5. The Test, Continued

But in order to give the Booster a real workout, I decided to try a distance test. I left the AP in its position in the room at the upper left of the floorplan and left the air-conditioned comfort of my home office to enjoy the central-Virginia August heat and humidity. I started a Chariot throughput test at a point about 45 feet (and a couple of interior walls, plus an exterior wall) from the AP. I then walked slowly away, ending the test at a point 300 ft away from the AP.

I ran two sets of tests: with Chariot sending date from AP to STA (client) with no boost and with both antennas replaced by BA24j's; then repeated the two tests with data flowing from STA to AP.

Figure 11: AP to STA range test comparison - no and both boost
(click on image to enlarge)

Figure 11 shows a composite of the downlink (AP to STA) tests which, if you look closely at the enlarged plot, shows better throughput in the "both boost" run, albeit with high throughput variation.

Figure 12: STA to AP range test comparison - no and both boost
(click on image to enlarge)

If you stare long enough at Figure 12, you'll also see the same effect from the both-boost run, i.e. slightly higher throughput but with high variation.

Even though I tried to keep my pace during all four treks the same, you can't really tell maximum range from the above plots and will have to rely on my observations. A small stand of trees at the 75 foot (~23 m) point knocked down both the amp'd and unamplified signal, illustrating once again that 802.11 is primarily a line-of-sight technology when dealing with distances. And as far as total distance gain, I'd estimate that I gained only about 30 feet (~9 m) of high variation, low rate (2Mbps connect rate) distance with the bi-amplified signal.