warehouse wireless

Hi, You could consider using the MIMO access points which use the AirGo ships like those from sohoWare

i believe they have used one access point to cover 45000 sq ft of warehouse.

Yep. Just one. Add a bunch of wireless bar code readers. We didn't have wireless VoIP at the time.

I used 5 Cisco 340 access points at each side of the warehouse near the roof (40ft off the ground) and one in the middle of the roof pointed down. 8dBi patch antennas for about 60 degree beamwidth. Opposite sides didn't hear each other so I was able to re-use frequencies. CAT5 between AP's to a cheapo ethernet switch. Big problems were:

1. Reflections: Steel buildings have LOTS of reflections. Multipath was a killer and the error rate was high at some locations. The 340's are 802.11b which is not a resistant to multipath as 802.11g. 1200 series would be a good choice. Someone suggested MIMO (pre-802.11n) which is probably even better. The reason for the panel antennas was not to get more gain, coverage, or penetration. It was to reduce reflections from the walls, domed roof, and concrete floor.
2. Penetration: The warehouse was for produce storage. Everything was full of water which blocks 2.4GHz. In the isles, most of the traffic was to the overhead roof mounted radio. I chose to install the radios on the sides rather than the more obvious corner locations because I wanted to shoot down the isles. These were not dead center but offset so that opposite radios would not see each other and there would be no overlapping coverage down a given isle.
3. The radios could never seem to be high enough. Some forklift jockey would always put a box of produce directly in front of the panel antenna.
4. It was really cold. Also laser tag with wireless bar code readers is lots of fun.

Why spend all the money. Set a few of these up. Set to Ad-hoc mode then you are not relying on one access point.

You make a lot of claims for your product, some are a bit hard to swallow. Such as: "I have used the Signal Seeker for quite some time now and I am still amazed of how much more gain it has from other antennas available on the market." You really have all the other manufacturers beat in technology but you don't know the gain of yours?

And you advise someone to set up "several" wireless devices inside one building that have gain equal to 14dbi antennas hooked up to 500mw amps? Not that I doubt that the signal would reach, even if half your claims are half true, but still ...

I'd be more inclined to spend some money if I knew what I was getting. You don't know the gain of the antenna, you don't mention the make of the radio, you don't mention the output power, the receive sensitivity. In short you claim fantastic things but specify nothing. That's why I'd spend the extra money and go to the hassle of getting something not so "pig in a poke".

You must be Claire Voyant. But no, I'm not in competition with you in any manner. And if I was pissed, I'd be sending your contact info to the FCC so they could help you figure out if you're in compliance with the laws. But I'm not angry about it, just hate to see someone who may be well-intentioned but dumb as a sack of hammers when it comes to wireless gear, selling their snakeoil to the uninformed. You have a great day too.

Well, reading the product description, I can sorta deduce that it's a USB radio with better than typical antenna. Now USB radios usually plug directly into computahs. Are you suggesting that he buy a few of these and plug each one into a separate computah? That's kinda expensive. One could plug all the USB radios into a USB hub and into a single computah. I've actually tried multiple USB radios on one machine. It does work, sorta. I won't go into the problems I slammed into but lets just say it wasn't worth the exercise. Of course, you're limited to 16ft per USB cable, so the 60,000 sq ft warehouse (775ft on a side) will require far too many radios located within 16ft of the computah. If your Signal Seeker product were an ethernet connected bridge radio, then it might be convinced to work. However, USB is not a good fit.

Also, I find it interesting that you would recommend an ad-hoc network. It can be done in a warehouse, but would be difficult to direct connect to a central server as ALL the radios would need to communicate with a single ad-hoc bridge radio that is connected to the central server. Depending on the warehouse layout, that may not be possible. Of course, one could build a mesh network, which is basically an ad-hoc network with store and forward repeaters. That would solve the direct connect problem, but I don't see anything on your eBay advertisement that suggest your USB radio supports WDS or any form of repeat mode. Mesh networks are also not mentioned. Were it an ethernet radio that supports client mode, ad-hoc, and repeat mode, it might be convinced to work. However, USB is not a good fit.

I also find the following rather interesting: Q: exactly how much of a DB gain does this give you? A: We are waiting for the report to come back. But I know it will keep up with a 14 db panel antenna and a 500 mw amplifier. So I am guessing around min 26 to 30 db gain to the computer.

I didn't know my computer has gain. Now, antennas have gain which is usually measured in dBi or dBd, not dB. I know a little about antenna design and I seriously doubt your antenna has 26-30dB of gain. A panel antenna with 26dBi antenna gain will be about 5ft across. A dish antenna will be approximately the same size. Looking at the size and geometry of your Signal Seeker, my guess(tm) is that it's a modified USB dongle, with a biquad antenna under the vacuum formed plastic cover. The biquad is good for perhaps 11-12dBi of gain at best.

