Other podcast downloaders for iPod? (or, why does iTunes d/c my wireless?)

Pre-summary for the TLDR crowd: iTunes has started disconnecting my wireless connection when I download podcasts through it, so what good (preferably free) Windows podcast downloaders could I use that I can throw the podcasts into my iTunes folder and just use iTunes for synching?

Long form:

I have Windows Vista Home and a 3rd generation iPod Nano. I recently switched over to using a different laptop from my usual. It’s my husband’s old laptop, and has a better video card than my usual, so I grabbed it for the boost to gaming performance.

He and I both have iPod Nanos and have used iTunes without any serious issues (other than the slowness of the program to start up) before, including on the laptop he handed down to me. When I got it, I deleted a lot of programs using the Windows Add/Remove Software program, including iTunes and its assorted crap like music networking stuff (I think it was Bonjour and something else). I don’t have an iPhone, I don’t want to network my music to our other computers or whatever else those things want to do. I plugged in the external hard drive that contains a bunch of my stuff, like games and my music files. Then I reinstalled iTunes, authorized my iPod on that computer, and set everything up.

Here’s the problem: downloading podcasts via iTunes disconnects my wireless connection (AT&T UVerse). I swear, it happens 90+% of the time. Sometimes I can get 4-5 downloaded and then boom, the wireless connection drops; sometimes I can’t download a single podcast before that happens. Worse yet, the program does not pick up from where it left off (yesterday it terminated 2 seconds before the end of a podcast and had to try all over again), and when I try to repair the connection it fails. When I disconnect the still-existing “home” network connection (supposedly - haven’t tried it) and try to re-acquire the connection it can’t find our wireless signal!

This never happened when my husband owned the laptop. If I intentionally disconnect the connection and look for it again, I can find it no problem. I can’t think of a time where it dropped otherwise, and using iTunes for its other functions has no problem… though I haven’t purchased a song on this computer, to my knowledge. Synching, playing, whatever. The minute I hit Refresh on the podcast list, it basically starts a secret countdown to when it will lose connection.

I may suck at Google, but I can’t find anything online that pertains to my problem - none of the solutions seem to apply and all the threads are old. The Apple forums are filled with lots of unanswered threads and wild guesses.

So, assuming no one can work magic over this weird bug… any ideas for alternate Vista-compatible software, preferably free, where I can subscribe to podcasts, download them, and toss them into iTunes’ podcasts folder?

(This may be a temporary problem as I’m not entirely sure how long this laptop has to “live”; I may have to go back to my old reliable laptop that has a lame video card.)

Bumpity. At this point I’d be thrilled with a podcast downloader that works pretty seamlessly with dumping the podcasts into the proper iTunes directories.

Give Juice or maybe FeedDemon a try.

Couple of suggestions: Try updating your WiFi card’s driver and/or router firmware. I’ve had similar bother in the past, with identical symptoms (losing connection, computer not seeing my network) which was caused by accessing Google Maps of all things. All the map data being transferred just spazzed my connection out. A driver update seemed to cure that problem.

Another idea, if you currently have it selected in iTunes, is to turn off the option to download multiple files at once. Just let it do one at a time, see if that helps.

Do those two give you the option to put the podcasts in the iTunes folders? I’d just use iTunes to sync if this continues to be a problem.

Good idea on the firmware/driver situation. I’ll take a look at that.

I do already have multiple downloads unchecked, so no love there unfortunately. Thanks for the ideas; I’ll see what I can do with them tonight.

Been a while since I used either app, but I recall they let you choose a folder to download to.