WLAN Professionals – Airxperts

2018-07-132018-08-15

Power Scales – Orders of Magnitude in WiFi Signal Strength

WiFi Signal Strength

One thing in my WiFi journey I’ve found interesting, is how well the technology works over what seems a very large range of WiFi signal strength. A bit like Conor McGregor in the ring, WiFi just keeps coming at you, no matter how you try to run or shield your face from it’s blows..

Big Range

Let’s not get too Isaac Newton, but basically in the radio world, signal strength varies exponentially as distance varies linearly. This is why when we look at WiFi using a linear scale, such as milliwatts, we see such small values alongside such large values.

Linear vs. Logarithmic Scales

And this why we prefer to use dBm as our scale. A logarithmic scale like dBm turns exponentially varying numbers into linearly varying numbers. Making them more usable to everyday engineer types.Ways to optimise the available airtime on your WiFi network to improve speed and performance. Continue reading “Power Scales – Orders of Magnitude in WiFi Signal Strength”

2018-07-102018-08-15

Improving Wireshark for WiFi Packet Analysis

TLDR;

Download the Wireshark for WiFi profile now or read on.

Wireshark

Even if you’re an avid user of some of the premium packet analysis tools out there, such as Savvius’ excellent Omnipeek, every so often most people will be opening up the free Wireshark to look at a capture.

Unfortunately the default view included with Wireshark is very poorly suited to 802.11 packet analysis:

Continue reading “Improving Wireshark for WiFi Packet Analysis”

2018-06-062018-08-10

How Do I Increase Wi-Fi Airtime? Let Me Count The Ways..

Introduction

I recently attended a Certified Wireless Design Professional (CWDP) course, host by Spectrotech and trained by Wi-Fi expert and CWNE #1, Devin Akin.

One of the highlights of a week of intense training was an exercise on the last day. Devin asked the class to break into teams and each team was to come up with as many ways to increase Wi-Fi airtime as possible. We would then reconvene and deliver our results one-at-a-time in round-robin fashion. If one team gave an answer, the others couldn’t give the answer and had to come up with their own, until all responses had been delivered. The team with the most answers would be declared the winner.

Well, with so many great professionals in each team, it’s no wonder that Devin managed to fill the whiteboard and then had to declare a tie.

Ways To Increase Wi-Fi Airtime Whiteboard — The Whiteboard (credit: Scott Doorey)

Continue reading “How Do I Increase Wi-Fi Airtime? Let Me Count The Ways..”