I've been testing the new Wi-Spy 2.4x with the 3.0 release of their Chanalyzer software, and this really is a spectrum analyzer for the rest of us. But it's pretty limited in resolution, and useful only for coarse-grained analysis. I've owned one of the first-edition Wi-Spys since it came out, and I think I paid about US$100.00 for it it's still available updated as the v1 for US$199. So, how about a spectrum analyzer for the rest of us, one that just plugs into a notebook computer? Yes, it exists: the Wi-Spy from Metageek.
But it sells for about US$4,000.00, at last check, and that's a lot for some folks. I'm a big fan of Cisco's (formerly Cognio's) Spectrum Expert, and I use it regularly in benchmark tests, troubleshooting client installations, and investigating about radio propagation. Traditional test equipment is too bulky and much too difficult for non-engineers to use, and lower-cost products have not been cheap enough for many. Precision test equipment has traditionally been, therefore, off limits in production environments and limited to product-development labs, although there are few (but still expensive) portable spectrum analyzers available.īut if you're trying to find out if a particular signal is really reaching where you'd like it to go, or if interference is drowning your traffic, or where a particular interferer might be, you've been pretty much out of luck. The more spectrum the device covers, the higher the price.
If you've not looked at this type of product before (even many engineers have only very limited experience with them), spectrum analyzers have traditionally been big (like a breadbox), expensive (like US$20+K), oscilloscope-like test equipment used to see what's going on in a particular chunk of radio spectrum. I remember, many years ago, in Farpoint Group's early days, wandering the halls of trade shows looking for a simple, low-cost spectrum analyzer.
0 kommentar(er)
