Instinctz
join:2002-10-21
united state
| Our network and some issue's. Installing.
Hey all,
Another guy and me, where setting up a link thats about 1.5 miles apart. The equipment we have to use are two Cisco 1200ap's with two 14db luxul antenna's. Which we're setting up in a bridge configuration.
We jumped into it one evening but were never able to see signal on the far end of the link.. how ever we only had the antenna's "mocked" and placed on the roofs vs being installed like they needed to be. (Last minute deal that evening)
Anyways, I'm pretty confident that this weekend when we give it another attempt it'll work fine. As I intend to secure the antenna's.
I even tried installing a cisco 350 pc card into my laptop with an external antenna but for the life of me could not get that to ever work properly.
But what do you guys use for conducting the site survey's and any additional steps for alignment? |
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No_Strings
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-22
The OC | A lot of folks have mentioned using a laser pointer to help align the antennae. |
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Instinctz
join:2002-10-21
united state
| Well I was wondering more along the lines of software to help show signal strength, packet loss, ect... possibly some other software which would allow site surveys of possible interferance and other AP's signals.
I've been looking around and havnt really found what I was looking for I guess.
Im new to point to point Wifi's, I work with short ranged omni stuff mostly.
I wanted to get this Cisco 350 card working as im familure with its site survey tool, and it allows me to hook up an external directional antenna... but I have had no luck with getting that to work. If ya'll have ever done that and would have some advice I would appriciate it. |
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tubbynet
more voices, more choices
Premium
join:2008-01-16
Mesa, AZ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Cox HSI
 ·FrontierNet Intern..
| When deploying wireless in a new installation, I use software by a company called AirMagnet. This software/card combo will perform both a passive (just sniff the air, so to speak) survey which will give the results of all APs/SSIDs in the area along with their relative signal strength, as well as an active survey which will listen specifically to one SSID. Very powerful software, but it does require a lot of money (on the order of a thousand or so I believe) as well as a drawing of the area that is to be scanned. This allows for heat maps to be generated for deliverable documentation. The software also will calculate fresnel zones (and angular fresnels as well), and perform quite a few nifty calculations.
However, all of this is quite much, especially if you plan on only using this software once or twice. I do know that there is a poor man's site survey tool on TechRepublic.com. It uses NetStumbler and dumps the SNR, RSSI, etc. into an Excel spreadsheet that (if you know how to interpret the results) can give you similar data as the AirMagnet solution, sans the pretty heat maps of course.
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"Don't hate the media, BECOME the media..." ~Jello Biafra |
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Instinctz
join:2002-10-21
united state
| Hmm, much like cisco's spectrum analizer. At this point I cant really justify the $1000-$2500 price tags for them but possibly in the future as they look great.
So other than windows default "meter" there isnt much to use? Guess im missing a big part of this wifi information somewhere. Seems there would be tools that would show signal strength packet loss, the sort of thing.
I guess im off to buy a dang Pocket wifi finder eh? |
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