I do many tests with hardware, however, it is difficult to do range tests in random locations. It would be nice to know a good spot where one could test ranges of various devices. A flat empty elongated area of many miles in length (such as an abandoned airport or something) would be nice to have access to. Would anybody know of such a place in the Portland area by any chance?
that are several stretches of the Columbia River on Sauvie Island that allow public access & probably provide line of sight as well. have you also considered trying some elevated areas such as Mt Tabor to locations below? what kind of gear & firmware are you using? I'm a longtime Ubiquiti, OpenWRT, and cjdns user if you're using any of those. my schedule is a bit jammed but with some advance planning I'd be happy to assist.
Thanks for the info, I'll check out Sauvie Island sometime. The issue with the hills and such is the inability to vary the distance easily.
I've done some tests with Omnitiks and one APC Propeller 5 with stock firmware,
http://blog.portlandmeshnet.org/wireless-hardware-range-test-1/
http://blog.portlandmeshnet.org/wireless-hardware-range-test-2/
http://blog.portlandmeshnet.org/june-1st-meetup-notes/
I recently got the Ubiquiti AirGrid (5 GHz version, 27dBi) which I am itching to test at long ranges.
I've experimented with OpenWRT a little.
cjdns is a nice idea but I always have problems with it. It is unusable at the moment. I need to isolate the different bugs and file bug reports sometime.