Ekahau HeatMapper Wireless free mapping tool
Jeff Liebermann
<http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/overview.html>
Great fun. Scribble a map of your home or office with any paint
program. Walk around the room while left clicking the mouse to mark
your position on the map and record the signal strength. Right click
to stop recording. Results look something like:
<http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/features-a-screen-shots.html>
I ignored the instructions that claimed it only works with XP and
Vista (32 bit) and installed it on a W2K desktop. No problems (so
far).
--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
LR
> Ekahau HeatMapper Wireless free mapping tool:
> <http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/overview.html>
> Great fun. Scribble a map of your home or office with any paint
> program. Walk around the room while left clicking the mouse to mark
> your position on the map and record the signal strength. Right click
> to stop recording. Results look something like:
> <http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/features-a-screen-shots.html>
>
> I ignored the instructions that claimed it only works with XP and
> Vista (32 bit) and installed it on a W2K desktop. No problems (so
> far).
>
>
work using USB dongles with ZD1211 and RT2870 chipsets. There was an
added problem with neither of these being able to get an internet
connection after installing the Ekahau s'ware, had the usual
169.254.xx.xx addresses. When I tried to remove the Ekahau driver from
the adapter properties Vista locked up. I had to remove the Ekahau
program to get the USB adapters to work properly, strangely there was no
problem with the AR5007 card.
LR
Having said that, after uninstalling the Ekahau s'ware my AR5007 card
failed to work. The Ekahau driver was still listed in the card
properties and I had to uninstall it from there to get it to work.
LR
The Ekahau driver was still listed in the card
> properties and I had to uninstall it from there to get it to work.
That was badly worded. the Ekahau driver was listed in the "Network
Connection Properties" for the wireless connection as one of the items
that were used by that connection, in my Vista laptop it was shown just
above "Internet Protocol Version 6(TCP/IPv6)".
alexd
> <http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/overview.html>
> Great fun.
Did a good job of guessing where the APs are in my office, but I have to
wonder how useful it really is. It's all very well knowing how well you can
receive a signal from an AP, but surely what matters is what sort of
latency/packet loss you see whilst connected to any given AP [as you don't
really know how well the AP can hear you]. Granted it's a bit more work and
would take longer, but it would be worth it in the end.
--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEs...@ale.cx)
20:12:39 up 136 days, 21:23, 3 users, load average: 0.02, 0.08, 0.08
My god, said I, with my one liquid eye, am I dreaming, or am I insane?
Jeff Liebermann
My guess(tm) would be that it added something to the LSP (layered
service provider) winsock2 chain that wasn't removed. Try LSPFix:
<http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm>
or other repair utility. I think this one works with Vista, but I
haven't tried it.
If deperate, you can reset the whole network mess:
<http://geekswithblogs.net/mattcampbell/archive/2007/09/30/Resetting-your-whole-IP-stack-in-Vista.aspx>
If nothing works, do a system restore to a point before things went
awry.
I'll try it on a Vista machine in a few days. Remind me if I forget.
I screen grabbed a local road map from Google maps and used HeatMapper
to build a wi-fi map of the neighborhood. I went for a walk with my
laptop, left clicking the mouse merrily down the beaten path. 22
access points were heard and somewhat located. My neighborhood is on
a hillside full of reflections and in a forest full of attenuations.
The signal strength color pattern therefore appeared rather weird.
I'll try it again next weekend, hopefully with better results.
LR
for the AR5007. I had previously tried a system restore but that didn't
work.
I had tried the original version of this program but that didn't work
at all with the AR5007 and I think you only got 15 minutes of time to
record the signal levels.
I had hoped that the USB devices would have worked so that I could see
if there was any variation in signal pattern when using these.
LR
Since I couldn't remember exactly what it was called I re-installed the
Ekahau s'ware. In the "Wireless Network Connections Properties" it is
listed as installing "Ekahau User Protocol Driver for NDIS6" and this is
what has caused me problems, even on uninstalling the Ekahau program
this driver is not removed but can be by using the uninstall function in
"Wireless Network Connections Properties".
