Friday, August 5, 2011

Ubiquiti USB 2.4GHz Spectrum Analyzer External Connector

Price : Too low to display

Increasingly Crowded 2.4GHz Band
The worldwide unlicensed 2.4GHz band is becoming increasingly crowded. Cordless phones, baby monitors, alarm systems, and a massive collection of wifi devices all battle with each other to share the same medium for communication

For many professional installers, analyzing the 2.4GHz spectrum to determine the optimum setup for new wireless equipment is imperative. Typically, this is done with a tool called a "Spectrum Analyzer," costing from several hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, which is capable of displaying the distribution of RF energy in the 2.4GHz band.

Powerful Performance, Breakthrough Price
Ubiquiti's AirView is a revolutionary product which consists of a tiny USB module, that when paired with a common laptop or PC, transforms into a powerful Spectrum Analyzer.

The AirView Spectrum Analyzer is useful in studying all RF energy contributors in the 2.4GHz band, but has particularly useful tools that make it ideal for optimizing 2.4GHz WiFi Networks.

System Requirements: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Apple OSX, Linux

Frequency Range: 2.399-2.485 GHz

Sweep Time: 260ms

External MMCX connector.

Clip on laptop antenna included.

This review is from : Ubiquiti USB 2.4GHz Spectrum Analyzer External Connector
Bingo! This thing works. . I was looking for a wi-spy and found this item. I don't know if it'll do everything the wi-spy does, but for less than half the price, it did what I needed: a graphical "picture" of all the radio traffic in my area for the 2.4Mhz range used by wireless devices (b/g/n). You need to let it run for for a several hours (with your wireless network off) to get a real good picture of what is happening, but it does provide a nice picture of all the radio traffic in your area. Once you see where all the traffic is, you can then pick a channel for your wireless network and it should provide better performance by reducing interference. I went from one channel to another and increased my throughput by at least 50%.

Note: The item does not come with the software. You have to download it from the manufacturers website. But it only takes a couple of minutes depending on your connection. They have a 32 and 64 bit version for most commonly used versions of Windows. Super easy to use. Also the antenna has a short cord and clip to mount it on the laptop screen.

Note: It does not work for 900 or 5Mhz ranges. It does have a "waterfall" graphic, but the software says "experimental" and indicates future upgrades will be needed before it's reliable. I found the waveform graphics more useful anyway. However, I can see how the waterfall graphic would be userful over a long time period. Eitherway, it still works.

I definitely recommend this product for anyone having trouble with finding the best channel for their wireless network.

Ubiquiti USB 2.4GHz Spectrum Analyzer External Connector Reviews
Works great on Linux (Ubuntu) . We were having some wireless network issues at home (low bandwidth, high latency, losing connection at certain times of the day) and at work and I bought this to help figure out what might be going wrong.I set it up on Linux (Ubuntu 10.10) with no problem and could easily determine what channels my neighbors were using and how the microwave affected things.I changed the channel my wireless router uses to one less infringed by the neighbors and that got rid of many of the issues we were having (still occasionally drops connection, but could be a driver/hardware issue). I ended up not using it at work because we moved offices and stopped having problems.