I'm currently playing with an Alpha Networks external/outdoor USB WiFi device. It's essentially just a WiFi dongle with an aerial in a waterproof box on the end of a long USB cable. Thus you can position it in a window or up a pole outside to get a connection to a fairly distant WiFi source.
I need a way to find and then maximise WiFi signals, you can't really just use Network Manager as there no easy way to monitor a signal while waving the aerial around.
I have found wpa_gui which isn't very good, I can't get it to scan repeatedly at any reasonable rate. I have also tried iwScanner which is better but is no longer maintained and crashes at intervals, it would be nice if it could scan faster too.
Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently.
On 29/08/15 17:51, Chris Green wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently.
I use an Android phone app called Wifi Analyzer which does what you want.
HTH Steve
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 03:00:24AM +0100, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 29/08/15 17:51, Chris Green wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently.
I use an Android phone app called Wifi Analyzer which does what you want.
Not really it doesn't! :-)
Yes, I use Wifi Analyzer to scan to see what WiFi signals there are and the relative strength. It's a neat little app.
However what I need is the ability to plug an external USB dongle into a system and use that WiFi, not the Android system's internal WiFi. I suppose it *might* be possible to plug an external WiFi dongle into an Android tablet or some such and use it that way but it would be much more convincing to be able to 'tune' the set-up using the actual (Linux) computer that the WiFi is for.
On 30/08/15 10:00, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 03:00:24AM +0100, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 29/08/15 17:51, Chris Green wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently.
I use an Android phone app called Wifi Analyzer which does what you want.
Not really it doesn't! :-)
Yes, I use Wifi Analyzer to scan to see what WiFi signals there are and the relative strength. It's a neat little app.
However what I need is the ability to plug an external USB dongle into a system and use that WiFi, not the Android system's internal WiFi. I suppose it *might* be possible to plug an external WiFi dongle into an Android tablet or some such and use it that way but it would be much more convincing to be able to 'tune' the set-up using the actual (Linux) computer that the WiFi is for.
As it also shows the signal strength for the wifi network you're connected to, you can move it around and find the spot with the highest signal. I would have thought that the highest signal strength, or best transfer rate would be pretty much the same between the phone and the actual computer wifi. Anyway, I can't add any more than that. Sorry.
Steve
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 04:56:54PM +0100, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 30/08/15 10:00, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 03:00:24AM +0100, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 29/08/15 17:51, Chris Green wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently.
I use an Android phone app called Wifi Analyzer which does what you want.
Not really it doesn't! :-)
Yes, I use Wifi Analyzer to scan to see what WiFi signals there are and the relative strength. It's a neat little app.
However what I need is the ability to plug an external USB dongle into a system and use that WiFi, not the Android system's internal WiFi. I suppose it *might* be possible to plug an external WiFi dongle into an Android tablet or some such and use it that way but it would be much more convincing to be able to 'tune' the set-up using the actual (Linux) computer that the WiFi is for.
As it also shows the signal strength for the wifi network you're connected to, you can move it around and find the spot with the highest signal. I would have thought that the highest signal strength, or best transfer rate would be pretty much the same between the phone and the actual computer wifi. Anyway, I can't add any more than that. Sorry.
If I could connect the external USB WiFi to an Android phone then, probably, it would do what I want, but I'm not sure if I can do that.
Where I am at present, for example, a phone or a laptop's internal WiFi pick up only the local WiFi in the building. Connecting my Alpha external USB dongle to a laptop I can see a dozen or more WiFi signals. I want a way to optimise pointing the aerial at these signals.
On 30/08/15 18:47, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 04:56:54PM +0100, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 30/08/15 10:00, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 03:00:24AM +0100, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 29/08/15 17:51, Chris Green wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good tool for this job, just needs to allow one to select a WiFi signal and then show its signal strength as a bar which is refreshed reasonably frequently.
I use an Android phone app called Wifi Analyzer which does what you want.
Not really it doesn't! :-)
Yes, I use Wifi Analyzer to scan to see what WiFi signals there are and the relative strength. It's a neat little app.
However what I need is the ability to plug an external USB dongle into a system and use that WiFi, not the Android system's internal WiFi. I suppose it *might* be possible to plug an external WiFi dongle into an Android tablet or some such and use it that way but it would be much more convincing to be able to 'tune' the set-up using the actual (Linux) computer that the WiFi is for.
As it also shows the signal strength for the wifi network you're connected to, you can move it around and find the spot with the highest signal. I would have thought that the highest signal strength, or best transfer rate would be pretty much the same between the phone and the actual computer wifi. Anyway, I can't add any more than that. Sorry.
If I could connect the external USB WiFi to an Android phone then, probably, it would do what I want, but I'm not sure if I can do that.
Where I am at present, for example, a phone or a laptop's internal WiFi pick up only the local WiFi in the building. Connecting my Alpha external USB dongle to a laptop I can see a dozen or more WiFi signals. I want a way to optimise pointing the aerial at these signals.
OK, I understand now!
Good luck Steve
-
Chris Green -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk