Radar causing interference

[kYutobi]

So weird thing happened Tuesday which I brushed off and was like Eh. Users were reporting getting kicked off wifi and re-associating. So I went to check it out and stood there till I saw it happen. I looked at the AP and in channel it said Radar detected and it was trying to switch to another channel. Mind you I caught it quick and without thinking forgot to take a screenshot or remember exactly what it said and rebooted AP. Now I have DFS channels excluded already so why is it still triggering? Also an fyi we are around the area of an air force base 4.4 miles and I feel as if sometimes it's only that building that gets affected and only sometimes. Happened Tuesday might not happen till 2 months from now. Any thoughts? 

[MMoss]

What is the channel width set to? 20, 40, 80? The channels may be excluded, but if the width is set to high it might overlap. I've not worked with this setting because I have no radar in the area. I'm making the assumption that even if the channel is excluded you might still have some of the overlap.

[PhilipDAth · Accepted solution]

Maybe give them a call and say the radar is causing interference to your WiFi in the 5Ghz band and can they tell you what channels they are using so you can stop using them.

As @MMoss says, you could also try using narrower channels, like 20Mhz or 40Mhz (basically less than whatever you are using now), to limit the amount of interference.

[kYutobi]

@MMoss @PhilipDAth Thanks guys. They are on 40Mhz but if the problems seem annoying I will try that particular AP on 20Mhz.

[Adeel]

Try to change channels.

Whereas can you verify the frequency for the Radar signals by any chance?

[Uberseehandel]

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@PhilipDAth wrote:

Maybe give them a call and say the radar is causing interference to your WiFi in the 5Ghz band and can they tell you what channels they are using so you can stop using them.

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I live in a radar hell-hole, surrounded by military activity, next to the biggest shipping lane in the world, and incidentally underneath the preferred flight path of cargo operators moving specialised loads in AN-124s (old weather radar), with frequent bad weather and storms (a bit like Wellington, but without the cable car).

Some (older) airfield weather/ILS systems can cause WiFi issues, these systems tend to be used infrequently. Fortunately, it isn't as bad as the situation close to Schiphol's rather distant fifth runway where the radar causes WiFi "failure" frequently in bad winters.

Apache helicopters have sensors that detect WiFi sources and other "anomalies". There are a couple of helipads about 400 metres away. When they detect my WiFi they turn to face me and do the "bee dance", before leaving with a wave.

On balance I am quite sanguine about radar interference as the systems used to detect and warn against windshear conditions save lives. Windshear can catch out even experienced pilots.

[KaylaEik]

This...  I recently became the network engineer for the company I am working with, and one of the challenges has been wireless.  Our wireless settings were all over the place (some APs with the dB statically set to 30), and our channel width was set to 40.  Once I toned down the dB and I also changed the width from 40 to 20, that has helped tremendously.  We use some computers that run telnet based software that is sensitive to locking out and we were going from unlocking 15 sessions/day to 1 every couple of weeks.  With the density of our network, changing the settings helped out, and may very well help out OP.