Maestro Poor Wifi Performance

Mike va3mw

Which Archer?  I love mine... now (see previous posts).  But, I had to update the firmware, then it played perfectly.

Mike va3mw

AE0MW

Mike, I agree with much of what you posted, yet comment exemplifies my complaint.

Everyone seems to think that I am, in your words, "comparing this to normal laptop/internet connectivity, it is vastly different.  Technically there are many more streams at much highers rates." I'm not. I'm comparing it, as I have said several times, to other hardware running Flex's own SmartSDR software on the exact same network with the exact same workload.

Just because I choose not to flaunt vaunted "in the industry" credentials does not mean I am a ****.

Also, as a point of interest, SmartSDR is a somewhat low bitrate program. It's latency where it is sensitive. You could easily run a maestro off of an 802.11b router and have ample headroom for the actual amount of data it transfers.

Rob Fissel

Lots of good points here, Mike.

There is no end to end continuity in WiFi, which can prove to be difficult at times. An Atheros chip in your computer, a Broadcom chip in your router, different firmware revisions, channel spacing, 11n vs 11ac, network bogdowns because there is a 11g or 11b device attached to the network somewhere. 

Also, the "comparable to streaming video" logic I see used here frequently is likely grossly misinterpreted by many, as you point out. People think that because Netflix works great that SSDR or Maestro should also work flawlessly. This is so not the case. Netflix or YouTube or any other online video service incorporates major factors that is unacceptable in regards to SSDR - buffering and data compression. SSDR and Maestro depend solely on traffic being delivered uncompressed in a raw, continuous, uninterrupted data stream using UDP with limited to no FEC or buffering at all. Apples and oranges. 

There are so many different factors to ensuring a high quality, low latency, uninterrupted data stream using WLAN devices that it's almost silly. Just because something works OK on one's laptop doesn't mean it will work as well on their tablet. Too many variables. Different WLAN hardware, different chipsets, different antennas (gain, MIMO), different firmware revisions, channel width restrictions, WLAN RF congestion - all major factors in how well a data stream will perform. 

For example, to get things working particularly well on my Macbook Air using bootcamp Windows 7 with SSDR, I had to a) roll back the supplied Broadcom driver to an older version, and b) add a 5 GHz AP to another part of the house with poor coverage, and ensure that the AP was locked into providing a 40 MHz channel. 

On top of all of this, it's very difficult to troubleshoot these issues. Recreating a specific environment, using like hardware to replicate this issue has to be super tricky. I'm not an engineer, but I talk with systems, algorithm, RTL, and firmware design engineers every day working within the WLAN industry, and the complexity involved in getting these things to work effectively is mind boggling. 

Rob Fissel

Streaming video is not an equal comparison to the network requirements of SSDR. Are you using a 2.4 or 5 GHz network?