Re: Wired vs wireless - comm trace needed

Jeff,

The normal printer location is directly under the AP. Approximately 5' from

the wireless card to the AP, so I certainly HOPE the signal would be
strong
enough there. <g>

OK, so signal strength is probably not the issue. However, it could still
be the firmware in the printers is periodically doing a network scan
anyway. I know I've heard of that problem with the wireless chip / firmware
in some other devices, with no ability to disable it from doing that. I
don't know that is your problem, but it sounds like the same thing I've
heard complained about on forums dealing with video streaming where the
effect can be pretty dramatic if there is not a large enough buffer
involved.


You know, the way I originally wanted to set up these 2 AP was identical.

What I mean is the same ESSID, passkey, etc. That way the printers could
be
rolled almost anywhere in the office and still have a strong signal. I
did
not read in the AP manual that I could do this.

I think you should be able to if you configure the AP's to non overlapping
channels, and I'm not even sure you need to do that. In the USA, you have
11 channels to select from, but to avoid overlap you can only use 1,6, and
11. All the intermediate ones have some range overlap with the others.

You're suggesting maybe the wireless card is trying every X

seconds to get a stronger signal from the other AP?

My understanding is the 802.x chip / firmware used in some devices
(including some PCs) does that, yes. And that at least some devices
(including some PCs) do not have a way to override a configuration to avoid
it doing the periodic network scans -- even when the signal strength is
already good. I have no experience with Zebra printers, so I can't comment
on what they actually do. I would have expected a printer to not need alot
of bandwidth, and thus be more likely to have enough internal buffer to be
able to stay ahead of the print feed.

I hadn't thought of

that as I had to use a Wireless Setup Wizard within "ZebraNet Bridge
Enterprise" to build a .zpl file which was then sent to the printer. The
ESSID and hex version of the passkey were contained in that file. I
assumed
from that, that it wouldn't be testing the airwaves for other AP.

I think it can still look for additional APs with the same ESSID so it can
do a hand-off must like a cell phone would when traveling.

Doug