App to determine Airport "Signal Stregth"

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Level 1

34 points

App to determine Airport "Signal Stregth"

I have 1 Airport Extreme Base Station (5th Generation) in my house.

I have a 2nd Airport Extreme Base Station (also 5th Generation) in a separate building in my back yard.

The 2nd Airport is connected to the 1st Airport via an Ethernet Cable that runs through an underground conduit.

I am pretty sure I used to have an App on my iPhone that would check on the "Airport Signal Strength" as opposed to the "speed".

Maybe it was on my old iPhone 4S & it never got transferred to the iPhone 6 Plus?

Either way, I cannot seem to find that app anywhere anymore.

Does anyone have any idea on what this app may have been called or who it was made by?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Posted on Jun 15, 2016 11:20 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

158,880 points

Jun 17, 2016 3:05 PM in response to DonXX

You can measure Wi-Fi signal "strength" without using a third-party app. Built-in to iOS you can find the RSSI value for any wireless client connected to an AirPort base station. You can do this using the AirPort Utility app on your iPhone, as follows:

Select the AirPort Utility app to run it.
Select the base station that your iPhone is connected to.
Select Wireless Clients > select the MAC address of your iPhone > select Connection > note the value for RSSI which is measured in dBm.

RSSI stands for Received Signal Strength Indicator. It is the strength of the beacon's signal as seen on the receiving device (your iPhone in this case). The signal strength depends on distance and the broadcasting power value. The higher (less negative) RSSI value = stronger signal.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

158,880 points

Jun 16, 2016 10:24 AM in response to DonXX

I forgot to mention that you can also enable Wi-Fi scan mode for the iOS AirPort Utility, as follows:

Settings > AirPort Utility > Wi-Fi Scanner

Now when you run the AirPort Utility, you will find a Wi-Fi Scan option in the upper right-hand corner. Select this, and then, choose the scan duration. Select Scan and let the scanner run. Depending on the duration time set, you should get a number of results that also includes the RSSI value.

The only other applications that I am aware of require a dongle and these can get quite pricy.

Problem I am trying to solve is that I sometimes have a stronger signal in the separate building in my back yard from the Airport in the house than from the Airport in that building because of some shoddy splicing done by my Fiber Provider several years ago.

Instead of running a separate Ethernet Cable to that building from the house, they merely spliced into a telephone cable that was already there.

I am trying to convince them to re-do it correctly by running that separate Ethernet Cable.

The cable itself should not directly impact Wi-Fi performance, but can certainly affect overall bandwidth between what is connected at either end of that cable. It was common years back to utilize phone line cable for both voice and data connections. This was "acceptable" for 100 Mbps or less Ethernet connections, but crossover noise was still an issue. You could never achieve Gigabit connections as these types of connections would require using all available wire pairs in the cable.

It is now always recommended that you use separate dedicated cables for data and voice connections. Of course, I am referring to voice connections used by POTS-type land lines, not VoIP.

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Answer 3

DonXX Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 15, 2016 12:22 PM in response to chattphotos

THANKS for the input !

I do NOT have a Mac.

And, although they do have a Windows Version, I do NOT have a laptop - only a Desktop.

I really need something I can put on my iPhone 6 Plus to be able to move around with it..

Apparently Netspot is not available in the app store for my iPhone 6 Plus.

The app I had previously was available for my previous iPhone 4S

Can't remember the name, but it did exactly what I wanted.

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Answer 4

Jun 15, 2016 1:21 PM in response to DonXX

Like I said before, I don't know of Apple making or allowing wifi signal measurement apps, sorry.

Call up a friend with a laptop or Android phone, measure the signal, adjust the airport until satisfied.

You really need to scan the airwaves to make sure the wifi channel mapping is following the best practices.
Depending on if there are any nearby AP's from the neighbors, you'll need to follow the channel map below.

Channel 1,6,11 - 2.4ghz (skip every 5)

Channel 36, 44, 48, 56, 64 or 149, 157, 161 on 5Ghz (skip every other channel)

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Answer 5

DonXX Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 16, 2016 8:35 AM in response to Tesserax

THANKS a bunch ! ! !

