Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
Your plan sounds good. We have a guy take the radios and a laptop up to the third floor of our building where we have LOS to multiple APs of ours of multiple technologies. He'll make them associate, evaluate signal levels, run some traffic over it, and if it's good, set it back to defaults. Part of sending a guy away from his desk to test them is to eliminate the constant interruptions that have prevented the person from getting to that big stack of questionable gear. Many radios are broken due to bad pigtails/jumpers, bad power supplies, etc.. If it's an Alvarion radio, we look into the log files as well for clues. On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 01:43:56PM -0800, Kristian Hoffmann wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- /* Jason Philbrook | Midcoast Internet Solutions - Wireless and DSL KB1IOJ| Broadband Internet Access, Dialup, and Hosting http://f64.nu/ | for Midcoast Mainehttp://www.midcoast.com/ */ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
Thanks for all the suggestions. We do field testing of new APs and such in our boom trucks, but I'm thinking more along the lines of bench testing radios in an isolated environment. We have a company nearby with 2.4GHz cameras that eat up 2/3 of the spectrum. From my desk, I get about -85dBm from the 2.4GHz equipment on our tower, but the guy next door's cameras show up at -50dBm. Point being, I need to do a conductive test (no antennas) to get any reasonable test results from 2.4GHz radios. It sounds like as long as I have enough attenuation between the radios, a conductive test won't have any adverse affects. Thanks again, -Kristian On Tue, 2009-12-22 at 09:38 -0500, jp wrote: Your plan sounds good. We have a guy take the radios and a laptop up to the third floor of our building where we have LOS to multiple APs of ours of multiple technologies. He'll make them associate, evaluate signal levels, run some traffic over it, and if it's good, set it back to defaults. Part of sending a guy away from his desk to test them is to eliminate the constant interruptions that have prevented the person from getting to that big stack of questionable gear. Many radios are broken due to bad pigtails/jumpers, bad power supplies, etc.. If it's an Alvarion radio, we look into the log files as well for clues. On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 01:43:56PM -0800, Kristian Hoffmann wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
Crack open a microwave, point and shoot. Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. --- Albert Einstein On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Kristian Hoffmann kh...@fire2wire.comwrote: Thanks for all the suggestions. We do field testing of new APs and such in our boom trucks, but I'm thinking more along the lines of bench testing radios in an isolated environment. We have a company nearby with 2.4GHz cameras that eat up 2/3 of the spectrum. From my desk, I get about -85dBm from the 2.4GHz equipment on our tower, but the guy next door's cameras show up at -50dBm. Point being, I need to do a conductive test (no antennas) to get any reasonable test results from 2.4GHz radios. It sounds like as long as I have enough attenuation between the radios, a conductive test won't have any adverse affects. Thanks again, -Kristian On Tue, 2009-12-22 at 09:38 -0500, jp wrote: Your plan sounds good. We have a guy take the radios and a laptop up to the third floor of our building where we have LOS to multiple APs of ours of multiple technologies. He'll make them associate, evaluate signal levels, run some traffic over it, and if it's good, set it back to defaults. Part of sending a guy away from his desk to test them is to eliminate the constant interruptions that have prevented the person from getting to that big stack of questionable gear. Many radios are broken due to bad pigtails/jumpers, bad power supplies, etc.. If it's an Alvarion radio, we look into the log files as well for clues. On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 01:43:56PM -0800, Kristian Hoffmann wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
If you can pass data to your tower at -85, the card is good. And, you have two know values to look at, your tower and the camera system. Looks to me like you can do real world testing rather than hoping the bench test is accurate. Kristian Hoffmann wrote: Thanks for all the suggestions. We do field testing of new APs and such in our boom trucks, but I'm thinking more along the lines of bench testing radios in an isolated environment. We have a company nearby with 2.4GHz cameras that eat up 2/3 of the spectrum. From my desk, I get about -85dBm from the 2.4GHz equipment on our tower, but the guy next door's cameras show up at -50dBm. Point being, I need to do a conductive test (no antennas) to get any reasonable test results from 2.4GHz radios. It sounds like as long as I have enough attenuation between the radios, a conductive test won't have any adverse affects. Thanks again, -Kristian On Tue, 2009-12-22 at 09:38 -0500, jp wrote: Your plan