Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Using Wireshark to capture signal strength anddata rate fo

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:12:14 -0700
Craig Wicker wrote:
I have a Cisco Aironet 350 wireless card. I use the software driver
furnished by Network General's Sniffer program for this device to
capture this information.
IEEE 802.11
Data Rate: 1.0 Mb/s
Channel: 5
Signal Strength: 75%
Type/Subtype: Beacon frame (8)

Dell Laptop WinXP SP2. I must stress the driver used is not one I've
found anyplace other than Network General.

Does it require you to buy the Sniffer to get it? I think the suppliers of commercial network analyzers for Windows write their own drivers for wireless cards in order to do capture, as the standard drivers, and NDIS, are extraordinarily unhelpful for capturing. (It would be Truly Wonderful if Microsoft were to provide a mechanism for doing "raw 802.11" captures in Vista, complete with radio headers. I'm not holding my breath waiting, however; the document I saw on "Native 802.11", or whatever they call it, wasn't very encouraging. And even that would leave pre-Vista systems out.)

Also, does it plug into WinPcap to do capturing? Or do you capture with Sniffer and then have Wireshark read the captures?