Laptop keeps forgetting which wifi network it should be on - canI make it stick? Or, any way to automate (script?) choice of wifi networkin Airport?

I have a linksys wifi router and am using it with a few PCs and a new
powerbook running Panther. I now notice (after a different problem which I
described on this newsgroup mysteriously changed into this) that every 20
minutes or so, the Airport status bars at the top of the screen become
grayed out. I have to go there, and select my network, out of a list of
three (the other two are presumably my neighbors'). No other machine in the
house is able to pick up the other two - only my laptop. I have my network
permanently selected in the Network control panel, but it still seems to
forget which one it should connect to. Is there any way to make it always
stick with just one access point? Why would it suddenly drop it and become
agnostic with respect to the wifi signal? And if there's no elegant and
obvious way to fix this, can I write an applescript to run every 10 minutes
or so to make it select the network? I tried recording my actions (where I
go to the top of the screen in the airport dropdown menu and select my
router) in Applescript but it didn't record anything for those actions. Can
I do it by hand?

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Mike Levin
mlevin77@comcast.net