What wireless lab equipment do schools use?

Hello,

I have been put in charge of looking into getting some wireless lab equipment for our college. I have been googling for some ideas but most of them are used for large organizations and are 1,000s of dollars. Right now we are using Phidgets RFID scanners. They provide a good api for programming in a variety of language but lack complexity.

Does anyone know anything that would be useful for college use in a wireless networking course?

I haven't had much luck but figured a lot of people on a wireless forum would have a bunch of good ideas Right?


Thanks for any help

Ryan

two things I would consider:

XBEE

APRS.

APRS uses amateur radio, but you could use the GPS modules and position encoders with a different radio technology.

The XBEE sounds really interesting. I think I'll have to talk with my professor about which one to order. The APRS also sounds cool but it looked like the total setup might be kind of expensive


Thank you Mark for the reply, I was really stuck as far as finding a product

$65 for a GPS module, $55 for a Byonics Tiny Trak, and a radio?

Byonics - TinyTrak3 GPS Position Encoder
Byonics - TinyTrak - GPS Receivers

you could run a GPS module through the XBEE

Thank you very much,

Hopefully we will be able to get a few of these for the lab. To bad I'll graduate before they'll be used.

Your help is greatly appreciated.