CWAP-404: Certified Wireless Analysis Professional

The most likely cause of higher airtime utilization on the first 20 MHz of the 80 MHz channel is non-Wi-Fi interference. Non-Wi-Fi interference can prevent an AP from using its full channel width, as it will degrade the signal quality and increase the noise floor on some parts of the channel. This will force the AP to fall back to a narrower channel width, such as 20 MHz or 40 MHz, to maintain communication with its clients. The waterfall plot can help identify non-Wi-Fi interference by showing spikes or bursts of RF energy on specific frequencies or sub-channels. The other options are not correct, as they do not explain why only the first 20 MHz of the channel has higher airtime utilization.Reference:[Wireless Analysis Professional Study Guide], Chapter 3: Spectrum Analysis, page 74-75

The CRC is calculated over the MAC Header and Frame Body only. The CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) is a 32-bit value that is used for error detection in wireless transmissions. The CRC is calculated over the MAC Header and Frame Body of a PSDU, which are the parts of the data unit that contain information such as source and destination addresses, frame type, frame control, sequence number, payload, etc. The CRC is appended to the end of the PSDU as a FCS (Frame Check Sequence) field. The CRC is not calculated over the PHY Header or PHY Preamble, which are parts of the PPDU that contain information such as modulation, coding, data rate, etc. The PHY Header and PHY Preamble are added or removed by the PHY layer during the conversion between PSDU and PPDU.Reference:[Wireless Analysis Professional Study Guide CWAP-404], Chapter 4: 802.11 Physical Layer, page 97-98

The configured Minimum Basic Rate (MBR) of a BSS can be identified by looking at the Supported Rates and Extended Supported Rates elements in a Beacon frame. A Beacon frame is a type of management frame that is transmitted by an AP to advertise its presence and capabilities to potential clients. A Beacon frame contains various information elements (IEs) that provide details about the BSS configuration and operation. The Supported Rates and Extended Supported Rates IEs list the data rates that are supported by the AP for data transmission. The MBR is the lowest data rate among these supported rates that is required for all clients to join and communicate with the BSS. The MBR is usually marked with a flag bit in these IEs to indicate its mandatory status. The other options are not correct, as they do not exist or do not indicate the MBR of a BSS.Reference:[Wireless Analysis Professional Study Guide CWAP-404], Chapter 5: 802.11 MAC Sublayer, page 123-124

The channel number is not transmitted in an HT PPDU header. An HT PPDU header is a part of the PPDU that contains information such as modulation, coding, data rate, and number of spatial streams for an 802.11n transmission. The channel number is not included in the HT PPDU header, as it is determined by the frequency band and channel width that are used by the transmitter and receiver. The channel number can be inferred from the frequency band and channel width, which are indicated by bits in different fields of the HT PPDU header, such as HT-SIG and HT-LTF. The other options are not correct, as they are transmitted in an HT PPDU header. The number of spatial streams, PPDU length, and MCS index are indicated by bits in the HT-SIG field of the HT PPDU header.Reference:[Wireless Analysis Professional Study Guide CWAP-404], Chapter 4: 802.11 Physical Layer, page 108-109

A hexadecimal value is a value that uses base 16 notation, which means it can have digits from 0 to 9 and letters from A to F. A hexadecimal value is usually preceded by 0x to indicate that it is hexadecimal and not decimal or binary. For example, 0x0A is hexadecimal for 10 in decimal or 00001010 in binary. The other options are not valid prefixes for hexadecimal values.

Reference:

CWAP-404 Study Guide, Chapter 2: Protocol Analysis, page 35

CWAP-404 Objectives, Section 2.2: Analyze field values

The FFT plot is a spectrum analysis plot that shows the RF power present at a particular frequency over a short period of time. It can help identify the sources and characteristics of RF signals in the spectrum. By looking at the FFT plot, you can determine which ZigBee channels are used by the lighting system and whether they overlap with the WLAN channels in the 2.4 GHz band. ZigBee channels are 5 MHz wide and WLAN channels are 20 MHz or 40 MHz wide, so there is a possibility of overlap and interference between them. The other questions cannot be answered by looking at the FFT plot alone, as they require other types of plots or analysis tools, such as duty cycle plot, airtime utilization plot, or protocol analyzer.Reference:[Wireless Analysis Professional Study Guide], Chapter 3: Spectrum Analysis, page 69-70