It's about 3 years old and has had very little use.

Yesterday I got it working and sat down thinking.

About teh same day it went down I updated the software for the tubestick (www.eguinux.com) to the new 2.0 beta which so far isn't publicly availabe. The software located the update itself.

Yesterday I could reach the express just fine from the main house so managed to update the settings and kick in the interference robustness. This seems to have done the trick because returning to my cottage I had full signal again.

I can only think of that being the problem. I just can't figure out how a software update can have an impact on the wireless transmission/reception on an unrelated product.