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>Ekahau HeatMapper Wireless free mapping tool:
><http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/overview.html>
Well, not so wonderful. It seems to work ok for indoor mapping, but
seem to get rather confused when faced with an outdoor environment.
Results are far from usable. As I walked around the loop, the order
of the access points seem to be in the correct order, but the found AP
locations are useless.
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/ekahau-plot-04.png>
I was thinking the problem might be the laptop, so I tried a total of
3 XP laptops with similar results. This plot was generated on an Asus
eee PC 701.
I also created similarly useless results with multiple AP's at my
house. If I walked in a circle, the results were similar to the
photo. However, if I followed the instructions, and sorta walked in a
semi-drunken manner, with lots of cross-over points, the plots looked
more like in the examples.
LR
> On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:55:35 -0700, Jeff Liebermann<je...@cruzio.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Ekahau HeatMapper Wireless free mapping tool:
>> <http://www.ekahau.com/products/heatmapper/overview.html>
>
> Well, not so wonderful. It seems to work ok for indoor mapping, but
> seem to get rather confused when faced with an outdoor environment.
> Results are far from usable. As I walked around the loop, the order
> of the access points seem to be in the correct order, but the found AP
> locations are useless.
> <http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/ekahau-plot-04.png>
> I was thinking the problem might be the laptop, so I tried a total of
> 3 XP laptops with similar results. This plot was generated on an Asus
> eee PC 701.
>
> I also created similarly useless results with multiple AP's at my
> house. If I walked in a circle, the results were similar to the
> photo. However, if I followed the instructions, and sorta walked in a
> semi-drunken manner, with lots of cross-over points, the plots looked
> more like in the examples.
>
>
positions with really strong signal levels for each AP?
Jeff Liebermann
>> I also created similarly useless results with multiple AP's at my
>> house. If I walked in a circle, the results were similar to the
>> photo. However, if I followed the instructions, and sorta walked in a
>> semi-drunken manner, with lots of cross-over points, the plots looked
>> more like in the examples.
>Is this because you never get close enough to the AP's to get some
>positions with really strong signal levels for each AP?
Dunno. I would have to see the raw collected data to determine what's
happening. Also, I would need some clue as to the algorithm used. In
the outdoor case, my guess(tm) is that the huge variations in signal
strength are rendering the data useless. There may also be a problem
with the large number of SSID's collected. In the indoor case, it
seems to be a problem with the algorithm used, or possibly because the
room is small enough that I might get equal signal strength almost
anywhere in the room. If it does something really crude, like average
or peak detect the indicated signal strength of ALL the AP's heard,
that might explain the almost uniform signal level indicated. It may
also be that my wireless devices are returning garbage values. That's
dubious as I tried 3 different laptops, but still possible. Lots of
possibilities, but nothing definitive, yet.
Unfortunately, the software does not offer any means to filter the
results, limit the test to a specific set of SSID's, or lock it on a
specific channel. It's difficult to tell what's happening without
filters. The full version called "Ekahau Site Survey" does these and
much more.
<http://www.ekahau.com/products/ekahau-site-survey/overview.html>
The problem is that it costs $2,200 and $2,700 for the pro version.
Ouch.
I'll play with it some more later and see if I can deduce how it
works.
msg
<snip>
> Unfortunately, the software does not offer any means to filter the
> results, limit the test to a specific set of SSID's, or lock it on a
> specific channel. It's difficult to tell what's happening without
> filters. The full version called "Ekahau Site Survey" does these and
> much more.
> <http://www.ekahau.com/products/ekahau-site-survey/overview.html>
> The problem is that it costs $2,200 and $2,700 for the pro version.
> Ouch.
>
> I'll play with it some more later and see if I can deduce how it
> works.
>
Jeff, I'm still curious about that Airsleuth product line which uses the
Symphony HomeRF2 adapters in a mode that permits fine grain spectrum
analysis and RSSI; there seems to be a site survey mode with graphics,
although no map overlay. Perhaps you could convince the authors to
permit a no-cost evaluation (I don't have the cachet for those perks).
