Cautions and Advisories

Cisco Spectrum Expert technology has been designed as a safe, reliable, user-friendly tool for advanced spectrum monitoring. There are, however, a handful of actions which can inadvertently cause difficulties with using Cisco Spectrum Expert technology. There are also some environmental factors beyond your control which can cause unexpected behaviors.

Read the list of cautions and advisories below and the appropriate sections of this guide in advance to make the most effective (and trouble-free) use of this technology.

•Installation—Be sure to install the Cisco Spectrum Expert Software on your laptop before inserting the Cisco Spectrum Expert Sensor Wi-Fi (Sensor card) into your laptop's PCMCIA slot. See Installing the Cisco Spectrum Expert Software for more information.

•Disconnecting the external antenna from the Sensor card—You can achieve increased reception sensitivity for RF signals by attaching an external antenna to the Sensor card. However, the connector on the Sensor card is relatively fragile. Therefore, care must be taken when disconnecting the antenna in order to avoid physical damage to the Sensor card and the antenna. See Removing the External Antenna for more information.

•Using 802.11 Broadcast Technology with Cisco Spectrum Expert Software—Cisco Spectrum Expert Software is designed specifically to monitor the RF spectrum in the bands used by 802.11 technology—the broadcast technology used for wireless computer networks.

If you are using Cisco Spectrum Expert Software, the technology will not function correctly if the laptop where you have installed Cisco Spectrum Expert Software and inserted the Sensor card is also broadcasting its own signals in the Wi-Fi bands.

Your Cisco Spectrum Expert laptop cannot be part of a Wi-Fi network—that is, it cannot be connected to a Wi-Fi access point or ad-hoc network, while you are running Cisco Spectrum Expert Software. There are also limitations on using certain other network monitoring technologies on the same laptop which hosts Cisco Spectrum Expert Software.

Note If the Sensor card is installed but you are not actually running Cisco Spectrum Expert, it is okay to allow the laptop to participate in a network.

See Using Cisco Spectrum Expert With Other Onboard Laptop Technologies for more information.

•If you are not seeing any data or not seeing expected data—Certain peculiarities of the RF behavior can sometimes result in Cisco Spectrum Expert Software not showing any data or not showing expected data (such as not displaying any device information for a device which you know is out there). Failure to see data can also result from Cisco Spectrum Expert hardware not being installed correctly. See What If I'm Not Seeing Any Data? for more information.