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Just finished the last Chapter in the study guide and was wondering what is a good software package for site surveys and the ball park cost?

Wireless Valley makes about the best vendor-neutral stuff on the market. Theirs is about $20k/year/license I think.

Depending on the package you get it runs in the mid 20k's, but the annual license and maintenance fee is about $3k I think. An another option, if you are a consultant and land a contract that would use this software, you can purchase a 3 month license (can be extended) which are much more reasonable for a short term project.

GT Hill

From what I'm told, WV is going to a useage model here shortly. Very good move on their part.

For a less expensive, but still quite effective solution, check out Ekahau. Their solution is around $3500 I think? Their planning software is very easy to use, and makes an outstanding deliverable, if you cannot afford WV.

The most common site survey tool is AirMagnet Laptop which you can most likely find for under $3000.

If you are using Cisco 350 .11b or CB21 .11abg client cards, both of them come with site survey software that is very effective in determining AP coverage. To use it, you just have to understand what you're looking at and that can be accomplished through the user guides and basic site survey training like what you'd find in the CWNA Study Guide. Some hands-on experience PRIOR to doing a "real" site survey is recommended as well.

Joel