Michael
LR
needed a high signal level, say -50dBm, for at least one AP to provide
some form of reference. Looking at your survey I would say you probably
did your first check outside your home/office and recorded a low signal.
Have you tried doing your first check inside your office where there is
a high signal level and then going outside for the next check?
Jeff Liebermann
>I wondered if it recorded the peak value of each AP at each location but
>needed a high signal level, say -50dBm, for at least one AP to provide
>some form of reference.
I think it's dumber than that. I've been trying to mentally reverse
engineer what they're doing to produce my bogus results. After
tossing all the complexicated bad guesses, I have yet another
guess(tm).
Methinks, that they're averaging *ALL* the signal levels at any given
point. They measure the signal level from the assortment of hot spots
heard, but only record the average value. They also might do some
data smoothing with adjacent locations. In a perfect environment,
with only a few AP's, that would produce a very usable result. It
worked fairly well inside my palatial office, where I could only hear
4 AP's. However, when faced with my outdoor environment, and a myriad
of AP's, the average value will be fairly constant. The result is a
uniformly constant signal level. Mehthinks this is highly clever, but
not particularly wonderful for all applications. It would require
data filters to fix the problem.
>Looking at your survey I would say you probably
>did your first check outside your home/office and recorded a low signal.
It's my home and you're correct. The results I posted was test walk
#4. Test #2 started inside my house, where I was close to two AP's. I
decided that this might affect the results, so I started test #4 from
the road level, so that everything was on equal footing. That made it
worse resulting in the uniform signal level.
>Have you tried doing your first check inside your office where there is
>a high signal level and then going outside for the next check?
Yes. I got a rather hot (red color) spot starting at my house.
However, it radiated to well over half the map, which isn't much of an
improvement.
LR
>> Have you tried doing your first check inside your office where there is
>> a high signal level and then going outside for the next check?
>
> Yes. I got a rather hot (red color) spot starting at my house.
> However, it radiated to well over half the map, which isn't much of an
> improvement.
>
That's a surprise, I expected you to have had a nice green spot inside
and then going to red as you moved further away outside. The small
amount of playing I did showed green down to -75dBm, light green.
alexd
> Methinks, that they're averaging *ALL* the signal levels at any given
> point. They measure the signal level from the assortment of hot spots
> heard, but only record the average value.
When I tested it, I found that clicking on a specific AP in the final
results would produce a specific coverage map for that AP, which [if I've
understood what you're saying] contradicts that theory.
--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEs...@ale.cx)
18:58:24 up 142 days, 20:09, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.06, 0.04
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>
>> Methinks, that they're averaging *ALL* the signal levels at any given
>> point. They measure the signal level from the assortment of hot spots
>> heard, but only record the average value.
>
>When I tested it, I found that clicking on a specific AP in the final
>results would produce a specific coverage map for that AP, which [if I've
>understood what you're saying] contradicts that theory.
Oops. I never tried that. I just ran the program with and screen
captured the results after it was done, without selecting a specific
AP. I'll try another circular walk around the neighborhood and see
what happens.
LR
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:03:46 +0100, alexd<trof...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>
>>> Methinks, that they're averaging *ALL* the signal levels at any given
>>> point. They measure the signal level from the assortment of hot spots
>>> heard, but only record the average value.
>> When I tested it, I found that clicking on a specific AP in the final
>> results would produce a specific coverage map for that AP, which [if I've
>> understood what you're saying] contradicts that theory.
>
> Oops. I never tried that. I just ran the program with and screen
> captured the results after it was done, without selecting a specific
> AP. I'll try another circular walk around the neighborhood and see
> what happens.
>
>
and you will see a certain amount of coverage dependant on signal strength.
Jeff Liebermann
>You don't need to click on the AP, just position your cursor over an AP
>and you will see a certain amount of coverage dependant on signal strength.
Yeah, but there's a problem with small screens like my Asus eeePC 701.