What I find amusing is that you actually may have a good product idea. It's similar to the various USB-ANT type of radios:

is somewhat cheaper. If you offered it with detailed engineering specifications, test reports, comparisons with similar products, and a price advantage, it would fit in nicely between insipid USB dongles, and much more expensive USB-ANT type of radios. It's also small enough to be considered portable and attached to a laptop. However, if you insist on selling it with homily, hogwash, and hype, then methinks you'll get nowhere.

Marketing hype is all good and wonderful, but only to get people to look at your engineering specs to see if the product will match their needs. Absent specs, the product is worthless.

I agree (completely). A large part of the GUM (great unwashed masses) will buy into the marketing hype rather than learn how the technology works and make intelligent decisions based on simple arithmetic. A good example is the trend toward "bigger numbers are better" as in

5.6Ghz phones are somehow twice as good as 2.4Ghz which are twice as good as 900MHz. Not so.

I don't blame the buying public. This stuff has become complicated. Trying to explain to the GUM that 3dB means twice as powerful has been somewhat of a challenge. The industry answer to the problem of number inundation seems to be to completely remove all useful numbers from data sheets and literature. That began when 3com was successfully sued because their X2(tm) modem technology was not twice as fast as the average GUM member would logically presume. Numbers and specs are bad as they interfere with sales.

Some industries have gone the other way. The audiophile market is a mess of weird tests, meaningless specifications, irreproducible results, and quantified rubbish. Almost everything has become hype with more numbers that can possibly be used for an intelligent comparison. Hopefully, wireless will not go down this path, where all the numbers are meaningless. (Peak music transient power?)

The Signal Seeker product may be the pinnacle of selling a product without confusing the buyer with numbers. There are very few numbers on the eBay web page. The only specifications (gain) are pure speculation and in my never humble opinion, rather overly optimistic. Since it's a radio, there should be an FCCID somewhere. Was it FCC type certified? If not, one can advertise or announce but not offer for sale.

Tech products sold this way do sell, which methinks is a sad commentary on the technical abilities of the average GUM member. I guess education is the standard answer, but that's expensive, time consuming, and presumes that an educated buyer will make better buying decisions. This is exactly the opposite of what the advertising industry wants. Intelligent and informed buyers are bad for sales.

Jeff Thanks for the comments. We just started market this antenna. It was designed by a local man. It does very well compared to everything I compared it to. I was very happy. It was far smaller and compact to anything else we have used. Now for the good part we have invested a lot of money and are taking this design a lot farther. We are coming out with a new model that is 5x7 it will be able to set in just about any mode you can think of. It has been check for gain and we are riding on the limits of FCC. I think people are going to be very pleased.

When I was heavily into audiophile equipment I did a test of my new high end Sony CD player which was more "liquid" in sound than the cheap piece of shit Kmart player I was comparing it to. The sound difference was satisfying to me since I'd spent so much. Then I realized that the cheap one was accidently set to mono and I could no longer tell the difference in sound. I decided that if Audiophile magazine couldn't put together a double blind test I didn't even want to hear what the reviewer had to say.

And if you get it, you'll provide something to go on besides "Buy it from me and I'm sure one of us will be happy." Remember, I said I wanted a double blind test on stereo equipment, not reassurance from someone that they thought it was good. If you're not familiar with the double blind concept, do a Google. Seriously, I don't wish you ill luck with your product, but you do a disservice to everyone in the field to market products with nothing more to go on than you think it's great. From the responses you're getting on eBay and here, I'd think you should realize that people want hard info, not fluff.

We're in the process of setting up a warehouse in that size range. The problem is that warehouses are hard to get right. Lots of steel racks probably filled with stuff like cardboard that soaks up 2.4Ghz. After some research, the best approach looks to be highly directional antennas (yagis) aimed down the aisles. We'll be using Cisco 1200s with the antenna diversity turned off and two 13.5db Yagis on each of 3 APs.

Steel rack frames with big air gaps are only a problem with reflections, not blockage. However, if the shelves are made of solid metal, you've got a barrier.

2.4GHz goes right though cardboard. Put some cardboard in your home microwave oven and see for yourself. Now, wet or aluminized cardboard is a problem but not dry.

I suggest panels (patch) antennas instead. Same gain, fewer side lobes, easier to mount, and much lower cost per dB of gain due to less complex construction.

You may wanna leave diversity on and leave one of the cheezy omni antennas plugged in. That's because the higher gain yagi or panel antennas will have wonderful coverage furthur down the isles, but none just below the access point and antenna. A low gain omni will take care of the problem of the pattern going over everyones head. Use Netstumbler or Kismet to do a site survey of the building. If there's a problem directly below the access point and yagi/panel antenna, then put one of the omni's back.