Chanalyzer 3.3 has been going strong for a year now, and the last update in September fixed the few outstanding bugs that caused crashes. The past few months we’ve been heads-down on the next version of Chanalyzer, but there were a few features that we wanted to get in the hands of users now so we took a break from working on the next version to work on Chanalyzer 3.4. Here’s a quick overview of what’s new… let us know what you think!

New Start Page

The start page was completely redesigned for easier access to sample recordings and news from MetaGeek (like this blog post). We’ve also included a dozen recordings that showcase the capabilities of Wi-Spy DBx, Wi-Spy 2.4x, and Wi-Spy 900x.

Average Power

Every once in a while we get a request for calculating the average using power instead of amplitude. While we were in the middle of the Chanalyzer 3.4 update we received a very detailed email from Ric, who owns a Wi-Spy 2.4x, describing why average power calculations were useful… so we decided to investigate the issue further. The result of this investigation and phone calls with Ric, is that Chanalyzer 3.4 now calculates the average using power (mW) instead of amplitude (dBm). This provides a more accurate average amplitude value.

Wi-Fi Report

The Markers table in the Inspector tab also includes a duty cycle column to compare the average power to the max power for each frequency point. The Wi-Fi and Zigbee Reports have also been updated to use the average power calculation and new duty cycle calculations.