Eugene Armstead's Blog

I wanted to repost this theory by Robb Topolski in his thread on DSL Reports. I happen to use it a lot with client sites and business customers.

— Begin Repost —

Theory on Optimizing a 802.11 Beacon
If you wish to make your beacon most efficient, choose a prime number from this list:
•1-2 wireless clients: 197 199 211 223 227 229 233 239 241
•3-5 wireless clients: 149 151 157 163 167 173 179 181 191 193
•6+ wireless clients: 97 101 103 107 109 113 127 131 137 139

Reasoning:

The beacon is the rhythm of your AP-controlled network. It performs that function far more frequently than its other famous purpose: to help your network appear in a scan of available wireless networks. The beacon occurs several times a second to perform both of these tasks.

Each channel has a theoretical bandwidth (e.g. 11 Mbps, 54 Mbps).

Each time the beacon transmits, the length of the beacon transmission takes from the available bandwidth of the channel.

If you decrease the time between beacons by too much (reduce the beacon interval), the available bandwidth can become consumed by the increased number of beacons — which do not contribute to the throughput of your network. And if you only have a couple of wireless clients on your network, most of the beacons will go unanswered because none of your clients have any traffic for the AP.

If you increase the time between beacons by too much (raise the beacon interval), it creates periods of “dead air” as a client holding traffic waits for a beacon. And, if you have multiple stations competing for the attention of the AP, a wide interval between beacons makes it more likely that more than one station will attempt to contact the AP at the same time.

Adjusting the beacon interval to suit your network may increase your bandwidth by balancing the need to open windows for data while avoiding collisions.

Choosing from among a list of prime numbers makes it less likely that your beacons will chirp in sync with the beacons of other networks. Since beacons can collide as well, it makes sense to choose an interval that is unlikely to align with neighboring networks for very long.
–
Robb Topolski http://www.funchords.com/ Hillsboro, Oregon USA
…Cherish ugly children, they are less likely to be kidnapped…

— End Repost —

FOX21 News highlights Black History month today with a look at Granville T Woods, also known as the “Black Edison.” In 1901, Woods developed what is known as his most important invention… the power pickup device, what we know today as the “third rail” used by most subways in large cities accross the country. By the time of his death in 1910, Woods had some 60 patents, many of which are still in use today with many major manufacturers of electrical equipment.

Charles Richard Drew (3 June 1904 1 April 1950) was an African American physician and medical researcher. He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge in developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II, saving thousands of lives of the Allied forces.

President’s Day 2010. The historic inauguration of the 44th president of the United States of American and 1st African American commander in chief is highlighted in this video. President Barack Obama is 1 year into his presidency at the airing of this highlight.

In today’s Black History month highlight, we cover some firsts in Television. Nat King Cole being the first African American television host in 1956 and Oprah Winfrey the first female African American host. Bill Cosby is owed mention for being the first African American star on a syndicated program in “I Spy”

I have had the opportunity to report on Black History for the Fox affiliate of the southern Colorado region.  I am honored to do it and pretty impressed with my company for allowing this type of news reporting to happen as it doesn’t seem like our competitors are doing anything like it.

What we are doing is providing an approximate thirty second highlight on African Americans in history.  It is slated to air three times each morning during our three hour morning news program.  Today was the first day it has aired and each day one is completed, a copy will be placed on our news website here.  I am interested to hear some feedback about them either on Facebook or you can send me a tweet!

I want to get my station to start doing some highlights of historic and famous black Americans for each February, or Black History month.  Here are a couple of trial videos that I’m trying to sell management for providing such a product to our television audience: