ath(4) and 802.11g speed

[Damian Gerow]

Thus spake Daniel O'Connor (doconnor at gsoft.com.au) [10/03/06 00:19]:
: > Okay, this has me a bit curious, so I dug into it a bit more:
: >
: >     SSID            BSSID              CHAN RATE  S:N   INT CAPS
: >     linksys         00:06:25:7b:25:3d    6   11M 35:0   100 E
: >     MYSSID          00:12:17:85:9a:3b   11   54M 39:0   100 E
: >     wahoo62         00:13:46:47:0f:0e   11   54M  4:0   100 EPS
: >
: > I'd have thought that a S:N of 39:0 wouldn't be all that weak, no?  Looking
: > at a post by Sam this past August, he calls 30:0 "very strong", though that
: > was for an 802.11b link.  I'd think that the higher the number, the
: > stronger the signal.  Is the above too weak to handle a full 54Mbps link?
:  
: Which SSID? MYSSID?
: The linksys one looks like b only. 
: The other 2 look like g.

MYSSID.  It's the one I posted about originally.  linksys is definitely b
only.

: Are you sure your card supports g? It may be able to see a g AP but only 
: connects and b speeds.

Yep.  It's an AR5212:

    ath_hal: 0.9.16.16 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
    ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xd8100000-0xd810ffff irq 28 at device 4.0 on pci10
    ath0: Ethernet address: 00:0f:b5:20:71:ed
    ath0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 4.6

: What does ifconfig -m ath0 say?

The full text (as it's unsurprisingly long) is up at:

    <http://www.afflictions.org/~dgerow/ifconfig.ath0>

Here's the bits I'm going to assume you're specifically interested in:

-----
ath0: flags=28943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,PPROMISC> mtu 1500
	inet6 fe80::20f:b5ff:fe20:71ed%ath0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 
	inet 192.168.132.146 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.132.255
	ether 00:0f:b5:20:71:ed
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect <monitor>
	status: associated
	supported media:
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode autoselect mediaopt monitor
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode autoselect mediaopt flag0 mediaopt adhoc
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode autoselect mediaopt hostap
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode autoselect mediaopt adhoc
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode autoselect
<snip>
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g mediaopt monitor
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g mediaopt flag0 mediaopt adhoc
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g mediaopt hostap
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g mediaopt adhoc
		media OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g
<snip>
		media DS/11Mbps mode 11b mediaopt monitor
		media DS/11Mbps mode 11b mediaopt flag0 mediaopt adhoc
		media DS/11Mbps mode 11b mediaopt hostap
		media DS/11Mbps mode 11b mediaopt adhoc
		media DS/11Mbps mode 11b
<snip>
		media autoselect mode autoselect mediaopt monitor
		media autoselect mode autoselect mediaopt flag0 mediaopt adhoc
		media autoselect mode autoselect mediaopt hostap
		media autoselect mode autoselect mediaopt adhoc
		media autoselect mode autoselect
	ssid "" channel 5
	authmode OPEN privacy OFF NULL 1:40-bit NULL 2:40-bit
	NULL 3:40-bit NULL 4:40-bit txpowmax 30 protmode CTS burst
	bintval 100
-----

  - Damian