That is the information I was looking for.

I am also looking at the Nirsoft Utility "Wireless Network Monitoring Tool" @ http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_network_view.html

This may be what I had before. It does seem to provide more info.

It was on my previous Desktop that had a catastrophic failure & was replaced by Dell.

I did have backups of all of my data, but just reinstalled all of the software from scratch on the new Desktop & left out utilities like that until I was sure the new Desktop was operating correctly.

That is how I came to no longer have it installed.

Problem I am trying to solve is that I sometimes have a stronger signal in the separate building in my back yard from the Airport in the house than from the Airport in that building because of some shoddy splicing done by my Fiber Provider several years ago.

Instead of running a separate Ethernet Cable to that building from the house, they merely spliced into a telephone cable that was already there.

I am trying to convince them to re-do it correctly by running that separate Ethernet Cable.

THANKS again for your input.

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Answer 6

DonXX Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 16, 2016 8:46 AM in response to DonXX

Nope - That NirSoft software is for a Wireless Network Card.

I had a Wireless Network Card in my previous Desktop, but none in the new Desktop.

Everything I have is hardwired anyway - so I really do not need a Wireless Network Card.

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Answer 7

Tesserax

Level 10

158,880 points

Jun 17, 2016 9:45 AM in response to DonXX

The AirPort Utility for Windows does have the option to review wireless client connection status, including Signal strength.

You can find this at the following location in the utility: AirPort Utility for Windows > Logging and Statistics > Logs and Statistics > Wireless Clients tab

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Answer 8

DonXX Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 17, 2016 1:27 PM in response to Tesserax

THANKS - I had found that option.

What I was hoping to also be able to do on my Dell Desktop was the continuous scan you mentioned in your 6-16-16 reply as follows:

Jun 16, 2016 12:24 PM in response to DonXX

I forgot to mention that you can also enable Wi-Fi scan mode for the iOS AirPort Utility, as follows:

Settings > AirPort Utility > Wi-Fi Scanner

Now when you run the AirPort Utility, you will find a Wi-Fi Scan option in the upper right-hand corner. Select this, and then, choose the scan duration. Select Scan and let the scanner run. Depending on the duration time set, you should get a number of results that also includes the RSSI value.

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Answer 9

DonXX Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 17, 2016 1:46 PM in response to DonXX

I think I know the answer, but why not get confirmation from the obvious expert.

When I click on the DHCP Clients Tab for the 1st Apple Airport Extreme Base Station in my house, it lists 8 devices connected to it - including the 2nd Apple Airport Base Station in the separate building in my back yard.

However, when I click on the DHCP Clients Tab for the 2nd Apple Extreme Base Station in the separate building in my back yard, it does not list any devices.

I assume that is because the 2nd AE was set up as an extension of the 1st AE?

Under the Wireless Clients Tab, the 2nd AE does list the 2 devices connected to it (a printer connected via an Ethernet Cable directly to the 2nd AE and my iPhone 6 Plus which I have on my person in that building).

Under the DHCP Tab of the 1st AE, those 2 devices are also listed there.

But, they are not listed under the Wireless Clients Tab of the 1st AE.

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Answer 10

Tesserax

Level 10

158,880 points

Jun 17, 2016 1:58 PM in response to DonXX

Yes, I understand what you were looking for. Neither the Mac or PC version of the AirPort Utility has this feature, only the iOS version. Sorry!

You'll have to use a third-party solution for this. Something like Vistumbler, inSSIDer, or Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector.

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Answer 11

Tesserax

Level 10

158,880 points

Jun 17, 2016 3:06 PM in response to DonXX

In theory the Wireless Clients tab would display any network client that is connected to the base station with a wireless connection. This would include computers, wireless printers, other wireless routers, etc. It should not include any Ethernet connected devices.

Similarly, the DHCP Clients tab would display any network client that has received an IP address from the base station's DHCP service. These can be both wired or wireless clients.

In practice, this is not always the case.

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