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Q. Why is
TamoGraph much more affordable than the competing site survey
products?
A. Surprisingly, this
non-technical question is probably the most frequently asked one.
TamoGraph is more affordable for a number of reasons. We don't
spend money on an impressive office in Silicon Valley. We don't fly
first class looking for more venture capital. We've been in the
software business for 15 years and we know how to work efficiently,
to maintain a high brain-to-fat ratio. We also believe that all
WLAN professionals should be able to afford a professional tool to
do their job.
Q. Do I need
a compatible Wi-Fi card to perform active surveys?
A. No, you can use pretty much
any modern Wi-Fi adapter. However, active surveys give you only a
small part of the WLAN picture. To get comprehensive information,
passive surveys are mandatory. A compatible adapter is required for
passive surveys.
Q. My card
is not on your list of supported hardware. What are my
options?
A. Our hardware compatibility
list includes only those cards that we've tested ourselves in our
test lab. There are other cards that may be compatible with
TamoGraph. The best way to find out if your card is compatible is
downloading our Adapter Test Utility and running it on your computer. If a
compatible adapter is installed, the utility will display its name.
Please note that:
·Some adapters are
compatible only when using Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, or
Windows 8.1. An adapter may not be compatible if you test it under
Windows XP, but the same adapter may be compatible if you test it
under Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1.
·Before running our test
utility, make sure that you use the latest driver supplied by your
computer or adapter vendor. Visit their Web site to download and
install the latest driver version. This is important, because the
results of the test depend on the driver that is used. The newer
the driver, the better the chances that it will work with
TamoGraph.
Finally, you may want to buy a
compatible card, as they are not terribly expensive these days. Or
simply order a boxed version from us; it comes with a compatible
USB adapter.
Q. Why is
the left panel that is supposed to display the list of access
points empty?
A. This might be the case for a
number of reasons:
·You do not have a
compatible adapter for passive surveys. The access point list is
populated only if you have a compatible adapter or if you opened a
project that already contains previously collected survey
data.
·You did not install the
driver for your compatible adapter. Please refer to the
Driver
Installation chapter
for instructions. To verify that your compatible adapter is present
and functioning correctly, look at the lower left corner of the
application window. Your compatible adapter name should be
displayed there. If the adapter name is displayed, but the list is
still empty, contact our technical support.
Q. Does
TamoGraph support 802.11ac WLANs?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. Do I need
an 802.11ac adapter to survey 802.11ac WLANs?
A. This depends on the type of
survey. For passive surveys, a supported 802.11n adapter is
sufficient, as long as it is a dual-band adapter, i.e., if it can
work in the 5 GHz band. Such adapters can capture 802.11ac
management frames, which is needed for passive surveys. For active
surveys, when your adapter is associated to the WLAN to measure
throughput and actual PHY rate, you may want to use an 802.11ac
adapter if you need to know the WLAN metrics for 802.11ac clients.
However, this is not mandatory, because you may want to estimate
throughput for 802.11n clients, which are far more widely used than
802.11ac clients are at the time of this writing. In this case, an
802.11n adapter for active surveys will suffice.
Q. Does
TamoGraph support multi-floor projects?
A. Yes, you can create projects
with multiple floors in TamoGraph. If you are doing a predictive
survey, simply add new floors in Floor Manager, add floor plans for
each floor, define floor height and material, and then align the
floors.
Q. Do I need
to use the Floor Manager in passive surveys?
A. No, you don't. The Floor
Manager should be used for predictive surveys only. In passive
surveys, the application collects actual signal data regardless of
the floors and AP locations; in other words, it doesn’t
“care” about floors.
Q. I
conducted a passive survey in a multi-floor building, and some of
the APs were auto-placed on adjacent floors rather than on the
floor where they are actually located. How do I correct
that?
A. If you know the actual
locations of the APs on the their respective floors, then for each
floor: (a) manually correct the locations of the APs that are
physically located on that floor and (b) drag the icons of all APs
that belong to other floors off the floor plan. If you don’t know
the actual locations of any APs and wish to view the signal
coverage map only, then clear all AP locations; this will make the
application use only the actual data, without any
extrapolations.
