A city hall RF engineer sees the noise floor on channel 6 climb after facilities installs a new break-room microwave. Which spectrum approach best confirms a non-Wi-Fi interferer instead of blaming co-channel APs?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Think of the microwave like a noisy leaf blower that isn't speaking Wi-Fi — spectrum tools hear the racket even when APs look fine. FFT plus waterfall and duty cycle show that swept, non-OFDM energy tracking the oven, not another BSS. Blaming CCI or cranking power skips that signature check.
Full Explanation
Microwave ovens typically produce broadband, swept energy in the 2.4 GHz band that is not an 802.11 OFDM PHY signature. Expert triage uses real-time FFT for amplitude-versus-frequency, waterfall/spectrogram for time evolution, and duty-cycle/utilization views to quantify airtime occupied by that energy. Raising AP power or adding SSIDs does not remove non-Wi-Fi energy that raises the noise floor and busy medium, and disabling APs alone does not classify the interferer.