{"id":619837,"date":"2026-09-18T09:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/619837\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T09:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:20:12","slug":"techie-fixed-wi-fi-dead-zone-with-a-drill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/619837\/","title":{"rendered":"Techie fixed Wi-Fi dead zone with a drill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n on call <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n When wires and wireless mix, the combination can be electric\n <\/p>\n

Welcome to another edition of On Call, The Register’s reader-contributed column that celebrates the fine art of tech support.<\/p>\n

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Eddy,” the one-person IT department for an assisted living company.<\/p>\n

“I have had quite a bit of trouble creating a stable Wi-Fi network,” he admitted to On Call.<\/p>\n

“The space is crowded with multiple networks because seemingly every other resident has their own router blasting Wi-Fi throughout the building,” he explained.<\/p>\n

After extensive troubleshooting, he managed to establish a stable connection everywhere except one hallway at the back of the building.<\/p>\n

“I was starting to question my sanity and competence as seemingly nothing would create a stable signal,” Eddy told On Call.<\/p>\n

“After beating my head on the issue for an unreasonably long time, I decided to take a break and troubleshoot another issue that a user was having: Their monitors would cut out randomly, more so if someone quickly closed the office door.”<\/p>\n

Eddy examined the desk, where a stand held a pair of monitors, whose power and video cables all\u00a0snaked downwards through the same hole in the desk’s surface.<\/p>\n

“When the stand moved, it was also crimping the power cords,” Eddy observed. “Jiggle the desk or slam the door and the monitors would cut out briefly.”<\/p>\n

He drilled a new hole for the stand to sit in and replaced the power cables. That fixed the monitors \u2013 and, unexpectedly, restored the Wi-Fi around the desk.<\/p>\n

“As near as I can tell, the power cables were crimped just enough that they started to transmit and interfere with the Wi-Fi,” Eddy told On Call.<\/p>\n

However, Eddy’s other Wi-Fi dead zone remained. He signed off his email to The Register: “Now I am going to be haunting the back hallway with a software-defined radio dongle and waving around a Yagi antenna like a demented wizard to see if I can find the second source of interference.”<\/p>\n

Have you fixed one problem and found it also fixed another? If so, help us fix the problem of the On Call mailbag being a little sparse by clicking here<\/a> to send us your story! \u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"on call When wires and wireless mix, the combination can be electric Welcome to another edition of On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[85,46,125],"class_list":["post-619837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}