When troubleshooting a wireless link, which factor do you usually check first: antenna gain, signal strength, interference, or channel selection?
I'm interested in how others approach link reliability in real-world environments. Sometimes a strong signal doesn't necessarily mean the connection will be stable, especially when interference, channel congestion, or antenna placement is involved.
What has made the biggest difference in your experience?

 

Hello,

What you are looking for is called propagation of waves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation
Things like wet wood, steel in the walls will disturb the signal.

Bertus

 

It's complicated and depends on the distance, topography and frequency.

Signal strength is a good goal number - until I had a system that failed once the tree leaves came out, they absorb RF. I installed it late fall and all looked good until Spring it croaked when the leaves came out. Who'd have thought? Rain also is a big attenuator.
Antennas I've used Yagi's for long distance... until a bear or maybe a moose scratched their back on the pole and knocked it over. I am talking maybe 10km links here.
Water in the coax and connectors is another problem too. Did you use a drip loop?

Interference is not so common. But busy com channels, WiFi bands are getting very busy, like around condos you can have dozens of networks wanting a channel and people streaming eat up a lot too.
Cell-phone towers can get very busy too, when people are all on their phones after work. One Christmas I had problem with the long network delay to obtain an IP socket for an IoT device. It was due to all the new cell phones getting registered, so many Christmas presents apparently. Had to adjust my software to be OK to wait a couple minutes to get on the cell network.

 

When troubleshooting a wireless link, which factor do you usually check first: antenna gain, signal strength, interference, or channel selection?
I'm interested in how others approach link reliability in real-world environments. Sometimes a strong signal doesn't necessarily mean the connection will be stable, especially when interference, channel congestion, or antenna placement is involved.
What has made the biggest difference in your experience?

what type of wireless link?