calibration, RSSI vs. topographic view
Just installed Chanalyzer 3.1 beta, looks really good.
Now I know that to try to assign a goodness metric to a signal that intentionally varies over frequency, intensity and time through an unstable medium is to live in a state of sin, but I have to ask:
1 a. In the case of no or few STAs present, sometimes the Topographic and/or planar graphs are very lopsided instead of a nice Gaussian distribution, is that because of selective fading?
b. In assessing how good a signal I have in this case, should I ignore the peak(s), sort of average it out, wait longer, or take the peak as what the signal would be if I'd wait long enough?
2. I've been seeing reported RSSI values that are way different (as much as 10 dB higher) than what I'm seeing measuring the top of the graph in Topographic or Planar view. Should I wait longer for the graph to "fill in" or is this more of a consequence of the different antenna, etc. being used with my Wifi card?
3. How is noise floor calculated in the Wifi report? Should I assume it is better than the noise figure that is reported by my Wifi card?
Hi David,
Thanks for asking some technical questions.
1. I'm not sure what you mean by STA, but it sounds like clients. We aren't sure of the cause of the lopsided, but it could be because of selective fading.
2. We also see the differences of RSSI values. It is definitely due to the difference in antennas from your Wi-Fi card.
3. Noise floor is calculated by the exact amplitude and density of its location. Chanalyzer uses these results in the Wi-Fi report. Where it drops off, is what we use to calculate. It will be more accurate than a Wi-Fi card.