Compaq WL110 User Manual page 70

Figure 6-2 The Hidden Station Problem
RTS/CTS medium reservation may provide a solution for networks where:
The density of stations and Access Points is very low.
You witness poor network performance due to excessive frame collisions at
the Access Points.
About the Hidden Station Problem
A hidden station is a situation in which two wireless stations are within range of
the same Access Point, but are not within range of each other.
Figure 6-2 on page 6-10 illustrates an example of the "hidden station" problem.
Both station A and station B are within range of the Access Point however,
station B cannot "hear" station A, therefore station A is a "hidden station" for
station B.
When station B starts to communicate with the Access Point, it might not notice
that station A is already using the wireless medium. When station A and station
B send messages at the same time, they might collide when arriving
simultaneously at the Access Point. The collision will most certainly result in a
loss of messages for both stations.
In situations as pictured Figure 6-2, RTS/CTS medium reservation may provide
a solution to prevent message collisions by handing over transmission control to
the Access Point.
Troubleshooting a "hidden station" problem usually provides the best results
when it is performed on the suspected stations that suffer from errors as a result
of the "hidden station" problem.
When configuring the WL110 PC Card parameters of an individual station you
can enable the RTS/CTS Medium Reservation parameter:
To enable RTS/CTS Medium Reservation parameter, choose
configuration profile
RTS/CTS Medium Reservation
Optimizing Performance
6-10
in the Client Manager, select the
.
Add/Edit
tab and enable
Advanced