need wireless signal indicator across bridge

We've acquired a Netgear WAG302 wireless bridge to connect our LAN with a
wireless ISP. There are 3 ISP's within range at various distances and with
varying degrees of vegetative obscuration. We need to choose which one of
their access points has the best, strongest signal with our high-gain
directional parabolic antenna.

We'd like to find some signal indication software that will run on either
NetBSD 3.1 or win2000, and using the IP address of the wireless bridge (the
default gateway, perhaps?) as the signal source, give us as much information
as possible about the strength of each of the 3 signals.

Can anyone suggest some possible solutions, please?

Maybe NetStumbler

"Patrick" <ptri.c.k.@statrerv.corn> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> We've acquired a Netgear WAG302 wireless bridge to connect our LAN with a
> wireless ISP. There are 3 ISP's within range at various distances and with
> varying degrees of vegetative obscuration. We need to choose which one of
> their access points has the best, strongest signal with our high-gain
> directional parabolic antenna.
>
> We'd like to find some signal indication software that will run on either
> NetBSD 3.1 or win2000, and using the IP address of the wireless bridge
(the
> default gateway, perhaps?) as the signal source, give us as much
information
> as possible about the strength of each of the 3 signals.
>
> Can anyone suggest some possible solutions, please?
>

On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 11:18:59 -0700, "Patrick" <ptri.c.k.@statrerv.corn>
wrote:

>We've acquired a Netgear WAG302 wireless bridge to connect our LAN with a
>wireless ISP.

The WAG302 is an access point with WDS features. I can't tell from
the online data sheet if it supports a client bridge mode necessary to
use it to connect to your ISP. If it doesn't, you may have a problem.
<http://www.netgear.com/Products/WirelessAccessPoints/WirelessAccessPoints/WAG302.aspx>

>There are 3 ISP's within range at various distances and with
>varying degrees of vegetative obscuration. We need to choose which one of
>their access points has the best, strongest signal with our high-gain
>directional parabolic antenna.

The WAG302 supports SNMP which should yield a signal strength per
connection. Use any handy MIB browser such as net-snmp:
<ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/net/net-snmp/README.html>

There's also a CLI (command line interface) in the WG302 which *MAY*
offer a site survey tool, which usually gives signal strength and
signal quality numbers. Dunno, because I'm too lazy to RTFM.

My guess(tm) is that you're going to need an external antenna to
connect to your various ISP's, especially with vegetarian
obstructions. Just connect the antenna to any suitable client card
that has an external antenna connector to whatever computer you have
handy, and use whatever connection manager comes with the wireless
card to extract the signal strengths. If Windoze 2000 or XP, try
Netstumbler or Wi-Fi Hopper. For NetBSD, try Kismet.
<ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/net/kismet/README.html>

>We'd like to find some signal indication software that will run on either
>NetBSD 3.1 or win2000, and using the IP address of the wireless bridge (the
>default gateway, perhaps?) as the signal source, give us as much information
>as possible about the strength of each of the 3 signals.

If you give your wireless devices MAC address to your potential ISP,
he should be able to interrogate his access points to get your signal
strength and quality.

>Can anyone suggest some possible solutions, please?

Also, spend some time with Kismet looking for other clients on the
same channel. Interference is a real problem. Netstumbler will not
show clients.

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