Re: Getting the Received Signal Strength using the Native Wifi (Vista)

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"Hector" <hector@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:u3Aovt14GHA.2208@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Pavel A. wrote:
"Hector" wrote:

Hello,
I'm having trouble getting the signal strength from a wireless network in a way that matches the built-in vista (build 5728)
signal strenght indicator.
The way I do it, is by calling WlanGetAvailableNetworkList and then retrieving the wlanSignalQuality member from the
available network structures returned.
While I get a value of 100 (max value, as per the API) Vista reports the connection to be "Fair" (or 2 bars).
Which method does vista use to get the measure of signal strenght? or what am I doing wrong?


You are mixing signal strength (RSSI) and quality. These are two diferent things. WlanGetAvailableNetworkList prefers the
quality because it makes more sense to the user. RSSI is in WLAN_BSS_ENTRY structures; call WlanGetNetworkBssList to get
them.

Regards,
--PA


Hi,
Thanks for your answer. I thought that it could be a semantics issue, although, wouldn't then "linkQuality" be a better name
than "signalQuality" for the member of the available networks structure?

I also used RSSI from WLAN_BSS_ENTRY to try to measure signal strength, but isn't the RSSI number quantified differently for
different wlan chipsets? Then, how does Vista convert from the RSSI value to a signal strength rating?

Thanks again,

Hector U.

May be... anyway, signal level is not directly connected to quality.
You can have very good quality (and data rate) with low signal energy,
and very strong signal with high interference => bad data rate.
AFAIK there is no standard way to convert RSSI to human readable meter,
every vendor rolls their own. Some have conversion tables in their documentation.

Regards,
--PA


.

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