I can't get to the "Screenshot" button unless I first open the left
hand AP list window. Even if I'm quick, I usually end up doing mouse
over on one of the other other icons that ring around the map. Hitting
the AP icon and doing a subsequent screen capture is more than tricky.
A keyboard shortcut for screenshot would be useful (along with an "are
you sure" when accidentally hitting the right mouse button).
I managed to highlight and grab 3 nearby AP's. All the plots are
useless:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/Ekahau-plots/>
(I also reduced the size of the PNG's from about 220KB to 50KB by
converting the overkill 24 bit color to 8 bits). Plots of the other
24 odd SSID's are equally useless.
The "Testnet" SSID, being located in the middle of the map, was an
accident. I prematurely hit the right mouse button about 1/5th of the
way through the course. Amazingly, it's located in the correct
location. Nothing else is even close. Some of the SSID's are located
off the map and miles away (I live on the side of a valley).
I'm still mystified as to what's happening. I'm doing something to
confuse the program. Perhaps it's having trouble dealing with 24
SSID's. I guess more trial and error will eventually deduce the
cause.
LR
> I'm still mystified as to what's happening. I'm doing something to
> confuse the program. Perhaps it's having trouble dealing with 24
> SSID's. I guess more trial and error will eventually deduce the
> cause.
>
Perhaps it's the size of the area you are trying to cover rather than
the number of AP's. My limited testing showed that I needed to use a
large number of hits in an AP's location and even then the display was
not perfect. I did not use a map but used the grid display and my home
AP as the start point. The resulting map for my home AP covered the
whole of the grid but the coverage maps for the other AP's were
restricted to within a few squares of the the route I had taken and
where I had obtained readings and did not cover the whole grid.
Did you notice that as you conduct the survey the line that is drawn
is the colour of the signal strength, this is replaced by a solid green
line on the completion of the survey.
LR
> Yeah, but there's a problem with small screens like my Asus eeePC 701.
> I can't get to the "Screenshot" button unless I first open the left
> hand AP list window. Even if I'm quick, I usually end up doing mouse
> over on one of the other other icons that ring around the map. Hitting
> the AP icon and doing a subsequent screen capture is more than tricky.
> A keyboard shortcut for screenshot would be useful (along with an "are
> you sure" when accidentally hitting the right mouse button).
Doesn't your version of the 701 have a:-
Fn + Prt Sc (Ins): Toggles the �Print Screen� key to
initiate screen capture utility to capture, save, or
print the contents of entire desktop.
I did notice that some functions depend on the model
<http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/EeePC/EeePC701SD/EeePC701SD_XP_0730.zip>
Jeff Liebermann
>On 26/04/2009 21:43, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>
>> I'm still mystified as to what's happening. I'm doing something to
>> confuse the program. Perhaps it's having trouble dealing with 24
>> SSID's. I guess more trial and error will eventually deduce the
>> cause.
>Perhaps it's the size of the area you are trying to cover rather than
>the number of AP's.
That's possible, but I doubt it.
>My limited testing showed that I needed to use a
>large number of hits in an AP's location and even then the display was
>not perfect.
How large? I ran another test, but didn't bother posting the results.
Instead of walking around the loop near my house, I walked down the
road in front of my house (about 100 meters) and back. That reduced
the number of AP's heard from 24 to 8. Same problem.
>I did not use a map but used the grid display and my home
>AP as the start point. The resulting map for my home AP covered the
>whole of the grid but the coverage maps for the other AP's were
>restricted to within a few squares of the the route I had taken and
>where I had obtained readings and did not cover the whole grid.
I get roughly the same thing when I do it indoors.
>Did you notice that as you conduct the survey the line that is drawn
>is the colour of the signal strength, this is replaced by a solid green
>line on the completion of the survey.
Yes. The color is almost always orange. I wasn't paying attention to
the signal strength values shown.
>Doesn't your version of the 701 have a:-
>Fn + Prt Sc (Ins): Toggles the �Print Screen� key to
>initiate screen capture utility to capture, save, or
>print the contents of entire desktop.
