[kwlug disc.] detecting wireless

[Cedric Puddy]

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I use Kismet/Kismac a lot too.  It doesn't have an environmental  
auditing mode (at least that I'm aware of -- someone tell me if this  
has changed!), so it'll tell you if there's competing access points,  
but won't tell you if you are being knocked off the air by something  
NON-wlan that is using the 2.4 Ghz space.

You can perhaps still track down such a problem by negative  
information (eg: I *know* I should have a strong, clear signal, but  
I'm clearly being suppressed on *these* particular bands - you would  
have to change your default channel on your AP 11 times to do a full  
band survey -- probably take about 45 minutes), and indeed, that may  
be exactly the way you have to debug it if you don't have access to  
something like an OpenWRT access point.

I know it's supposed to show the noise, but I've never been able to  
figure out what the actual break down of noise is from it -- which is  
why I like the reports from the "wl" tool that I mentioned earlier --  
it breaks it all down, and throws out all the other fluff that isn't  
related to how good an environment you've got to do wireless in.

- -Cedric

On 5-Mar-07, at 6:54 PM, Peter McAlpine wrote:

> If you're interested in scanning WLAN traffic far and away the best  
> way to do it is to use kismet:
> http://www.kismetwireless.net/
>
> If you have the appropriate (GPS) hardware you can even use it to  
> map where the signal is coming from.
>
> -Peter
>
> On 5-Mar-07, at 11:14 AM, Oksana Goertzen wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> In my neighbourhood someone has setup their wireless to operate on  
>> the same frequency as my home network.  I can see the other  
>> wireless network (and occasionally one other) if if I do a scan of  
>> available networks from a workstation.  We also have cordless  
>> phones in the house set up on a different channel than our  
>> wireless.  I'm trying a number of channels to see what's available  
>> in order to get our wireless working consistently.  How can I tell  
>> what's available?  I'm thinking someone else might also have  
>> cordless phones that are interfering with our signal.
>>
>> Thanks!  Oksana
>> _______________________________________________
>> KWLUG-Disc mailing list
>> KWLUG-Disc at kwlug.org
>> http://listserv.kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc
>
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|  CCj/ClearLine - Unix/NT Administration and TCP/IP Network Services
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    Cedric Puddy, IS Director            cedric at thinkers.org
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