Viewing wifi passwords on keychains

Thanks for reply, but sorry, I might not have been clear. I'm looking for passwords stored in a keychain for wireless networks that I can use that aren't necessarily local. You have to use the keychain for this if you want to give the joining password to someone who can't access Apple's useful trick of automatically getting it via bluetooth. Yes, if you select a line in the keychain list and then click "Info" in the Apple menu you do get a tick box that says "show password". but it shows the same hexadecimal string as you get with the ctrl/click method.

Thanks for tip re hex conversion but the one I tried doesn't work either - my example gave something like "ZÀñ U,'â‚ô¯gG÷". Clearly Apple aren't just giving all the characters in hex form.

Until very recently, the method I described worked perfectly well.

Thanks leroydouglas, and again I must apologise for not having covered all the angles in my original post. I chose the example I posted from a wifi network for which I thought I knew the password, and it isn't the string I quoted in either hex or character form. I was using that network on two devices last week (not in range from where I am now), and was able to share the password with another person's iPhone using the proximity method. I was not aware that the password had been changed from what I have in my encrypted backup password manager, but it is possible.

Since nobody else seems to have had a similar problem, your diagnosis its likely to be right. I am puzzled though as to how the quoted password could have been typed in without me remembering doing that! (since the typed in hex form didn't work, it would have required much looking up of how to type from the extended character set). Unless I in turn obtained it previously by proximity, but again I do not remember doing that.

I'll mark this as "answered my question" so that the discussion gets closed. Thanks for your help, time and patience.