CWNA General Information 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When calculating a link budget, which term describes the total signal loss between the transmitter output and receiver input excluding antenna gain?
- Free-space path loss (Correct answer)
- System operating margin
- Fade margin
- Path loss budget
Correct answer: Free-space path loss
Free-space path loss (FSPL) represents the attenuation of the signal as it travels through open space between the two antennas.
Question 2: Which 802.11 frame type is used by an access point to periodically announce its presence and capabilities?
- Probe Response
- Association Request
- Beacon (Correct answer)
- Authentication
Correct answer: Beacon
Beacon frames are management frames sent periodically by APs to advertise the BSS, SSID, supported rates, and other capabilities.
Question 3: What modulation technique does 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) introduce that was not present in 802.11ac?
- 64-QAM
- OFDM
- 1024-QAM (Correct answer)
- BPSK
Correct answer: 1024-QAM
802.11ax introduced 1024-QAM, encoding 10 bits per symbol compared to 256-QAM's 8 bits, increasing spectral efficiency.
Question 4: In RF terminology, what does 'dBi' measure?
- Antenna gain relative to a dipole antenna
- Antenna gain relative to an isotropic radiator (Correct answer)
- Transmitted power in decibels
- Received signal strength in milliwatts
Correct answer: Antenna gain relative to an isotropic radiator
dBi expresses antenna gain as decibels relative to a theoretical isotropic radiator that radiates equally in all directions.
Question 5: Which Wi-Fi Alliance certification program validates interoperability for WPA3 security?
- WPA3-Enterprise only
- WPA3-Personal only
- Both WPA3-Personal and WPA3-Enterprise (Correct answer)
- Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6
Correct answer: Both WPA3-Personal and WPA3-Enterprise
The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WPA3 program includes both Personal (SAE) and Enterprise (192-bit security) modes.
Question 6: What is the function of an SSID in an 802.11 wireless network?
- Uniquely identifies the access point by its MAC address
- Provides encryption keys for the BSS
- Serves as the logical name of the wireless network (Correct answer)
- Specifies the operating channel of the BSS
Correct answer: Serves as the logical name of the wireless network
The SSID is a case-sensitive alphanumeric string up to 32 bytes that serves as the human-readable name identifying a wireless network.
Question 7: How does 802.11ax OFDMA differ from the OFDM used in 802.11ac?
- OFDMA uses fewer subcarriers per channel
- OFDMA allows multiple users to transmit simultaneously on different subcarrier groups (Correct answer)
- OFDMA replaces OFDM subcarriers with spread spectrum
- OFDMA only works in the 6 GHz band
Correct answer: OFDMA allows multiple users to transmit simultaneously on different subcarrier groups
OFDMA divides a channel into resource units (RUs) that can be assigned to different users simultaneously, improving efficiency in dense environments.
CWNA General Information 3
When calculating a link budget, which term describes the total signal loss between the transmitter output and receiver input excluding antenna gain?