[Make-wifi-fast] Wiring up a wireless testbed

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Aaron Wood <woody77 at gmail.com> writes:

> What this setup also removes is random noise, which is good for
> repeatability, but bad for real-life testing. My experiences doing similar
> are that there isn’t much of a grey area between a “great”
> throughput/packet error rate and “nothing works”.
>
> It also removes the real-world crosstalk between the antennas.
>
> So good for some things, especially automated tests, but it’s not a
> replacement for real field tests in the presence of random noise.

Yeah, I agree that real-world testing is needed on top of this. But for
my own needs I consider repeatability more important than strict
correspondence to a real-world scenario (whatever that means). But
you're right, of course, that it would be bad if this is the only type
of testing that is done :)

As for cross-talk between antennas, I'm not sure this setup removes it
completely; there's probably leakage around connectors, and possibly in
the cables attaching the outwards-facing SMA connectors on each machine
to whatever the tiny connectors on the cards are called. Don't have the
equipment to measure any of that, though, so for now it remains a hunch...

-Toke