not being used anymore.  For instance, you may have been in another city visiting a cousin and used their wireless network.  If it needed a password,  then that password was stored in Keychain Access. 

Change the order of the Network Connection Services.   Make sure that Airport is the first on the list.

Click on the Airport icon in the Menu, then click on Open Network Preferences.

If Airport is not the first on the list, click on the gear (Actions Button).

In the menu that pops up choose Set Service Order.  

Then  drag Airport to the top of the list and click OK.

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One more thing to check.  In the Network Preferences window, click on Advanced.

Make sure that your network is first on the list here as well.  If it is not, drag it to the top of the list. Delete any networks you no longer need.

Hope these steps help solve most of not all your Airport Connection issues.