The first outdoor test point was 50 feet from the AP and about 6 feet lower than it. Successive test points were spaced at 50 foot (15M) intervals - give or take about 3 feet (1M) - at varying heights as determined by the relatively-level terrain. The test notebook rested on a 3 foot (1M) high non-metallic stand and the wireless adapter's antenna was pointed toward the AP at each location.

The test range was not what I'd call "open field" since there were a few trees inside the range as shown in the diagram. Fortunately, fall has hit in force where I live and most of the leaves were off the trees and saplings that stood between my notebook and the AP under test. To give you a better idea of the environment, take a look at the pictures in Figures 8 through 11. Since the target area is a wee bit hard to see, I've outlined it with a yellow box in Figures 9 - 11.

All tests used IxChariot on my 1 GHz Notebook running WinXP SP2 with the other endpoint running on a dedicated Athlon64 3000+ WinXP Pro SP2 system connected to the router under test via my LAN's 10/100 switch.

I used the standard IxChariot throughput script, TCP protocol with 100,000 Bytes of data per transfer for the 11b tests and 200,000 Bytes per transfer for the 11g tests. I ran 1 minute tests in both uplink (STA to AP) and downlink (AP to STA) directions. The numbers you'll see are the average throughput results calculated by IxChariot.