www.cooperbussmann.com/BussmannWirelessResources 67
Cooper Bussmann BU-245U-E Wireless Ethernet & Device Server User Manual
4.2 Channel Survey
The Cooper bussmann 802.11 Ethernet modem utilizes a half duplex radio channel for communications.At any given time, an Access Point and
its associated clients occupy a radio channel.These radio channels, or frequencies, are license free and may contain interference from any
number of other radio transmitters.When installing or diagnosing a 945/245 modem, the potential capacity of a given radio channel will be
reduced by the existence of these other RF signals on the same channel.
The 245/945 modems allow us to see how much RF activity is on a given channel as a percentage of the total channel utilization.A channel that
is very busy will have high channel utilization (usually 50% or greater). Conversely a channel that is quiet will have low channel utilization.
Channel Survey and Custom Survey can therefore be valuable tools to use when performing site surveys in order to determine the best RF chan-
nel to use. It is also a valuable diagnostics tool for identifying the spare capacity on a given channel,as well as possible sources of interference.
Channel Survey screen displays a graph showing the percentage of time that a channel is unavailable, or busy,due to three possible causes:
1)The connected modem is transmitting.
2)The connected modem is receiving valid data from another modem.
3)The connected modem has detected RF noise or interference.
Channel Survey shows the Channel utilization and Noise Floor Graph with 1 second, 1 minute and 1 hour periods.
The first screen shows a percent of the overall radio traffic on the channel that is currently being used.
The next screen shot shows the radio receive noise floor for the last 60 seconds.
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