Hi
20 days ago I acquired four XBee pro, on a XBee installed the firmware of coordinator, the other three as device / router, I tested and works perfectly, but the distance Indoor / Urban reaches about 30 meters and Outdoor line-of- sight reaches about 100 meters. What should I set up or should I make the XBee to reach the distances that say in the technical specifications of 100 meters in
Indoor / Urban Outdoor and 1600 meters in line-of-sight??
Thanks a lot
Hi there,
I think that the range specifications given are the best available from the family, and that installing a different antenna can change this performance.
For example, if you have the type with the U.FL connector and use a 15 dB panel antenna on each end, you can probably go several kilometers, well beyond the ‘maximum’ range. If you don’t mind exceeding transmission power limitations, throw a 24 dB dish antenna on each end and octuple the range.
If you use the built on wire antennas, and they are aligned so that their gain patterns (for dipoles/straight wires think of this as a flat disc extending from the sides of the antenna) allow a good link between the modules.
If you use the chip antenna, or don’t line up the gain patterns, I’m sure you can get very bad performance 
Giving a ‘range’ on an RF device is subject to a lot of factors, and unfortunately the Xbee modules are rather optimistic in their assessments - not lying, just optimistic.
lposada:
Hi20 days ago I acquired four XBee pro, on a XBee installed the firmware of coordinator, the other three as device / router, I tested and works perfectly, but the distance Indoor / Urban reaches about 30 meters and Outdoor line-of- sight reaches about 100 meters. What should I set up or should I make the XBee to reach the distances that say in the technical specifications of 100 meters in
Indoor / Urban Outdoor and 1600 meters in line-of-sight??
Thanks a lot
Antennas, antennas, antennas. At least one end needs to have lots of gain. Either a gain omni (such as 8-12dBi) or a patch/yagi with gain that’s horizontal and not an omni. Lots and lots of antennas. Need to have XBee with U.FL antenna connector. Any 2.4GHz band antenna will do, such as
http://www.l-com.com/productcenter.aspx?id=2005
Need the U.FL to N or SMA pigtail too.
XBee Pro, pair, line of sight, can get 1/3 mile or so, perhaps 1/2 mile if done right.