From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Apr 4 05:05:37 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 165BB1065671 for ; Fri, 4 Apr 2008 05:05:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from segfault-outgoing-helo.tristatelogic.com (112.171-60-66-fuji-dsl.static.surewest.net [66.60.171.112]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F2188FC13 for ; Fri, 4 Apr 2008 05:05:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5598F1142D for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 22:05:36 -0700 (PDT) To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:05:36 -0700 Message-ID: <74665.1207285536@tristatelogic.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Subject: Measuring Wireless Performance (?) X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:05:37 -0000 As I just mentioned in my immediately preceeding post, I'm a total neophite when it come to wirless networking, so I need to ask a rather basic question. In preparation for installing my first ever wireless network, I read up on the subject awhile first, and I found several people who had commented (in various places) that they had bought "upgrade" antennas for their wirless cards, and that this helped them, either to make connections where they otherwise couldn't, or else with throughput/ performance of their wireless link. Being totally new to this stuff, I have no idea if I would benefit from a better antenna for my wireless card or not, so I gotta ask: How can I tell? Are there some tools available for FreeBSD that would tell me about stuff like: Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) Failed Frame Transmission Count, etc. and/or performance of the wirless link generally? Humm... OK. I just found this, but it seems to be a Windoze-only thing: http://sysnet.ucsd.edu/pawn/wrapi/ :-)