ANT Forum

Hi

I've been trying to see in AntWare2 the communication data that is sended from a Wahoo Key to a Ant+ device, but till now i can only see the communication coming from the device.

My channel ID configuration in AntWare2 is:
Channel Assignment: Slave
Device: 0
Device Type: 0
Transmission Type: 0
Radio Frequency ? 2457MHz

Shouldn't this configuration function like a Wildcard and enable me to see any incoming communication in the given frequency?      

Which type of device?
If it's a hrm, cadence sensor or similar device, the phone + Wahoo is a slave which does not transmit at all, but just receives data that are broadcast by the sensors.      

For debug proposes, i would like to "see" what my application is sending through the dongle when it transmits the link and authentication command and the download request.

In this situations, even if its configured as a slave, i believe the dongle transmits information in response of the broadcasts of the Master in the acknowledge (link, authentication) and burst modes (authentication, download).

If this is true i think i should be able to sniff this data through AntWare2 with the right configuration.

Shouldn't this configuration be sufficient to listen to any type of conversation in a given frequency?
Channel Assignment: Slave
Device: 0
Device Type: 0
Transmission Type: 0      

So you are talking about ANT-FS, right?      

Yes, the communication is made through ANT-FS protocol      

No, the configuration you described will only listen to one side of the conversation.
In order to listen to both sides, you need to configure it in Scanning Mode. Please refer to the application note AN14 Continuous Scanning Mode for Asynchronous Topologies for more details on this mode.
http://www.thisisant.com/pages/developer-zone/ant-application-notes

Keep in mind that you will need to configure it as Rx-only, otherwise, the "sniffing" device will interfere with the communication by acknowledging burst/ack packets.

Also, please be aware that we highly recommend looking at debug logs of the serial ANT/MCU communication of both sides of the link, instead of trying to use a third device as a sniffer, when trying to debug ANT-FS issues, for several reasons:
* interpreting the sniffed messages is not as straightforward, since all messages share the same channel ID, and the Rx-only scan mode cannot differentiate between broadcast, ack and burst packets.
* since this is a wireless system, what you see on the scanning node is not necessarily what you see on the two endpoints (i.e., seeing a packet from the master device in the scan node, does not necessarily mean it is seen by the slave, due to variability on the RF environment).

Developing against the PC client/host helps a lot as well. Validating each side of the link against the PC tools tends to provide much more useful information, and is a less tedious process.      

Sorry to jump in on such an old thread, but it is definitely the right place for my question.

I too am debugging some ANT-FS communication between two devices. I have followed this and many of the other "sniffing" related posts on the forum. I have configured ANTWareII for an Rx-only, continuous scanning channel. I see that indeed, in this configuration, the the dongle and ANTWareII do not interfere with the ANT-FS session b/w the other two devices. However, it also appears that in ANTWareII, I only get to see the broadcast packets. I never see any of the acknowledged message or burst packets that are sent between the other two devices. I am using a completely wildcarded (0,0,0) Channel ID so I should be able to see traffic from any device on the given frequency, but I only see broadcast packets from the client/master device and no packets from the host/slave device.

Is there another configuration I need to set to see all packets even in Rx-only mode?

Thanks,
Keith      

When using ANT in Rx only continuous scan mode, burst and acknowledged packets will be seen, however, they will appear as broadcast messages in the log (0x4E). This makes it less than ideal to sniff ANT-FS sessions.

If you are looking to troubleshoot an ANT-FS session, your best option is looking at the serial communication in each side of the link (the client and the host), as stated in the previous post. If you are trying to figure out how ANT-FS works or how a specific ANT-FS device works, it is best to refer to the ANT-FS technical specification and use the ANT-FS PC tools to interact with that particular device and explore its functionality.