Severe Xbee range issue

Projects Networking, Protocols, and Devices
1

Hi! Im new to the community so please bear with me if im not supplying enough details.
Im running an experiment to test the range of 2 Xbee 1mW with antenna ( 1 as transmitter and 1 as receiver).
The configuration goes like this:

  1. Receiver xbee is connected to PC via a Xbee USB adapter and configured with X-CTU and monitored via the X-CTU serial monitor.
  2. Transmitter xbee is connected to an arduino uno via a standard xbee shield. Preconfigured with X-CTU to have the same settings as the receiver. The arduino has a simply sketch to send incremental counter (i.e 1,2,3...) with a timestamp by using the softwareSerial library.

Experiment:

  1. see that the counters are received in order and without loss at different ranges.

Results:
At 0m the counters are received and displayed on the x-CTU monitor without issue.
However, once the xbee modules are more than 3m (not even 10m) apart. The X-CTU either displayed interrupted counters (i.e 7, 36...) or stopped displaying the messages completely.

Question:
Why am I getting such poor range with the xbee modules?

2

You should certainly expect a much better range. This doesn't exactly answer your question, but have you tried to replace either the transmitter or the receiver with another XBee module? This way you could determine if one of the modules is somehow broken.

3
  1. Receiver xbee is connected to PC via a Xbee USB adapter and configured with X-CTU and monitored via the X-CTU serial monitor.

That's like telling us you wrote some code for the Arduino, without bothering to show the code. Configured HOW?

  1. Transmitter xbee is connected to an arduino uno via a standard xbee shield.

There is no such thing as "a standard xbee shield". Details are important.

Why am I getting such poor range with the xbee modules?

In what kind of environment? I have no problems getting 75 meters from my XBees with wire antennas.