Pocket Wizard Plus II Distance / Range Test

In my last blog, we seen that during the long range test with the Pixel Bishop Radio Trigger v the Pocket Wizard Plus II Radio Transceiver, I discovered that my PW2 Transceiver failed to fire anything over the 200 Meter mark. LPA Design the manufacture of the PW2 claim that their product can fire up to a range of 500 Meters.   However, the furthest that I've got my PW2 to fire from is 182 Meters.  So 500 - 182  =  318, so that is 318 Meters short of what LPA Design do claim that their product can achieve. 

So what's going on?  Are my PW2s faulty?  Do 'UK' PW2s have a shorter shooting range than the 'American' PW2s ?  Do Trees cause an interference with my PWs taking into account that Trees are made up of Water?  Have I got the Pocket Wizards set up correctly?  Does it matter what channel the PW2's are set to? etc... etc...

Personally I think that the answer is "No" to all of the above questions.  As I honestly do believe that the PW2s just can not fire a single speed light from any where near the so called claimed distance of 500 Meters.  

I've carried out my tests and it's my tests that show me that the Pocket Wizards Plus 2s can't even fire over 200 Meters.  But wait it's not just me that has carried out tests like this on the PW2s other people have too, just like this guy Click Here where he managed only to get 125 Meters out of his PW2s.   

Then we have guys like this guy Click Here who could not get any more than 100 Meters out of his PW2s.

One of the most annoying things that I've noticed about talking to other Photographers about the PW2s 500 Meter Range Claim is....... how many of them do go on about how 'you' should set up your PW2s for the tests i.e. 'you' should set them up this way / that way, 'you' should do this / that etc...  The funny thing is people, is that none of these Photographers actually practice what they preach and 'show' us other Photographers how 'they' set up their PW2s in order to get them to fire near the so called 500 Meter mark as claimed by LPA Design.

To close with as you can all see from my own tests and from other peoples tests (NB:  the links in this blog) all the PW2s failed to fire over the 200 Meter mark, again that is over 300+ Meters short of the mark as to what it is LPA Design do claim that their product can do.