>I did notice that some functions depend on the model
><http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/EeePC/EeePC701SD/EeePC701SD_XP_0730.zip>
That would work. If not, there are other screen grab utilities that
can do the job. However, it would be nice if the internal screen
grab button had a keyboard shortcut.
I'll play with this some more around the office and with a virgin XP
or Vista laptop. I'm beginning to think it might be a side effect of
the large number of shims for network monitoring utilities I have
installed in my laptops.
LR
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:57:48 +0100, LR<lr...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> On 26/04/2009 21:43, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>
>>> I'm still mystified as to what's happening. I'm doing something to
>>> confuse the program. Perhaps it's having trouble dealing with 24
>>> SSID's. I guess more trial and error will eventually deduce the
>>> cause.
>
>> Perhaps it's the size of the area you are trying to cover rather than
>> the number of AP's.
>
> That's possible, but I doubt it.
>
>> My limited testing showed that I needed to use a
>> large number of hits in an AP's location and even then the display was
>> not perfect.
>
> How large? I ran another test, but didn't bother posting the results.
> Instead of walking around the loop near my house, I walked down the
> road in front of my house (about 100 meters) and back. That reduced
> the number of AP's heard from 24 to 8. Same problem.
4 of the houses I can get to all four sides so I did 2 readings per side.
Where I could only get to the front and back I did 3 readings per side.
If I could only get to one side of the house I did 3 readings again and
I also took a reading further away from the house to get some sense of
direction of the AP. I also took some random measurements further away
from the other houses for the same reason.
LR
While we had some fine weather I re-installed the s'ware and did a quick
check around the neighbourhood but this time I created the map from a
.gif file instead of using the grid. This time using the "map" option I
got a similar colour scheme to your files and the whole map was in a
single colour but all the AP's, that I was able to get to front and
rear, were in the correct position.
There is evidently a difference between using the "Map" and "Grid" option.
LR
that were located correctly have in the majority moved to the edge of
the grid along with 48 other AP's, which has left just my router and 2
other AP's in the correct position. Because there are so many AP's
listed some are actually overlapping each other, which is very annoying.
However when you check the signal map for each AP you still get a
varying colour scheme, dependent on the signal strength, unlike the
single colour that was shown when using a map.
Jeff Liebermann
>Since I couldn't remember exactly what it was called I re-installed the
>Ekahau s'ware. In the "Wireless Network Connections Properties" it is
>listed as installing "Ekahau User Protocol Driver for NDIS6" and this is
>what has caused me problems, even on uninstalling the Ekahau program
>this driver is not removed but can be by using the uninstall function in
>"Wireless Network Connections Properties".
I've mostly confirmed your observations. I installed Ekahau
HeatMapper on three laptops and one desktop. All of these started to
exhibit some rather weird behavior. Two would work with any AP that
it had previously (prior to installing HeatMapper) successfully
connected, but not to any new AP's. It would fail with a DHCP
failure. No amount of ipconfig release/renew would help. The others
had similar problems, but oddly, would fail to connect at different
points. I was too lazy to enable and dump the wireless log files for
details. Worse, I didn't notice for about a week, and have done
considerable add/remove/tweak on these computers.
I uninstalled HeatMapper, rebooted, and found that you're correct. It
leaves behind "Ekahau NDIS User Mode I/O Protocol". It appears that
it's a different driver for W2K/XP and Vista (NDIS5 versus NDIS6). I
uninstalled this protocol, rebooted, and some (not all) of the
connection problems were magically fixed. The problem is that all of
the laptops and the desktop still have problems connecting to various
AP's scattered around the house and neighborhood. In addition,
browsing now has a rather long 2 second delay when looking for
something in the DNS cache. My guess(tm) is that there's either more
debris left behind by the install, or that HeatMapper overscribbled
one of the network drivers. I tried System Restore on one of the
laptops, but that didn't help. If I find a cause and/or fix, I'll
post it.
I kinda regret ever mentioning this free program, as it doesn't quite
do what it claims (broken algorithm?), and the install is at least
partially broken and possibly destructive.