It was the WLPC conference in Lisbon last week and again there was a fantastic line-up of very knowledgeable speakers covering a wide array of wireless topics.

Thankfully even if you couldn’t make the conference the team at Wireless LAN Professionals made sure to film all of the presentations and they are now available online via their YouTube Channel.

One presentation of particular note was Keith Parsons’ head-to-head Spectrum Analyser comparison. He put the newly released Ekahau Sidekick up against the likes of the Cognio Sage (Cisco CleanAir), Netscout AirMagnet Spectrum XT, and the Metageek Wi-Spy DBx to see which would come out on top.

It’s clear to see when looking at the product specifications side-by-side just how more accurate and sensitive the Sidekick is than the competition. It gets even better when you look at the recommended retail prices, the Sidekick comes in over $500 cheaper than the Cognio Sage (Cisco CleanAir) and over $700 cheaper than the Netscout AirMagnet Spectrum XT.

Keith wraps up the presentation with a series of videos which compare the resolution and speed of the Ekahau Sidekick and the Metageek Wi-Spy DBx. Each spectrum analyser was placed at the same distance and orientation from a series of RF interfering devices. The resulting spectrum analysis graphs clearly demonstrate just how much of a leap forward in resolution the Sidekick provides.