I have already contacted Apple Support about this issue, but they were as stumped as I am. I have a pair of RFMAB2 bluetooth headphones (RocketFish I believe is the manufacturer...that's what the picture looks like anyway). When I first connected them (this past Christmas) they worked wonderfully. Sound quality was awesome, the built-in volume and playback controls were extremely convenient, and the only problem I had was that the Next/Previous buttons don't work (a known issue with this manufacturer/music player combo). Then I brought the whole system to my school in Austin where they offer free WiFi to their students. We have to use a Cisco log-in system to enter our student ID and password, then are online (though many ports are blocked).

That is when my problem started: I began having the audio drop out from the headphones unless the iPod was in a specific orientation to the headphones (receiver's in the left ear-piece, and the iPod has to face away from me, top-side up, and no more than a few feet from the headphones, thereby defeating the purpose of wireless headphones). However, the issue persists even when I'm not connected to this SSID. When I turn the wireless antenna (radio) off, the disconnects improve, but only slightly. When I upgraded to iOS4, the problem disappeared. No disconnects, regardless of the orientation or distance of the iPod (I was able to go to the other side of the house and not have a single dropout). However, once I came to school and reconnected to this particular SSID, the disconnects reared their ugly heads. Like I said, I talked to Apple Support, and the lady said that in all her many years there she had never heard of anything like this, and suggested searching the Apple website (she seemed really knowledgeable, and working in tech support, I understand that when there's nothing you can do, there is just nothing you can do; I didn't actually expect it to be a known issue, but just wanted to give it it's due diligence). She also suggested that I wipe all SSIDs from the OS (Settings> General> Reset> Reset Network Settings), and that successfully eliminated the issue.


Short-story-long: When I connect to this particular Cisco wireless system, I experience frequent audio dropouts on my RFMAB2 bluetooth headphones based on orientation. It doesn't happen as long as this SSID is not stored in it's network lists, but once it is stored, the disconnects can only be eliminated by dumping the list or restoring the device (I think).

I'm looking for anybody who has advanced knowledge of how the Apple OSs work to see if they can come up with a reason for this, and possibly others who are experiencing it so we can collectively submit a bug report to Apple.

Sorry for my long post, but it's a complicated and involved issue.
~RJ