wireless signal strength reported as extremely high when it should be extremely low

[audiophyl]

This can be observed both through iwlist and NM.

A wireless network's signal strength is the difference between the signal level and the noise level in dBm.

This is one of the current networks listed through use of 'iwlist ath0 scanning':

          Cell 03 - Address: 00:19:2F:A0:53:50
                    ESSID:""
                    Mode:Master
                    Frequency:2.422 GHz (Channel 3)
                    Quality=195/70 Signal level=-156 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=100

The quality is being reported as 195/70, but in reality should effectively be 0.

In cases where the signal strength is one less than the noise level (ex. signal=-96dBm, noise=-95dBm), the signal is reported as 255/70 and the Network Manager will indicate full signal strength for the access point. Methinks the 255 is a dead giveaway...

[audiophyl (audiophyl)]

Ubuntu 8.10, 2.6.27-9-generic, fully updated as of Mon Dec 8 18:47:22 CST 2008

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in WIRELESS-TOOLS.
For future reference you might be interested to know that a lot of applications have bug reporting functionality built in to them. This can be accessed via the Report a Problem option in the Help menu for the application with which you are having an issue. You can learn more about this feature at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.