WHR-HP-G54 Transmitter power measurements

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tparris
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Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:32    Post subject: WHR-HP-G54 Transmitter power measurements Reply with quote
I promised a number of people on this forum that I would measure the TX (transmit) power of a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. These measurments were made in the same manner as the measurements in this FCC test... here are the measurements;

I first measured the TX power while running the stock Buffalo firmware v1.40:

http://gakona.gi.alaska.edu/WHR-HP-G54/Buffalo_v140_G-only.jpg
Measurements: 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%

With DD-WRT v23 sp2 installed, the maximum TX power increases significantly:

http://gakona.gi.alaska.edu/WHR-HP-G54/DD-WRTv23sp2G-only.JPG
Measurements: 0mW, 1mW, 2mW, 4mW, 8mW, 16mW, 32mW, 64mW, 128mW, 251mW

I also got a request to measure the output power with the Tomato Firmware. I used version 1.10:

http://gakona.gi.alaska.edu/WHR-HP-G54/Tomatov110-only.JPG
Measurements: 1mW, 2mW, 4mW, 8mW, 16mW, 32mW, 64mW, 128mW, 251mW

Here's a plot of actual tranmitted power vs. power setting for each of the firmwares:

http://gakona.gi.alaska.edu/WHR-HP-G54/power_compare.JPG
It is clear that there is no difference in the TX power when using DD-WRT v23 sp2 or Tomato v1.10.

I hope this helps a little.
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billbahamas
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:04    Post subject: Reply with quote
You have done some great work. THANK YOU from the Bahamas.

What is your guess as to how high you could run the output and not distort and overheat?

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I feed a friend 400 meters through trees to Wi Fi station taped to his window from my bullet hp feeding 15db pringles type antenna
GeeTek
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:12    Post subject: Reply with quote
You have just solved a 2 year old mystery. Hats off to you sir. Thank you very much for taking the time to produce these results ! There is one more test that may be of interest, and would clear up the unknown for one more firmware. DD-WRT SP2 and higher do not have a functional ACK timing adjustment. SP1 (4-18-06 micro) does have a functional ACK timing adjustment which makes SP1 suitable for multi-mile bridge links. The radio driver in SP1 is different, and as best I can tell, the wattage output is much higher with lower mW settings as compared to SP2 or T firmware. It would be interesting to a lot of folks, self included, to know what rf output the various mW settings in SP1 produce so as to know more precisely a safe level of operation for long range links, especially if used with an extra external amplifier.
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billbahamas
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Location: Waldo Florida(trailer trash)

PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:29    Post subject: Reply with quote
GeeTek wrote:
You have just solved a 2 year old mystery. Hats off to you sir. Thank you very much for taking the time to produce these results ! There is one more test that may be of interest, and would clear up the unknown for one more firmware. DD-WRT SP2 and higher do not have a functional ACK timing adjustment. SP1 (4-18-06 micro) does have a functional ACK timing adjustment which makes SP1 suitable for multi-mile bridge links. The radio driver in SP1 is different, and as best I can tell, the wattage output is much higher with lower mW settings as compared to SP2 or T firmware. It would be interesting to a lot of folks, self included, to know what rf output the various mW settings in SP1 produce so as to know more precisely a safe level of operation for long range links, especially if used with an extra external amplifier.

GeeTek, that means you could run the HP at about 40mW out and not need the Hawking HSB2. Yes? I wish some one with dough would send him a WHR-G125 I would donate $20. Bill

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DSL from Windstream
I feed a friend 400 meters through trees to Wi Fi station taped to his window from my bullet hp feeding 15db pringles type antenna
redhawk0
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:16    Post subject: Reply with quote
Fantastic bit of information.

tparris....you da' man.

redhawk

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dicksons
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Joined: 07 Jun 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:55    Post subject: Reply with quote
T,

To which bar in Fairbanks can we send some money to cover your tab ?

or are you at UAA ?

anyway, the forum owes you some beers !

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GeeTek
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:05    Post subject: Reply with quote
billbahamas wrote:
GeeTek, that means you could run the HP at about 40mW out and not need the Hawking HSB2. Yes? I wish some one with dough would send him a WHR-G125 I would donate $20. Bill

Yes Bill, the unit does appear to produce 500 mW with no difficulty. With this new information I will run some more tests at these higher settings to determine actual bandwidth throughput at the various wattages to see if and where bandwidth degredation begins to occur. Previous bandwidth tests that I have run seem to indicate that very high settings have a negative impact on performance. That is why I sometimes use the hawking external amps with lower radio output and with the radio pre-amp turned off. The Hawking RX amp still gives a better boost on the HP's RX than it's own internal RX pre-amp. Mr Parris' tests show that the transmitter is quite linear up to the 64 mW settings which is well over 500 mW, so 500 mW output will probably be a nice clean setting to run them at. Looks like I may have a bunch of extra hawkings laying around pretty soon ! I should have enough time and beer this coming week-end to run a nice round of tests.