Q. I have
one physical AP that I want to move around to simulate multiple APs
before deploying my WLAN. Can TamoGraph treat this single AP as
multiple APs so that I can estimate the characteristics of the
future WLAN?
A. Yes, this widely used method
is called “AP-on-a-stick”. TamoGraph provides the functionality
necessary to handle such scenarios. Please see
Splitting an AP into Multiple Unique APs
for detailed
instructions.
Q. Can I use
multiple adapters with TamoGraph to make the scanning process
faster?
A. Yes, TamoGraph can capture
data from multiple channels simultaneously if you use multiple
compatible USB adapters. This shortens the time needed to collect
data from the channels being scanned as you move along the survey
path, and, therefore, improves the data quality. For example, with
the default 250 ms per channel interval, it takes five seconds to
sweep through 20 channels if you use only one adapter. If you use
three adapters, the same amount of data will be collected in less
than two seconds. The following 802.11n USB adapters can be used
for multi-channel capturing: The following 802.11n USB adapters can
be used for multi-channel capturing: D-Link DWA-160 v.A1, v.A2,
v.B2, and v.C1, Edimax EW-7733UnD, Linksys AE3000, NETGEAR WN111
v2, NETGEAR WNDA3100 v1, Proxim ORiNOCO 8494, SMC Networks
SMCWUSB-N2, Sony UWA-BR100, TP-Link TL-WDN3200, TP-Link TL-WN721N,
TP-Link TL- WN722N, TP-Link TL-WN821N v1, v2, and v3, TP-Link
TL-WN822N v1 and v2, Ubiquiti SR71-USB, and CACE Technologies
AirPcap Ex or NX. The following 802.11ac USB adapters can be used
for multi-channel capturing: Belkin F9L1109 v1, D-Link DWA-180 rev
A1, D-Link DWA-182 rev C1, Edimax EW-7822UAC, EnGenius EUB1200AC,
Linksys WUSB6300, TRENDnet TEW-805UB, and ZyXEL AC240. Note that
different types of adapters cannot be mixed; all of the adapters
should be of the same model. You should also install the same
driver for all of the adapters.
Q. Some of
the channels in the scanner options window are not listed. Is this
normal? What if I want to monitor these channels? Is this normal?
What if I want to monitor these channels?
A. The answer depends on the
adapter type:
·Atheros-based CardBus,
PCI, miniPCI, miniPCIe, and ExpressCard adapters: Depending on your
country, your wireless adapter may not support all the channels
shown in that window. The channels that are available for use in a
particular country differ according to the regulations of that
country. In the United States, for example, FCC regulations only
allow channels 1 to 11 to be used in the 802.11b/g/n band. The
firmware of the wireless adapters being sold in the US is typically
configured to disallow channels 12 and 13.
·Atheros-based and
recommended Ralink-based and Realtek-based USB adapters: All
channels are always available when using them in TamoGraph.
·Other adapters (e.g.
Intel, Dell, or Broadcom): enabling channels 12 and 13 may be
possible. Open the TamoGraph application folder (usually C:\Program
Files\TamoGraph or C:\Program Files (x86)\TamoGraph). You will see
the file named ch1213.exe there. Double-click on that file to
execute it. Restart TamoGraph and enable channel 12 and 13 in the
scanner options; these channels will become available for
selection. Note that the adapter's ability to capture packets on
channels 12 and 13 depends on the regulatory domain set by the
laptop vendor. If the vendor enabled them in your case, there won't
be a problem. However, we've heard of many examples when laptop
vendors did not enable channels 12 and 13 even in the laptops that
were sold in a country where these channels were legal.
Q. Why is
the UDP downstream throughput value always zero?
A. This is a firewall issue.
This means that the UDP data being sent from the server cannot
reach the client. When performing UDP testing, the client sends
upstream UDP traffic to the server from a random UDP port to the
server port (27100 by default.) The return downstream traffic goes
from port 27101 to the client source port. Use this information to
configure your firewall.
Q. Why do I
see very high (over 50%) UDP downstream loss?
A. This question is answered in
the UDP Upstream
and Downstream Loss chapter.
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