For questions for those you have been using this... please advise.

[JRink]

So far I like what I see... Few things.

1. What GPS units are people using with their laptops? Recommendations? (The Polstar unit Tim mentioned in another thread I can't find anywhere in the US)

2. How effective is the GPS mapping? For real. Does it work as advertised? Or is it clumsy and problematic. Before I spend $ on a GPS I'd prefer hearing some realworld experiences.

3. I'm currently using "Click to indicate location" for mapping, however, with my touchpad mouse on the laptop, sometimes I accidentally click a hex I didn't want to (because the touchpad can act as a left click when tapped too hard) and want to delete that signal strength data from the hex. How is this done? This has happened alot unfortunately and makes the map look bad when there's all these isolated hex's with signal strengths for no apparent reason. Please tell me this IS possible to do?

4. My signal strength doesn't seem to get any better than -30db and about 70-75%. This is even when standing right next to a Cisco 1242AP with the antennas at maximum. Is this normal?

5. Typically, at what signal strength % (or RSSI) is a wireless signal considered to be unstable or unusable? Once you get down to around 20%, would it be recommended to at that point NOT expect wireless connectivity? I'm thinking about site surveys and such. Any thoughts?

I think that's it for now...

JR

[Tim (PassMark)]

I'll leave #1 to be addressed by other users and i'll make some comments about the other points;

2. The GPS mapping is very dependant on calibrating the map so WirelessMon can accurately calculate which area of the map a GPS location corresponds too. You will need to know (or measure) the GPS co-ordinates as accurately as possible for the top left and bottom right corners of the map.

The speed at which you are travelling will also affect the mapping, especially for a map with a small scale and using small hexagons.

3. Currently there isn't but we are looking at adding it in the next version.

4. Network cards have a range of different sensitivities and ways of returning they signal strength. It could be the network card you use returns a calculated signal strength rather than a dBm value, and if it has a low sensitivity it may be calculated out to a lower signal strength than other network cards. Which brand of network card are you using?

5. From some of our testing once you get to about 50% signal strength the throughput of the connection will have dropped by 30-40% so it would depend on what you were using the connection for, for simple internet browsing this would be alright but for transferring files across a network or playing games, this would start becoming pretty unacceptable.

[JRink]

I am using a Intel 3945 Network Card that's built in to the HP laptop.


Also, I'm assuming the signal strength value is not a signal to noise ratio. How important is it that I find out the signal to noise ratio as opposed to just the signal strength value?

[Tim (PassMark)]

Correct, the signal strength value is not a signal to noise ratio, calculating it requires the noise strength which isn't reported by many cards except through proprietary device drivers and software.

Less noise will usually result in higher throughput (due to less packets arriving corrupted and needed to be resent).