AP Grapher - A simple AirPort signal strength meter

Mar 10, '04 09:18:00AM

Contributed by: robg

AP Grapher imageThe macosxhints Rating:
10 of 10
[Score: 10 out of 10]

A short and simple Pick this week ... in the course of setting up the new house, I was trying to find the best spot for the Base Station; the range with my 12" PowerBook is not all that great and seems very location-dependent (even with an external antenna attached to the Base Station). So I was looking for something that provided a bit more detail on the signal strength than just 0 to 4 bars. After some digging, I found AP Grapher, which did exactly what I wanted it to do -- a real-time graph of signal strength, with options to display link and comm quality, as well as signal and noise (though those were always zero for me). You can also control the rate of updates; increasing the rate takes more CPU time, of course, but makes it a bit easier to keep an eye on the signal.

After some walking around the house with the PowerBook in hand and AP Grapher running, I think I've managed to find a spot for the Base Station where I've got the whole house covered.

Comments (10)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040310061820652