WiFiWoe: The Final Chapter. Les returns. Some weeping.

To my surprise, I seem to have some avid followers of this topic: 120 unique visitors to the logging page this month alone.  For those of you for whom this is a new subject, there's a potted history here. 

I feel duty bound to continue - perhaps even end - the saga.  Be warned: this chapter ends with me compiling a shopping list containing only three items:

• One stout rope
• One hook, suitable for fixing in a plasterboard ceiling
• One small stool

Les returned today - I promised to keep him in the loop with the logging, he could see some clear evidence of the problem, we kicked around some possible internal jigging I could do... but I persuaded him to come back again and crossed every joint in my body that he might be here when the problem came to call.  Which, frankly, he very nearly was.

A picture tells a thousand words, which you wouldn't want to bother reading anyway:

In summary: Les had me turn off everything in the house that could possibly be emitting radio - surprising how much this involved 'Oh, hang on - there's also...'. Just after I turned off the router he picked up a quite a strong constant chatter, which disappeared whilst I was turning off the Sky and XBox wireless doobreys - which as a result, became the focus for a while.  But the chatter didn't return when I turned them back on, so I think this was a red-herring - and possibly was the only time he actually picked up the real source of the problem for a short-period.  Too short to locate it, in any case. Eventually we turned everything back on and wandered the area for a bit, Les disturbing the neighbours by waving bits of kit around in their direction.  Found nothing but some low-level, entirely legitimate traffic. Gave up and went back to the kitchen to finish the coffee.

Mulled over what else I could do. Les is keen on putting a repeater down near the front door, I'm not because they inherently degrade performance and would rather run some cables around.  But I'm resigned to that being the end of Ofcom's sterling efforts, because Les can't keep coming back to my house every three weeks.

Then, just as Les is packing up, I see a spike on the download graph. A bead of sweat breaks out on my furrowed brow, as Les as and I pore over the Spectrum Analyser again...  Nothing. It was just a blip.

Which of course it wasn't.  As soon as I'd shaken Les' hand, thanked him for his efforts and waved him off, I returned to the kitchen and found I had no internet. See above, it's too painful to recount the following hour. Another five minutes here and he'd have picked it up. FIVE SODDING MINUTES.