On 9/3/06, Robert Snyder <robertsnyder@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah that is the big problem pete with Celluar Data and linux is there is no
> effective ways of telling signal strength, unelsess it is something they
> built into the driver. Like on my old GPRS card Siera Wireless 750 I could
> query it with a long drawn out perl script, but it was a function of the
> driver that was made for it. That is why I still dual boot. For those
> peesky things that you need diagnostics on and the manufacture only supports
> windows.
>
The coverage software (can you hear me now software) that we used had
to have code to read the board also. Sierrawireless tool was just that it was
for the user to quickly look at a few parameters and press on. Indeed CDMA
which is the same as saying "spread spectrum" uses some other parameters
to actually read signal because the signal is generally BELOW the noise
level. so you will get some rather obscure data when you query the card but
I know that you can do it. You may have to contact the card manufacturer
but many of those cards us a modifed hayes command set to pull the environ-
mental data, I think I still have the coverage study stuff around here some-
where, I have all of the parameters, and in fact I may have some of the
commands that are used, but again they vary from manufacturer to manu-
facturer. Who manufactures it? what is the model number? If it is a SW card
there maybe a developers kit that will have what you need to at least get
to where you can manually query the card and get back a status string,
you could then parse the string and display your data. We used to get the
dev kits from SW and that is how our software guys got the data out of the
card. Some of the data you are looking for is Ec/Io, and FFER, the first is
the CDMA version of signal strength, but much more complicated and the
second is the CDMA version of BLER on the forward channel (the downlink
from the base station to the subscriber unit) you can look all of this up on
this site:
http://www.cdmaonline.com/interactive04/dl/dlcdma01.html
There is a lot more but those two parameters tell you most of what you want
to know in terms of signal quality, if either one is bad you will have dropped
connections and other uglies.
-- Chuck Hast -- KP4DJT -- To paraphrase my flight instructor; "the only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask resulting in my going out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of torn and twisted metal." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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