Passing the torture test!!

Last week David, Bill and Tony took our wireless devices on a road trip. We decided it was time to take them out of their cushy home environs and see how they worked in what would be the most inhospitable environment they were likely to see - a massive boiler room housing dozens of boilers. In this industrial boiler room were all types of electrical and metal interference. What took place for most of the day was a high-tech game of "Hide and Seek". We took two of the Field Devices and tested how well they would communicate in a variety of scenarios. We had tests for when they were close or far away (260 ft.). We had tests where the devices could "see" each other and when they were obstructed. We had people walk through the test area on cell phones, carrying metal objects, and running equipment throughout the day. For these tests the FD's were battery-powered so we could move around with them. So we would hide behind diferent boilers with both devices to see how that would affect communication. Every time the test came back with a 100% success rate! We couldn't have been happier with how they turned out. However, we decided to run one last torture test. One that we were sure would make us fall short of 100%. In this particular boiler house they had an unused boiler on one end of their shop. We took one of the FD's placed it in the combustion chamber of that boiler and closed the door. Then we took the other FD and moved it over 260 ft. away. We fired up the communication and waited to see what happened. Immediately, the devices started communicating. However, this is only part of the test. We knew they could overcome great distances and still get some communication through. The previous night we had the devices a 1/2 mile from each other and got some communication through. The real test would be if we could get an acceptable percentage of our information communicated while the FD was entirely concealed inside of that boiler. We were happy to get some information sent, but under worse conditions than we would ever see in the field, could that percentage reach an acceptable range (+85%)? After the test was completed we ran the numbers, and for the first time all day we did not reach 100%. Through two 1/4" steel plates, insulation, a boiler door, 6 wireless networks, and 250 feet of space the best we could accomplish was 97.1%. I think we can say that our wireless communication passed the torture test with flying colors!!