XBee radios

I had gotten a pair of 1 mW XBee radios a while ago. I had wanted to use them to communicate with my robot while it was running. Normally I use an RS-232 cable in the lab, but in the field a cable obviously is a ‘drag’.

Unfortunately, I was not very happy with them. They were able to run at the 115200 baud rate I needed, but the range was not what was specified.  When reading the fine print it does say under ideal circumstances. I guess 1 few inches on the ground is not idea.

So my wife just got me a pair of the 60 mW versions for my birthday. After a few screw ups on my part (you need to turn on their power source of all crazy things….) I got them working at home. I then took them out to the test area and found that they work over the entire parking lot (about +- 300 feet) without a single hiccup. Highly recommend.

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