I’ve been struggling with terrible internet speeds and stumbled upon something strange while checking the antenna mounts. During my tests, the speed jumped above 300 MB, but as soon as I removed my hand or screwed the antenna back in, the Wi-Fi quality and speed plummeted. Does anyone know what’s going on?
Ever heard of common mode current? Looks like the case is ungrounded or not grounded well and taking in all the waves in the air, re-emanating them from the case since they can’t travel to ground. When OP touches the case he frees all that noise and the signal comes in stronger above the noise floor. Not a misconception, seen this happen plenty of times with antennas, USB wifi receivers, PCIe adapters, etc. Current where it shouldn’t be can cause some funky stuff. From your microphone sounding cloudy to your mouse input stuttering.
You essentially act as a big antenna.
Aside from the grounding issue, I would also check which Wi-Fi channel your router is using (with a Wi-Fi analyzer app on your PC or phone) and switch to a different channel if the current one is congested with signals from neighboring networks.
@fastridegeartim Any application you recommend?
There are quite a few out there. On Windows, you can use something like NetSpot or Acrylic. I usually recommend NetSpot because it’s super straightforward and doesn’t look like software from 2005. You just fire it up, go to the Inspector tab, and it shows you a real-time graph of all the Wi-Fi channels in your building. If you see that your router is sitting on the exact same channel as your neighbors, that interference is destroying your signal strength. Changing the channel in your router settings takes 2 minutes and helps a ton, especially if your current channel is a radioactive wasteland.