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From: Gil Johnson (no email)
Date: Thu Nov 02 2006 - 16:34:13 EST
All, I purchased the marine Wi-Fi antenna system from Radio Labs and thought
I'd post my initial findings.
First, call them to order the unit or be very
careful on their web page. There are two different units marketed as WaveRV.
One has pipe clamps and the other has the standard marine mount--don't ask me
how I know :-). BTW, on the phone, these folks are very freindly and helpful,
even when returning the wrong antenna.
Their approach to designing this
antenna seems unique in that it has the Wi-Fi receiver built into the base on
the antenna. This means there's no loss associated with the typical antenna
installation related to the RF cable from the Wi-Fi transceiver and the
antenna. There's just a 15' USB cable from the antenna to your PC. I'm not
real thrilled with active electronics being built into the antenna, as repair
and replacement could be a pain, but, if realiable and the net system gain
offset the risk, I'm all for it. The USB cable cable exits the site of the
antenna. I would have much rather seen it exiting the base so I could run the
cable through the antenna mounting base totally out of the weather.
Interestingly, they only support the B standard and not the G standard. The B
standard would seem to make sense as it's a lower frequency with lower
throughput, so it should propogate through the air a longer distance. I did
discover in my around the neighborhood testing, that I was able to receive
more G Wi-Fi systems than B systems leading me to believe some users are
turning off the B capabilities in their Wi-Fi routers/gateways.
My around the
neighborhood testing also resulted in some disappointment. I would
intentionally move to a point where I was barely receiving a usable signal
from the WaveRV antenna system and would then use the built-in Wi-Fi
capabilities in my laptop and would still be able to establish a connection.
Although my testing wasn't scientific nor extensive, my initial assumption was
that the WaveRV system didn't appear to buy me much in increased range.
So,
would I recommend the WaveRV? At this point it's still to early to say yes or
no. I will say that I'm not ready to permanently install it on the boat until
I've had the opportunity to put it through more testing.
Gil
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