Recently I added a second Panasonic Camera (BL-C230A) to my home automation system. I didn't notice it at first but I've determined that having the camera in wireless mode greatly effected the stability of my network in both speed, audio cutting out when using AirPlay and Indigo plugins such as SmartPhone Radar. The camera was very close to a wired AirportExpress. I removed the Airport and used it's Ethernet cable to plug directly into the camera. Since making that change everything noted above is back to operating normally. As a starting point does anyone know what I might check on the camera so as to be able to operate in wireless mode? Thanks for any suggestion one might give.

I have several of these cameras but have not had the problem you describe. No special settings that I know off.

Ditto. I have 5 BL-C230As, 2 BL-C131As, and 1 BL-C30 which all operate wirelessly (except for the C30) and have never had any problems with my wireless network.

I have my wireless router set to 11g exclusive operation. For the BL-C230As I'm using WPA2 encryption, H.264 streaming format, and 30 frames/sec for a 640x480 frame size. The max bit rate is set to 2048Kbps.

Tim

I'm been running my Airport Extreme with a radio mode of 802.11n (b/g compatible) with older AirPort expresses (g) set to join my wireless network.

I just had Panasonic Tech support on the line and while he said my camera was slow it was operational. He recommended that I up my bandwidth... not an easy thing to do in Alaska. Right now I have a theoretical speed of 16Mbs with actual speeds closer to 10Mbs. His recommendation was to adjust the setting on the new camera by setting the Max. Bandwidth setting from Max to 3mbps. After doing that and restarting the camera I can not access it.

I wonder if I'm just starting to max things out? I've recently added a weather station and am uploading data to Weather Underground, along with this new camera. My VantageVue is set to upload data every 5 seconds. I can't see this data taking up too much bandwidth after all we're not talking video/photos...etc. When I get the camera back up and working, at least showing up, I plan to turn of the Weather service and see if my camera runs uninterrupted.

Is the camera attaching to one of the expresses or the extreme? If the express try setting to create wireless network. All of my cameras are attaching to extremes.

Initially the camera was set to wireless with an airport express very close to it. In this set up my network was barely moving. I have sense removed the airport express and moved it to another part of the house and am using it for airplay. At the suggestion of Panasonic support I changed a setting in the static setting for IPv4 (Max. Bandwidth Usage) from unlimited to 3 Mbps. I did this for both cameras. I really didn't think having just two cameras would have such an effect on my network. Wonder if there's anything else I should look at in order to help to speed things up? Seems like when I get one thing running smoothly something else comes along.

terrydew wrote:Is the camera attaching to one of the expresses or the extreme? If the express try setting to create wireless network. All of my cameras are attaching to extremes.

During testing when in wired mode I had the camera attached via. Ethernet to a switch that is connected to my Extreme.

2nd Generation AirPort Extreme operating on 802.11n (b/g compatible) connected to 16mbps theoretical cable modem.

AirportExpress Units in order of proximity, all operating wirelessly w/out ethernet

1. Mobile Spare Room (802.11g, Set to Join a wireless network)
2. Mobile Front Room (802.11n, Set to Extend a wireless network)
3. Mobile Workshop (802.11g, Set to Join a wireless network)

I have been through all 5 generations of the extreme and I can say that there is a pretty big improvement with the latest. It is expensive but might really help your wireless network. Also if you can get a cable to one or more of the expresses so that you could have a roaming network rather than an extended one, I think you would see improvement. One camera should not have that kind of effect unless there were issues with the network.

terrydew wrote:I have been through all 5 generations of the extreme and I can say that there is a pretty big improvement with the latest. It is expensive but might really help your wireless network. Also if you can get a cable to one or more of the expresses so that you could have a roaming network rather than an extended one, I think you would see improvement. One camera should not have that kind of effect unless there were issues with the network.

Good suggestion. I do have Ethernet in my Den which is halfway into the house with the Extreme currently in the far end. Perhaps I could replace the older Extreme with a new one and move the current one into the Den and attach to Ethernet. When I look at my most recent express, I see wireless modes of:

1. Create a wireless network
2. Participate in a WDS
3. Join a Wireless network
4. Extend a wireless network (currently selected).

With a roaming network are you selecting "create a wireless network" and selecting the same wireless network name, security and pass as the existing network?

Yes. Not sure roaming is an official name but that is what I call it. Each unit creates a wireless network with the same name and password. As you move through the house with say an iPhone it will automatically pickup the stronger signal. The 5th gen also allows for the addition of a separate dedicated 5 GHz N signal. Don't remember if 2nd gen did or not. If your extreme is on one end of house and you have a cable available at the center you might try just moving the extreme to the center which should give better coverage.

Interesting issue.

When operating in b/g compatibility mode, if you have older 802.11b devices connecting, or even 802.11g devices, the access point is forced to switch back and forth between the slower signal encoding methods of those older protocols and the faster encoding method of the newer 802.11n protocol, thus resulting in an overall slowing down of all connected devices.

If you have any 802.11n devices that are compatible with the 5.4 GHz band (such as any Mac or iPad, and most PC laptops), I'd recommend dividing your wireless network into two wireless protocols, 802.11n (b/g compatible, i.e. 2.4 GHz) and 802.11n (5.4 GHz, "a compatibility" mode if you need it). This will eliminate bandwidth stealing by laptops and any iPads and thus leave your 2.4 GHz band dedicated to IP cameras, iPhones/iPods, and older wireless network devices. If you have a dual-band AirPort Extreme or the new dual-band AirPort Express, use that to create the separate wireless access points. If you don't have one of those newer AirPorts, connect one of your existing AirPort Expresses via Ethernet to your AirPort Extreme and set the Express's ethernet connection to bridged mode and set it's wireless mode to create a wireless network on the 2.4 GHz band. Then set your Extreme to only use the 5.4 GHz band.

The new Airport Extreme arrived today. Think what I'll do is move my newest Express to the location of Ethernet and set this one to Roaming. Right now it is farthest away from the Extreme's position but getting Ethernet to it is problematic. It will be interesting to see the effect of having a Ver4 extreme replacing a Ver2. I'll likely set up the Extreme first before swapping out my Express units to see if it's even needed.

Question, before setting up the new Extreme should I turn off my Express units and turn back on after Extreme is running. Also, is the export settings feature worth trying or should I just set up from scratch? I'm hearing the import settings isn't worth the time and gets things wrong anyway.

Unless you don't plan on using your Expresses, I'd leave them on while setting up your Extreme. The reason I say that is because the Extreme will select the base wireless channel with the least amount of interference and if you have your Expresses turned off while ti's determining which channel to use, it will probably pick one that's going to be used by one or more of your Expresses when they come back on, thus causing more interference.

As for the import feature, I've never used that. My gut instinct, however, would be to just set it up from scratch as I tend not to trust export/import processes that try to go from old versions to new versions of software/firmware. Up to you really though. If it doesn't work, you could always reset it and go from scratch.

Great advice on leaving on. Also, import is a dice roll. Think I'll do some screen grabs and go from scratch. Lots of changes between Extreme units as you indicated.

Smooth as silk. The new Extreme is Rev. 5 not 4 as stated above. My download speeds by both my mobile devices and laptops have gone from around 1-3 Mbps to 10-13 with my range being much better. Not a glamorous upgrade but one that will make like easier I'm sure and I'm all for that. Not sure if I even need to move my latest AiportExpress to Ethernet in order to create a roaming network. Think I'll stick with this current set up and see if it's even necessary.