A lot of WiFi router manufactures set their default channel setting to 6 or Auto and most people do not change it. If you live in a city with a high population density (a.k.a. a big city), using channel 6 may not the best channel because too many people end up sharing the frequency associated with that channel, which reduces the throughput of the router.
Using the Auto channel setting may not be the best, because it almost always sets the router to the same channel wherever you use the router or it uses a channel that is the best in the area near the WiFi router, which can be far from the best if you are trying to access it in a different room far from the WiFi router.
You can use ping, a network diagnostic tool that is available in almost all OSs, to find the best WiFi channel to use with the computer located furthest from your WiFi router.
I usually use the following command and settings in Windows:
ping -n 60 -l 16000 192.168.1.1
ping is a network diagnostic tool
-n sets the number of echo requests to send. I set it to 60, which is about one echo request per second
-l sets the send buffer size. I set it to 16000 bytes, because I wanted to make my network optimal for streaming 128 kilobits per second internet radio. 8 bits = 1 byte, so 128000 / 8 = 16000 bytes.
192.168.1.1 The IP address is a Local Area Network IP address.
Here is an example of the output you'll see:
The data of interest are "0% loss" and "Average = 48ms".
Run this command for each WiFi channel. Here are some sample data and how to analyze them:
| Channel | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| Loss | 0% | 0% | 0% | 3% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 1% | 0% |
| Average (ms) | 33 | 28 | 33 | 31 | 28 | 40 | 25 | 36 | 301 | 46 | 47 |
Loss can be considered as the amount of noise on that channel.
The higher the Average (ms), the more routers are using that channel.
Looking at all the channels with a loss of 0%, channels 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, the channel with the lowest average (ms) is channel 7. This is my optimal channel.
If your loss percentages are considerably higher (>1%) and you can not move your computer closer to the WiFi router or vise versa, then you need to look into the following (in order of priority):
1. WiFi router with MIMO and three external antennas.
2. Upgrade the antennas (original 2dbi) to higher gain antennas (>= 7 dbi)
3. Build or buy a WiFi bridge.
The above recommendations are for an omni directional setup.
If you only need the connection between one fixed location and one other fixed location, you can look into unidirectional antennas (ex. Yagi and can antennas).
Information regarding a unidirectional setup can be found elsewhere on the Internet.
Keep in mind that there are many other factors at play here:
1. Time of day
2. Weekday verses weekend.
3. New neighbors
4. Neighbors buy new WiFi enabled electronics.
If your internet radio station doesn't stream continuously, check that this happens with other internet radio stations, because it is possible the internet radio station does not have enough bandwidth for the number of connections they have.
You will need to do this test again from time to time to insure you are using the best WiFi channel for you network.