On a sunny bank holiday Monday, Graham from Affinit and I spent the morning testing a promising long range 5 GHz WiFi outdoor client bridge. These were a pair of EnGenius ENH500 units.

To measure the effectiveness of this kit, I tested ping response & packet loss (using GPing), throughput (using Netspeed) and longitude & latitude position between two laptops for each test.

A baseline was established using an Ethernet cable between both laptops with the following result:

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Sending 1000MB to 192.168.1.222                             05/06/2013 08:12:07
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Disconnected from host.
Transferred 1000MB in 90.31 seconds.
Results:                                                  (Bps=Bytes, bps=bits)
Peak-->   Bps: 11617452   KBps: 11345   MBps: 11.1   Kbps: 90761   Mbps: 88.63
Avg-->   Bps: 11610980   KBps: 11339   MBps: 11.1   Kbps: 90711   Mbps: 88.58
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After the initial firmware updates and creating a WDS bridge between the units, I ran another throughput test with the devices just a few metres apart. They would not link until the radio power was reduced to the minimum setting of # dBm.

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