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HowardZ
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 13:53    Post subject: Reply with quote
It would be nice to also test the lastest V24 release candidate firmware.
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billbahamas
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 13:59    Post subject: Reply with quote
HowardZ wrote:
It would be nice to also test the lastest V24 release candidate firmware.

Great idea.

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I feed a friend 400 meters through trees to Wi Fi station taped to his window from my bullet hp feeding 15db pringles type antenna
JN
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 23:59    Post subject: Reply with quote
I would say that I seem to get more range with a Quickertek 500mw amplifier connected to a wireless card in my laptop than the Buffalo HP with its transmit turned up. I can see far more networks this way too from the laptop than the Buffalo site survey, so I think the Quickertek is better at both receiving and transmitting. Perhaps the Buffalo signal is noisy when jacked up and its receive amplifier not so great.
billbahamas
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Location: Waldo Florida(trailer trash)

PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 0:44    Post subject: Reply with quote
JN wrote:
I would say that I seem to get more range with a Quickertek 500mw amplifier connected to a wireless card in my laptop than the Buffalo HP with its transmit turned up. I can see far more networks this way too from the laptop than the Buffalo site survey, so I think the Quickertek is better at both receiving and transmitting. Perhaps the Buffalo signal is noisy when jacked up and its receive amplifier not so great.

What kind of card are you using? What is the receive boost on your amp? The HP-g54 Buffalos are $50. How much did you pay for your card and amp? You can add a Hawking HSB2 to the HP for $75 And get 12db rec boost and 100,200 or 500mW transmit boost.(set the power at 10mW with the amp) Different ways to do things.

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I feed a friend 400 meters through trees to Wi Fi station taped to his window from my bullet hp feeding 15db pringles type antenna


Last edited by billbahamas on Fri Oct 26, 2007 13:43; edited 1 time in total
JN
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 1:43    Post subject: Reply with quote
billbahamas wrote:
What kind of card are you using? What is the receive boost on your amp?
The card is SMC2532W-B and is discontinued. It is similar to other high power cards made by Senao and Engenius, but has RP MMCX connector. It is 200mw, 802.11b only, and receive sensitivity at 1mbps is around -94. The Quickertek is their product for PowerBook and is discontinued in favor of the "Quicky". However, it uses the same amp unit as their Airport base station amps at http://www.quickertek.com/transceivers.php. I have not gotten specs from Quickertek, but found the amp unit by itself in other locations with claims of receive boost ranging between 10 and 20 dbm. Anyway, I am able to connect the Quickertek to the card with the pigtails they supplied for use with Powerbook.
larryrn
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Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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Location: El Poblado, Medellin, Colombia / Coral Springs, Florida

PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 13:13    Post subject: Bountiful router Reply with quote
Excellent information. I am curious if anyone has tried the http://www.bountifulwifi.com/products/bountiful-router.html
router? They claim a clean 1 watt of power and it sounds very nice, I ordered one via newegg but it arrvied DOA and returned it and cancelled my order --

I want lots of range - onmi-directional but obviously want it very clean. Right now I am getting around a quarter of a mile radius with a 54HP at 199mw using a Dlink 7db external antenna with 3 meters of cable that were supplied with the antenna.

Right now the internet signal is great - however, when running a VPN over the connection it goes up and down every 40 seconds. It does connect fine but then drops the connect in 10 seconds and the saga repeats. When connecting via ethernet cable to the HP54 the VPN stays up for as long as I have attemped (2 days) without any problems.

Nothing but the best,

Larry Snyder, Medellin, Colombia
larry@rn.org

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MichelG
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 13:45    Post subject: Antenna Reply with quote
Hi Larry,

Change your antenna to a higher gain one. You can find very interesting antennas bringing you more dBs, and reduce your power. My opinion is that you are in trouble because of the power you are using.

Also, try to get a shorter antenna wire, it will reduce massively your loss of power, and with a good antenna you will get a stable connection.

Have a look for good antennas at : www.interline.pl

+17dB / +24dB is a nice solution. We do run antenna panels.

Michel

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All Senao EOC-2610 V1.10 Std 15362 BS
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FunMan3
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Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 15:06    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hi,

great work! but are you sure of the this mw power? anyway could be interesting testing the v24 (that has a new driver and without the pa0maxpwr set to 251 perform lower signal) and other broadcom and atheros devices.

We can post results in the wiki

FunMan
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