<OT> Wireless Access Point

[Wil McGilvery]

>"Peter L. Peres" <plp-ysDPMY98cNQDDBjDh4tngg at public.gmane.org> on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 1:24
PM
>wrote:

>> On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Wil McGilvery wrote:
>>
>> > What I am wondering is if anyone on the list knows of a better way
to
>> > pinpoint the location of a wireless access point.
>>
>> There would be the trick of making the antenna directive and taking a
>> bearing or two. You can do this using yourself (your body) as movable
>> attenuator screen. Put the laptop on a non-metallic desk and slowly
walk
>> around the desk while keeping fairly close to the laptop. When the
>> fieldstrength indicator dips you are cutting the main vector that
ties >> >> the
>> laptop to the transmitter. Keep in mind that there will be reflected
>>  >> paths
>> too so there will be several dips. The biggest one is the one you are
>> looking for.

>A directional antenna would likely be the easiest route in this sort of
>case, it isn't the only way to attack the problem. There is what is
known >as
>time domain direction finding, where one has several non-directional
>antennas and then one compares when the signal arrives at the different
>antennas (i.e.: the first antenna to get the signal is the closest and
>which
>antenna gets the signal second will help refine the direction, etc...).
The
>good thing about time domain direction finding is that it is fast, it
can
>determine the position of a transmitter in effectively no time since it
>doesn't have to shift a directional antenna around. The bad news is
time
>domain direction finding is a complex pain to set-up (not an issue for
hams
>who have made direction finding part of their hobby, nor is it an issue
for
>the military, where speed in locating of a transmitter can be an issue
of
>life and death...).

>Colin McGregor - VE3ZAA

Sheesh! Ask a simple question and get all kinds of answers! 

Thanks for the info, it is always good to know. I have another question.
Is there a way to do this with GPS? If am receiving the signal on a
laptop with GPS, could I locate the signal or would I only be able to
locate myself?

(can you tell I don't know much about wireless?)

Thanks,

Wil
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