XBee XSC Range Test Success!

Finally ... properly prepared and ready for another go at testing today.

Managed to get Sleep Mode enabled on the remote transmitter after using great instructions from a Digi Knowledge Base Article - a Cyclic Sleep Mode Example that was intended for the XStream/XTend models, but it appears that Sleep Mode parameters are the same for both firmwares. Hoping this will extend the remote's 9V battery life.

After taking the dogs out for a walk on Nose Hill and braving the chilly winds to get to the top, I connected the battery to the Xbee, closed the lid, and placed the box at the base (about 1 foot from ground height) of a bush.
Covered it with a prickly thorn bush - but if you look close you can still see the small white wire antenna extending about 2" upward. Although low to the ground, the box is still very much elevated above the transmitter, with no real obstructions below.

From the vantage point above the bush you could see the 64th Ave intersection and a piece of the parking lot where I intended to do my testing later that day. There's plenty of trees in the line of sight and the receiver location at the base of the bush is not ideal, but I needed to keep fairly hidden from local hikers.

Interior of truck shows sophisticated setup?

Frigging cold to be out playing with radios


Transmitter Antennna (5" in center - not light standard at left) extended out from truck roof to sit on slightly open sunroof.

View from the Parking Lot - receiver located in bush below the left most tree in isolated stand of three in center of view at top of hill.

Google Earth View of the receiver and transmitter locations - click on image to get a better view - or if you want to look at receiver location for yourself, coordinates are: N 51 degs 06.610 minutes and W 114 degs 05.736 minutes. Using the Google Earth ruler tool, the distance came out to be 820m. Not sure if that's horizontal or line-of-sight?

After starting up the X-CTU range test, I had to wait the obligatory 16 retries before the Sleep Mode Cycle picked up on the fact it was being sent some data. I considered it a great success when it returned 196 packets as Good and 41 Bad - 80% success!

Other results:

TEST #2: Front of Parking lot - facing sign. Trees slightly visible in distance. 60% success

TEST #3: Front of Parking Lot - Facing hill directly in front of truck. 10% success.

TEST #4: Alley across street. 1.0km distance. Good view uphill. 90% success.

TEST #5: Alley - further down road. No visibility. 10% success.

Xbee XSC Range Testing

After yesterday's troubles and embarrassing tribulations, today promises a new start filled with optimism once again. The XBee-Pro XSC 900 Wire Antenna radio mounted on the RS-232 Development Board from Digi has been solidly set into the box along with its 9V battery power supply. The antenna extends vertically through a small gap in the box and will be visible when the lid is closed.

The specs on this radio indicate a promising extended range coverage.

• Outdoor RF line-of-sight range up to 15 miles (24 km) with high gain antenna
• Outdoor RF line-of-sight range up to 6 miles (9.6 km) with dipole antenna

After yesterday's escapades in failed testing I'm very hopeful at the start of today. Software bugs have been worked out, user errors eliminated and moveable parts solidly mounted. There's been a lot of doubt in the user community regarding these long range values in the specs, so it's time to do some real world testing. I plan on placing the remote transmitter on
Nose Hill in Calgary in a bushy area and test the reception from various distances and vantage points around the park. Working with a GPS I'll be able to accurately mark the distances between transmitter and receiver while doing the range test.

Placing the receiver is also going to require a bit of thinking. Looking at all the geocaches on Nose Hill, you can see that it will take a bit of planning to place the modem where there won't be any treasure hunters around.
I want to place it in a location that is not anywhere near a geocache, hidden from plain sight of main trails, in a treed or bushy area and within range of a multiple spots from the park's perimeter.

Update ... As they say ... the best laid plans...


I finally climbed to the top of Nose Hill with the dogs one more time with my new more secure remote XBee box and placed it in a small bush halfway down a dip in the landscape - probably 800m from the 64th Ave. parking lot.


Returning in the afternoon to test, I again had absolutely no luck getting any kind of signal from any location I tried. So once again I trudged back to the top of the hill to retrieve the device and see if it was still running. Opening the box, the lights appeared to be off again! Disconnecting and reconnecting the battery cord brought the lights briefly back to life again but they quickly returned to their off status.

Further investigation at home revealed that the Xbee XSC Hi-Power (100mW) RF Module had sucked the life out of the supplied 9V 'Industrial' battery supplied in the Development Kit. It was completely dead after a short couple days of abbreviated testing. Next stop is investigating the Sleep mode - seeing if I can somehow manage to program it to stay in low power mode and awaken upon receiving a signal...