Radio Reception?

[KVermilion]

Has anyone had any problems with radio reception? Any tips for mounting it? How much would sheet metal (various thicknesses) block it out?

I've done some searches and theyall came up dry.

[AIBob]

Make sure that the antennae are in view of each other...
I do not see why you would have the radios being split between two sides of sheet metal... how would you be able to see the robot when your trying to control it, the CMUcam, would that be good enough?

[KVermilion]

That's going to be really hard.

[AIBob]

which part of what I said would be hard?

[KVermilion]

The part with no metal in the line of sight.

[Rickertsen2]

Unless you build something like a cylinder or whatnot around your modem, i wouldn't worry about placement too terribly much.

Some general advice:
*Polarize both antenae the same: IE if the modem attached to the OI is mounted horizontally, mount the one on the robot horizontally. Or mount them both vertically.

*if possible mount the modem in an area without too much metal.

*generally the higher the better, but make sure its not going to get hurt

*DO NOT mount the the modem so that the antenna is surrounded by sheet metal. You don't want to make a faraday cage.

[sirbleedsalot]

I would not worry about it too much as our team seems to always have lots of metal around the radio.