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Wireless & Mobility · Advanced

Radiotap Header

A pseudo-header added by capture drivers that records RF metadata such as channel, data rate, and signal strength.

Definition

Radiotap is not transmitted over the air; the capturing radio prepends it to each frame. It includes fields such as antenna signal (dBm), noise, channel frequency, MCS, and flags. Older captures may use PPI or AVS headers.

Exam tip

Signal strength in a capture comes from radiotap, not from the 802.11 frame.

Related terms