sounds good. We have a guy take the radios and a laptop up to the third floor of our building where we have LOS to multiple APs of ours of multiple technologies. He'll make them associate, evaluate signal levels, run some traffic over it, and if it's good, set it back to defaults. Part of sending a guy away from his desk to test them is to eliminate the constant interruptions that have prevented the person from getting to that big stack of questionable gear. Many radios are broken due to bad pigtails/jumpers, bad power supplies, etc.. If it's an Alvarion radio, we look into the log files as well for clues. On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 01:43:56PM -0800, Kristian Hoffmann wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- Scott Reed Sr. Systems Engineer GAB Midwest 1-800-363-1544 x4000 Cell: 260-273-7239 WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
On Tue, 2009-12-22 at 11:58 -0500, Scott Reed wrote: If you can pass data to your tower at -85, the card is good. And, you have two know values to look at, your tower and the camera system. Looks to me like you can do real world testing rather than hoping the bench test is accurate. A noise floor of -50 may be real world some day, but thankfully, that's not today. ;-) -Kristian WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
[WISPA] Testing radios
Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
I have a large quanity of HP and Antritsu attenuators like you posted, and I would unload them to people here for half of what new costs - more if you take quanity. Don't take your organs to heaven, heaven knows we need them down here! Be an organ donor, sign your donor card today. - Original Message - From: Kristian Hoffmann kh...@fire2wire.com To: wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 3:43 PM Subject: [WISPA] Testing radios Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
We usually just test a few miles from a tower. A laptop, canopy, extension cord, spare parts and tools. It's not soo much fun in winter weather, but we make sure that signals are within 3-5 db of each other. We know what we should be getting from our test location, we also run a 30 second bandwidth test as well. -Kevin On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Kristian Hoffmann kh...@fire2wire.com wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
If you have a ladder rack/utility bed on the truck, you can do what we did. We took one of those Trango rounded steel plates and mounted it to the side of the ladder rack. We then put a 5ft+ pipe through that, let it rest on the bed and we have a mobile pipe mount! We have a cat5 cable ran from the bed to the cab, with an inverter plugged right into the battery (just one, gas truck). We mounted 18v, 48v POEs to the floor and then the Motorola one into a surge strip (love these now, thanks 3db). If anyone cares, I'll take a picture. Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. --- Albert Einstein On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Kevin Neal ke...@safelink.net wrote: We usually just test a few miles from a tower. A laptop, canopy, extension cord, spare parts and tools. It's not soo much fun in winter weather, but we make sure that signals are within 3-5 db of each other. We know what we should be getting from our test location, we also run a 30 second bandwidth test as well. -Kevin On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Kristian Hoffmann kh...@fire2wire.com wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Testing radios
Now thats a long extension cord! :) On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Kevin Neal ke...@safelink.net wrote: We usually just test a few miles from a tower. A laptop, canopy, extension cord, spare parts and tools. It's not soo much fun in winter weather, but we make sure that signals are within 3-5 db of each other. We know what we should be getting from our test location, we also run a 30 second bandwidth test as well. -Kevin On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Kristian Hoffmann kh...@fire2wire.com wrote: Hi, We tend to get radios back from techs with notes that say something like bad radio or low signal. Things that aren't obviously broken tend to sit around and collect dust. Does anyone have a efficient way to test 802.11a/b/g radios? Most of our equipment is MikroTik, so my plan was to do a conductive test between a known good radio and the radio in question with 80 dB or so of attenuator stacked between them, check the rx signal on both ends, and run a bw test for a set amount of time. Is there anything else that I should take into consideration, or perhaps a completely different approach? I was looking at these attenuators... http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/UNAT-30+.pdf I don't think precision is really an issue as long as they're consistent from one test to another. Thanks, -- Kristian Hoffmann System Administrator kh...@fire2wire.com http://www.fire2wire.com Office - 209-543-1800 | Fax - 209-545-1469 | Toll Free - 800-905-FIRE WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
