senao 200mw cards seeing price cuts

[georgew]

The guys at www.wispgear.com have dropped their Senao 200mw cards to $69.

They also have the Senao bridge with the 200mw radio, if it is stable it would be a good wet11 replacement. It's $133. POE, AP/AP-client modes, TNC male, etc...

Edit:

Do not buy from WispGear.com. They do not answer the phone, they do not answer email, they appear to be out of business. You can place orders, and they will charge your card, but nothing will ship.

[bobbyc]

To elaborate on the ethernet bridge; it has the same prism 2.5 radio inside that has the 2 external connectors. The config is super easy, and the power supply it comes with is 12v 1000ma and POE ready. The WET11 power supply is 5v and I think ~2300ma.
I haven't tested it yet, but it will be interesting to see if this ethernet bridge (CB3) has the same power output as the same radio card inside a starOS machine. Putting a 200mw card in a WET11 actually lowers the power a bit compared to a 200mw card in a CPU.
Bob C

[bobbyc]

I actually am going to put a hermes short card in one tonight and see if it works and stays locked at 11mbps. I have 3 mountains that line up in a row. I have a starOS machine at tower A that is only 40' tall and the radio is in the shed that is set to AP and has a 24dB grid. Tower B (12 miles) has 150' of LMR600 and a 24dB grid and has a SNR of 20 but the noise spikes. Tower C is 14 miles and hasn't been installed on yet, but it will be at 150' as well. If the CB3 is stable, then I can use them as infrastructure and use POE to save signal. I can't adjust the distance but in my experience 14 miles isn't too bad of a distance with the stock hermes timing.

[bobbyc]

I can report that a hermes card works well in a CB3. If you leave it set to auto though, it will associate to your AP at 2mbps. You need to set it to '1 or 2' mbps or 11 mbps.
Bob C

[wispy]

So, does this mean that if the EnGenius 2611CB3 PLUS INDOOR CLIENT BRIDGE and/or the EnGenius 2611AP3 PLUS WIRELESS ACCESS POINT are purchased, and a Orinoco Gold card is substituted for the included 200 MW Prism 2.5 card to gain the benefits of setting the TX/RX distance inthe cards: that they will work without any degradation of distance, signal and noise of the Orinoco Gold?

So, why not approach the manufacturer to purchase the CB3 or AP3 without the 200 MW cards at a lower cost and install your own cards into the units?

Will this work seamlessly with StarOS? Will both units accept routing vs. bridging and/or access point functions of StarOS?

[georgew]

Back up a step...

The distance settings in StarOS are there because the StarOS guys intended to use Orinoco cards, so they wrote code to support them.

The Senao box was designed to support senao cards. I find it highly unlikely they would have included support for distance settings.

Beyond that, it is also unlikely that the senao routers can acomodate starOS. I intend to ask that question when mine arrives, but the price is too low for the box to be the complete PC needed to run StarOS.

The Senao bridge is a replacement for the WET11, which can also use Orinoco radios. However the function of this box is very limited... so the answer to most of your questions is probably no. These boxes can be client radios, but with lightweight security. I intend to add Draytek 2200e's to them to do pppoe and pptp.

[bobbyc]

NO there's no distance settings on the CB3.... but you can use a hermes/ruby card at a further distance than a prism card... but not as far as starOS allows you to.
My main interest in the CB3 is for ethernet clients... there's alot more antennas certified for the hermes card than there is the senao card. This applies to USA only...
Bob C

[wispy]

Bobby,

Do you have any results from testing the Senao 2611 CB3 PLUS Client Bridge yet? Purchase is imminent and would like to hear from you before jumping off.

wispy

[bobbyc]

Well, I have tested ruby and hermes cards in a CB3, and they perform just like a WET11. It seems like there is no way to lock them at 11mbps; if you set the bridge to '1 or 2 mbps' or '11 mbps', they seem to be set to auto... but if your signal levels are -65 or better, they pretty much stay at 11mbps and don't jump around.
I haven't really tested the 200mw card that much, I know it works.
Bob C