I DO live in a rural area. Zero stray traffic; that is, any traffic with more that 11 teeth (I know - they're probably techgurus crackpros)...

...so I'm not worried about my wireless gettin' hacked. I'm wantin' only to keep accidental logons from happnin'. I disabled my WPA-PSK, and entered MAC #'s for all 5 machines; 3 laptops, 2 dtops, Windows, Linux, and a partridge in a pear tree.

None of the wireless machines can keep a steady connection, without droppin' off. Before, it was only WPA, and no problems. MAC only, problems. MAC and WPA, no problems.

My router is a budget piece (EH100), so I need to reduce media streaming impedance from encryption, etc.

Why do I have problems with MAC-only filtering??? Do I need Flo-Max?

Hum... Why on earth would you want disable WPA???

Anyway, the first thing to do with any wireless network setup is to update the access point (router) firmware to the latest version and do the same with the wireless drivers on all the computers.

Encryption impedes packet transmission.

I tried to update the router firmware. No firmware update listed.

Any other ideas why MAC is not workin' right?

And how much slowdown did the benchmarks show with WPA versus no WPA?

I would think that your network setup is not a scneario that anyone at the El Cheapo Inc. could imagine or test.

Don't know the answer to that question nos... I need just a little less impedance to streaming Public Radio. And if you have any more ideas on that topic, bring 'em.

HUH?

If you really need to cut packet delay, forget about wireless altogether. It will always be significantly slower and less reliable than a wired network.
If you really need to be wireless, do use WPA. Wifi can be monitored from thousands of feet away and transmitting all your web passwords, e-mail, instant messages etc unencrypted is not a good idea. You say that encryption makes things slower - unless you actually measure or see this slowdown in your environment, it is a claim without merit.