[geeks] 802.11

[R. Lonstein]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 03:05:15PM -0500, Michael A. Turner wrote:
	[snip]
> floored me with the statement "802.11a went 300 feet but 802.11b only goes
> 50.) my jaw dropped, I expressed my disbelief in his ill informed
	[snip]

Setting aside the "rated" distance, I can personally attest to these 802.11b
distances:
  * Two orinoco silver cards in adhoc, no external antennas, indoors:
    over 25' if no obstacles (brick walls, metal lathing in plaster,
    refridgerator, etc) and you try to line up for strong signal.
  * orinoco silver and linksys wpc11 to RG1000 (internally an orinoco
    silver), no external antennas, indoors: 30-50' if no obstacles.
  * orinoco silver and linksys wpc11 to linksys befw11sr4 (before the
    damn thing went belly up), indoors 25-30' with numerous blindspots.
  * orinoco silver and linksys wpc11 to linksys befw11sr4, outdoors,
    line of sight, AP elevated 60', no antennas: over 300' when aligned
    (once managed to find my own usable signal at 5 blocks distance,
    from hill to hill, in my urban neighborhood).
  * orinoco silver to RG1000, outdoors, line of sight, AP elevated 60',
    no antennas: 200' when aligned.
  * orinoco silver to cisco (unknown model), elevation of BOTH over
    120': distance? Well, through office, across street and probably a
    few floors up to competitor's office space. :)

- Ross