[Madwifi-devel] BSD branch outdoor test results

[Ricardo L. <ric...@in...>]

Hello all,

I'm involved in a vehicle black box project that uses the 802.11a for 
wireless comms to the outter world. We've choosen Atheros based cards 
for the project.

Recently we've made some outdoor tests using the BSD branch (for ad-hoc 
support) of the madwifi drivers, compiled in a Mandrake 10.0 distro, K 
2.6.8.

Here is a digest of the tests.

Moving vehicle wireless card:
    Senao Mini PCI 5354Aries2
    TxPwr=17dBm
    Antenas: Dual external antennas 5dBi

Stationary wireless card
    3Com PCI 3CRDAG645
    TxPwr=17dBm
    Antena: Single indoor antenna ?dBi, guess is 3-5dBi

Tests enviroment: 1Km by .5Km square field with some ligth poles and 
some concrete obstacles

Moving @ 40Km/h we have the following results

Ad-hoc mode:
    max 100m cover range when moving away from the Stationary card
        Note: no link recover when reaproaching the Stationary, needs 
ifdown on both cards to resume!!!!!

    max 50m cover range when aproaching the Stationary card

Managed mode, Stationary card is Master (AP):
    more then 600m when moving away from the AP
        note: Link is recovered when moving towards the AP after link loss.

    at least 200m when aproaching the AP


We're hoping on using ad-hoc mode since it's the only suitable for 
project requirements, but with this outcome we've fallen back to managed 
mode for now. Can some one enlighten me on why is ad-hoc behaving so 
badly compared to managed?

Thanks all,

PS: We'll repeat the tests this week using a Senao Mini PCI 5354Aries2 
with dual external antennas 5dBi for the stationary card. I'll post the 
results after.

-- 
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Inov - Development Engeneering (www.inov.pt)
	
	Ricardo Lascas

email: ric...@in...
phone: +351 21 31 00 472
fax  : +351 21 31 45 843