WiFi utility to measure signal strength

[Paid_Peanuts]

Can anyone suggest a good utility that will enable me to carry out a wireless site survey?

 

Ideally it would provide a graphical interface so I can just walk around the school and see what the signal strength is like in each room at a glance.

 

The laptop I am intending on using has an Intel Pro wireless card (3945ABG) - however the app that comes with the card isn’t the best at showing signal strength - it only give a small 5 bar graph that is very slow to update.

 

Thanks in advance.

[mcloum]

netstumbler is good for this.

 

NetStumbler.com

[jcollings]

Think we have used this in the past

 

stumbler dot net

[LeMarchand]

I use Netstumbler a lot: free, and easy to use/understand.

[Ric_]

The WiSpy 2.4x is an amazing tool for this, in combination with a laptop wireless card.

 

Mandy at Westwood sold me mine quite cheaply (01753 881810)

[yabbadabba]

Netstumbler and a floor plan, place your WAP's where you think they could go.

 

Wander around and mark on the floor plan the readings in the surronding rooms.

Move the WAP to the next possible location and repeat.

Eventually you have a nice map of WAP locations and coverage and you can easily identify and area's not covered.

 

Used to do this for Hotels a couple of years ago.

[Jack]

NetStumbler is awesome and also supports a few GPS devices in case you wanted to... um... broaden your survey.

[plexer]

PassMark WirelessMon - Wireless 802.11 WiFi monitoring software

 

Ben

[AngryTechnician]

The WiSpy 2.4x is an amazing tool for this, in combination with a laptop wireless card.

Also, the company that makes the Wi-Spy has a Netstumbler-like utility called inSSIDer. I've been using that recently since I've found Netstumbler is very picky about which wireless cards it supports under Vista.

 

Also found a handy list of alternatives recently that has suggestions for Mac utilities too.

[Ric_]

Also, the company that makes the Wi-Spy has a Netstumbler-like utility called inSSIDer. I've been using that recently since I've found Netstumbler is very picky about which wireless cards it supports under Vista.

 

Also found a handy list of alternatives recently that has suggestions for Mac utilities too.

 

Agreed, the inSSIDer utility is good and the tools for the WiSpy also work on Linux which is good.

[tobyhacker]

what about this...

 

Wi-Fi Detector

 

It might not provide you with "all" of the information you require...

 

[browolf]

The WiSpy 2.4x is an amazing tool for this, in combination with a laptop wireless card.

 

Mandy at Westwood sold me mine quite cheaply (01753 881810)

 

how cheap?

[Zimmer]

Indeed NetStumbler is probably the best application for WiFi detection.

 

I even have it installed on my Dell Axim PDA, and along with a bluetooth GPS I can plot wireless base station locations then import the data to Google Maps

[plexer]

What good is gps for site surveys it doesn't work indoors?

 

Ben

[Zimmer]

What good is gps for site surveys it doesn't work indoors?

 

Ben

 

Sorry I should have been a little more specific there.

 

I sometimes do a war drive around the town when driving to or from work... It's amazing how many unprotected (and even just WEP protected) base stations are out there.

 

However I did once use the GPS feature of NetStumbler to do a 'perimeter' survey of our campus (which is roughly 300 meters by 500 meters) just to see how much WiFi we was leaking into the surrounding areas - The results were actually rather interesting.

[MarkPower]

Yep agree Netstumbler and Wi-Spy are great tools for this job.

 

Always a good idea to do an active survey as opposed to a passive survey if you can with the kit you are interested in using as this will give you a better and more accurate result.

[plexer]

Yeah I can see that it's just I was thinking about the passmark tool I posted which has the ability to import a map and do a site survey cheaply it too has gps which is no good inside.

 

Ben