• JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    10 hours ago

    Wifi is a fickle beast, though you may be right.

    The elements of the cage will probably interfere, but won’t straight up block the signal. To be an effective faraday cage, holes in the material must be no bigger than 1/10th the wavelength.

    2.4GHz wifi has a wavelength of 12cm, and 5GHz is about 5cm…so holes in the cage should be no bigger than 1.2cm for 2.4GHz, or 0.5cm for 5GHz.

    I may expect some signal reflection and likely a high noise floor as a result to being so close to a hunk of metal. That’ll cause some problems.

    Problem #1 is this AP is oriented vertically on a wall. The antennas in these models are designed to be parallel to the floor, and usually not much higher than 15ft.

    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 hours ago

      2.4GHz wifi has a wavelength of 12cm

      that’s actually massive, I thought it would be like half a centimeter at most

      • zqps@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        7 hours ago

        Newer standards are substantially shorter at 5GHz and 6GHz, but this comes at the cost of significantly worse signal penetration through walls.