Apple - What tools are there for measuring Macbook wireless strength?
If you're just looking for a quick signal strength number, option-click on the AirPort icon in the menu bar. Under the connected network you will see several pieces of information:
RSSI is your signal strengh in dB. Higher (closer to 0) is better.
If you're looking for noise or the signal strength for multiple access points, I suggest checking out iStumbler:
You can get quite a bit of info from the command line, with the (well-hidden) airport utility. With the -I
flag it'll tell you about the current network:
$ /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I
agrCtlRSSI: -43
agrExtRSSI: 0
agrCtlNoise: -96
agrExtNoise: 0
state: running
op mode: station
lastTxRate: 130
maxRate: 130
lastAssocStatus: 0
802.11 auth: open
link auth: wpa2-psk
BSSID: 0:24:1:0a:42:93
SSID: My Wireless
MCS: 15
channel: 5
...and -s
will show more info about other visible networks:
$ /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -s
SSID BSSID RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)
My Wireless 00:24:01:fa:42:93 -44 5 Y -- WPA(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP)
hobbit 00:15:05:19:8a:03 -86 7 N -- WEP
My Wireless 00:24:01:ef:91:ab -75 3 Y -- WPA(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)
It doesn't have a man page, but if you run it without any options it'll list its options.
System Profiler will list available Wireless Networks as well as the following information
NetworkName:
PHY Mode: 802.11n
BSSID: c0:3f:e:df:1b:be
Channel: 6
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WEP