Enrique LaRoche wrote: >>We begin by using an HP spectrum analyzer to determine the signal strength >>of existing RF. >Just curious, >do the results obtained with the spectrum analyzer serve any purpose?
>I think you might see interfering signals if they happened to be turned on >on the day you did the survey. The building next door may decide the day >after you leave to install something not nice. >Seems sort of like a harmless excercise with a high cost piece of equipment >which will impress the customer. >(Ala Wizard of Oz) Valid question. To the point of signals that are not there during the survey: You are absolutely right. This point is "disclaimed" when we meet with the client as well as in the survey documentation. This is the nature of any unlicensed RF spectrum. But it is not really an excuse for not doing the initial research - some signals may be there - and strong. That is why we start with this. Oh and you are right - it IS an expensive box ;-) >I suspect the most valuable test will be the omni antenna on an orinoco card >running netstumbler . This is great to find open 802.11b networks. We use some other tools to see all 802.11b traffic. >of course the Client if so inclined could do this too. They could do the simple survey as Scott initially indicated, it is just not as thorough. Typically, our clients are planning on a significant investment in a campus deployment. The knowledge gained by our survey can catch some gotchas before they getcha... >I think the value of hiring a surveyor is the experience of knowing what to >look for and the experience of previous surveys. I would qualify a surveyor >by contacting previous clients and getting references. I couldn't agree more... Kurt A.F. Kiesow III Copperless Networks (408) 265-6505 -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
