The AirCheck is a great tool. Lots of information quick and easy. Yes, you can get the same info through applications, but the ease is nice.
Stay away from apple products for utilizing wireless tools. You will end up starting a windows VM to run most of the apps, I’m sure more Apple supporters can chime in. I just feel more comfortable using the native OS that my applications support. As others have mentioned there are several applications you can use. Usually as you get more features and ‘automated’ troubleshooting the price starts to climb. Airmagnet sells higher end solutions, MetaGeek is more affordable. I am lucky enough to have used both product lines. Each has its own advantages, but in the end I prefer chanalyzer over spectrum XT. However, I like Airmagnet’s WiFi Analyzer Pro over inSSIDer. For captures I like Savvius Omnipeek (formerly wildpackets), it uses capture cards to aggregate multiple channels into a single capture. This is VERY helpful when troubleshooting roaming issues, you won’t miss a packet due to channel scan intervals. There may be others, but this has been my staple. In regards to design tools, you have Cisco Prime (for predictive), AirMagnet Survey Pro, and Ekahau. Both of these tools have a hefty price tag, but having a map of your coverage is a very nice piece of information to have. This is especially true when environments change and you have a reference point to utilize. This coming year we will be using a surface pro to run our tools. Some people have complaints about battery life, so we expect to carry recharge packs with us. This is a huge leap in portability for us coming off hefty Toughbooks that have made me a great left arm-wrestler. Hope this helps, have a nice weekend. From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan D Wang Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 2:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Network laptop apps/"tool" I would recommend you look at metageek's product line for this. Depending on how in depth you want to go, you can either get inSSIDer pretty cheap or spend a about 1000 and get a Wi-Spy dbx and Chanalyzer 5 to actually look at RF utilization. On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 2:56 PM, Allen Matthews <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I am looking for a laptop and software that would help me to troubleshooting wireless. I am curious about what you use to troubleshoot wireless. iMAC Windows Linux or Vendor tools. I am interest in both basic software and/or vendor tools. The basic software would be for student tech. -- Allen Matthews Network Engineer Gallaudet Technology Services Merrill Learning Center 2112 800 Florida Ave NE Washington, DC 20002 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.educause.edu_groups_&d=BQMFaQ&c=6vgNTiRn9_pqCD9hKx9JgXN1VapJQ8JVoF8oWH1AgfQ&r=rYfqH_8oTvcXxRxUI3x3m3Y7Nwgir7tnuoGbdZsrUM4&m=66Nf9wrbSSqiVwlYxD1fj2c4626bfMV_Nz2s7bJki_o&s=JxhqH0l1QkEpX6fNuvHQcBRMYylUddCoygYCsCLxtN0&e=>. -- -------- Alan Wang Network Analyst | TH105 Binghamton University [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.educause.edu_groups_&d=BQMFaQ&c=6vgNTiRn9_pqCD9hKx9JgXN1VapJQ8JVoF8oWH1AgfQ&r=rYfqH_8oTvcXxRxUI3x3m3Y7Nwgir7tnuoGbdZsrUM4&m=66Nf9wrbSSqiVwlYxD1fj2c4626bfMV_Nz2s7bJki_o&s=JxhqH0l1QkEpX6fNuvHQcBRMYylUddCoygYCsCLxtN0&e=>. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
