Greg Hammond

 My Current Setup I feel like this is an obligatory post on personal tech blogs. Home labs are what you make of them. I do not believe we all need to have a full rack or do I believe we even need physical hardware depending on what you're interested in. Personally, I don't need a rack or even a quarter rack. While the equipment can be found somewhat cheap, its generally loud and power hungry and I don't have a proper space to keep it cool in the summer months. I admit everything I have is outdated for an enthusiast but it more or less gets the job done for my purposes.Most of the hardware except the wifi stuff was free from my last employer.   Ive broken up the diagram with various colors but don't pay too much attention to them. Its mainly to separate physical spaces, not networks (but those are still in VLANs) Starting with the top we have a basic Internet connection. Standard in my area is 100Mbps sadly unless I want to double my bill for 200Mbps. This feeds my OPNS...

  Im not against automation but just like everything else, it sometimes needs to be double checked. Heres a couple of screenshots about questionable automatically generated channel plans from WLAN controllers. One is from my work and another is my own setup.  This first one I can admit that it is probably trying its best. With only 3 non overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz band maybe it selected them to avoid over utilized channels. I cant do any in-depth analysis since the tools necessary are not allowed on my work laptop. However, the power levels for both radios on Channel 1 are very close to each other that I suspect a protocol analyzer would reveal issues.    This second one was after I reinstalled my Unifi controller but forgot to go through and verify everything was working as I wanted. Needless to say I wasnt only unhappy but also a little annoyed they would even allow that in their algorithm.    Nothing technical in this post. Just wanted to remin...

We keep adding devices to our houses. Whether its just new computers or game consoles, phones, various IoT devices (Alexa, Ring, Hue etc...) we are increasingly adding congestion to the airwaves.  Some might be tempted to go out and buy that shiny new Wifi 6 (802.11ax) router in hopes of improving their situation. But if your current router is only a few years old (Wifi 5 / 802.11ac) I invite you to try a few these items first. It may save you some money and help you understand where or what is causing your issues.  5 Things to Try First Proper Router Placement Channel Selection Channel Widths Avoid turning up the power Proper Device Placement 1. Proper Router Placement This step alone can substantially improve your networks ability to communicate with your devices. When I walk in to a friends house or even a business I often see the access point stuffed in a corner, on a shelf or an entertainment center. It is also very often far away from where most people use their devices,...