Instead, it's useful to locate the direction that the signal is broadcasting with a highly directional antenna, like a Yagi, panel, or parabolic grid antenna. Its pattern allows excellent reception from a nearby Wi-Fi network from nearly any direction, but it also makes it difficult to tell what direction a signal is coming from. The problem with that approach is that it uses an omnidirectional antenna, which has a radiation field that resembles a doughnut. Don't Miss: Create Packets from Scratch with Scapy for Scanning & DoSing.However, it can be pretty inaccurate due to the way Wi-Fi bounces off walls and other obstacles. By walking around with a device that can display the signal strength, like a smartphone, it's possible to observe when you get further and closer to a targeted broadcast.

The tracking of radio signals isn't new, but for a beginner looking to localize the source of a Wi-Fi network, the options may at first seem limited. Whatever it is, signal hunting can help you locate Wi-Fi client devices, meaning you can use it to track down the location of rogue devices that suddenly appear on your WI-Fi network. Don't Miss: Hack 5 GHz Wi-Fi Networks with an Alfa Wi-Fi Adapter.It could be a suspicious rogue access point that appears at your place of work, a new network with a strong signal that shows up at your home, or a Wi-Fi hotspot from a smartphone that seems unusually close and strong. If you've ever seen a Wi-Fi network that doesn't belong, you might wonder if there is a way to track down where it's coming from. By sweeping the antenna back and forth, we can easily discover which direction the signal is coming from by looking for spikes in signal strength on the graph. Using a directional Wi-Fi antenna and Wireshark, we can create a display filter to target any device in range to plot the signal strength on a graph. If you've ever wanted to track down the source of a Wi-Fi transmission, doing so can be relatively easy with the right equipment.

Wifi antenna aiming