Air Mai wireless spectrum analyzer ASA introduction

AirMagnet's wireless LAN security and management products occupy a very important position in the market, and it has been one of the leaders in this field through its expanding business volume. AirMagnet Spectrum Analyzer (ASA), the latest product of AirMagnet, is a very promising product because it incorporates RF (Radio Frequency) analysis capabilities, which were previously AirMagnet A small defect in the product.

RF analysis is quite important because those packet-level products (such as AirMagnet's Enterprise, Laptop, and Handheld Analyzer) rely on signals to be able to receive and decode WLANs, but sometimes in a wireless LAN failure Caused by RF interference sources that do not emit valid 802.11a/b/g signals, microwave ovens, cordless phones, and Bluetooth devices are the most common sources of RF interference, but they are by no means the only ones.

Air Mai wireless spectrum analyzer ASA introduction

The ASA core component is a CardBus card (Figure 1, AirMagnet called the Spectrum PC Card), which contains the basic hardware content of a miniature spectrum analyzer that covers the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies of 802.11a/b/g. The range also covers the 4.94 - 4.99 GHz band.

AirMagnet Wireless Spectrum Analyzer Test Card

AirMagnet spectrum analyzer evaluation

Figure 1: Spectrum PC Card

Internal details of the Spectrum PC Card

Radio (Wireless Part) - The wireless transceiver detects the RF spectrum and transmits the data to the Spectrum Analysis Engine and SAgE.

The SAgE-spectrum analysis engine performs a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the RF spectrum and provides a supply of low-level data related to the state of the RF spectrum. At a certain instant, comparing the frequency information in the spectrum, the low-level data includes some basic information about the power and some information about the single pulse in the RF spectrum. SAgE also performs on-board statistical analysis of the spectrum and statistical analysis of RF pulses.

MCU - A programmable Microcontroller Unit (MCU) that runs proprietary software that provides low-level analysis of data streams. This analysis engine includes:

* Measurement Engine - collects SAgE data and normalizes them into meaningful representations.

* ClassificaTIon Engine - identifies specific types of interfering signals (Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens, cordless phones and wireless headsets, small radars, etc.).

The Spectrum PC card is well thought out in terms of engineering design and gives a good impression, especially considering the Bumblebee of ASA's most threatening competitor, Berkeley Varitronics Systems (BVS), which requires a PocketPC-sized sleigh-like component. Installing its RF circuitry, the ASA is more thoughtful in this regard, and all the components are integrated. The detailed specifications of the ASA (Figure 2) are also very impressive, especially since its noise level is only 124dBm and the range of deviation is only +/- 2.5dBm.

AirMagnet spectrum analyzer evaluation

Figure 2: ASA detailed technical specifications

The Spectrum PC Card can be used on any notebook or tablet running Windows XP SP1 or SP2, as long as it has a Type II CardBus slot. However, this card can not be used as an 802.11a/b/g WLAN network card, so it can not be used to connect to the wireless network, nor can it run other AirMagnet software products on this basis. Note that if you run ASA If a Wi-Fi wireless network card is also built into the notebook or tablet, it is obvious that the wireless network card should be turned off.

The Spectrum PC card has an MMCX interface for external expansion antennas (like the previous older versions of ORiNOCO's products and some of Buffalo Technology's WLAN cards), AirMagnet also offers a simple 2dBi dipole antenna, but the connection cable Not very long, there is a clip that is easy to clip on the display of the notebook.

Features

ASA has been successfully installed on my Windows XP SP2 laptop, but there is no "guide" to guide you through the initial setup, but it won't take you much time and you can start using it right away. It is. The first time you start its program interface after the installation is complete, an initialization process will appear, followed by a “Channel Summary” page, which shows that any of the ASAs are monitoring the frequency band being monitored. RF activities (Figure 3).

AirMagnet spectrum analyzer evaluation

Figure 3: Channel Summary

In the “Monitored Bands setTIngs” page, you can customize the frequency range to be monitored (Fig. 4). Here you can select some frequency bands defined by the software, or you can create two own “ User Defined (user-defined) band area, note that there is no constraint in the user-defined band area option. The user can only enter the value of the valid range. If you enter some "illegal" value here, There will be no warning messages and the frequency values ​​you set will not work.

AirMagnet spectrum analyzer evaluation

Figure 4: The monitored frequency band

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