If I receive a packet with XBee in API mode, which bytes give me the signal strength of this packet?

Question

Hi!

In the manual it says that the signal strength can be monitored on a packet-to-packet basis. Searching on the internet, I found that some bytes in the received packet contain the RSSI. Could you please tell me, which bytes contain the RSSI?

Answer 1

Hi,

It depends on the frame types and the protocol used.
For Example,
802.15.4(and in DigiMesh also) has few frames of type 0x83, 0x82, 0x81, 0x80, in these frames there is a RSSI field which indicates Received Signal Strength (dBm) of last received packet. But it is not applicable in ZigBee firmware (set to 0).

Comments

so how can you find RSSI in an API frame using ZigBee protocol/firmware? I've looked at all API frames for ZigBee, and none of them contains RSSI field.

Answer 2

You find such information by going through each packet format in the product manual at digi website.
The easiest way is to refer the following link, http://ftp1.digi.com/support/utilities/digi_apiframes2.htm , which gives all the API frames supported by Digi XBee modules. Just select the required Device Type and go through the each frames. In each frames there are predefined fields and in some frames you will find RSSI field.