An engineer is deploying new APs to serve IEEE 802.11g through 802.11ac clients and wants to use the Ekahau Site Survey tool to verify RF coverage. Management wants the engineer to verify and create…

Passive survey mode in Ekahau captures beacons and probe responses without associating to any AP, which is considerably faster than active mode because there is no connection setup overhead at each survey point. Using two wireless adapters allows one adapter to simultaneously scan the 2.4-GHz band for 802.11g clients while the second scans the 5-GHz band for 802.11ac clients, completing coverage verification for both bands in a single walk-through. This combination directly satisfies management's requirement to generate coverage maps as quickly as possible across all required client types.

A single adapter in passive mode can only monitor one band at a time, requiring two separate survey passes to cover both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, which takes approximately twice as long as using two adapters.

Active mode requires the adapter to associate to each AP and transmit test traffic before moving to the next location, adding significant time per survey point compared to passive listening.

Active mode with one adapter is the slowest option because it combines the overhead of AP association at each point with the inability to scan both bands simultaneously, making it the least efficient choice for rapid dual-band coverage mapping.