Milton Kazmeyer has worked in the insurance, financial and manufacturing fields and also served as a federal contractor. He began his writing career in 2007 and now works full-time as a writer and transcriptionist. His primary fields of expertise include computers, astronomy, alternative energy sources and the environment.

Network Analyzers are frequently used for measuring filters, making them extremely valuable for building radios and general mucking about with RF. They are, however, extremely expensive. You can, however, build one in an Altoids tin with an Arduino Nano, a small screen, and an AD9850 frequency synthesis module picked up on eBay.

The basic idea behind a network analyzer is to feed a frequency into a device, and measure the amplitude coming out of the device, and plot this relationship over a frequency. [Bill Meara] has been a human network analyzer before, changing frequencies and plotting the output of devices under test by hand. [DuWayne] (KV4QB) build a device to automate the entire process.

The block diagram is easy enough – an AD9850 sends a signal to the device, and this is measured by the Arduino with a small amplifier. The signal is measured again when it comes back from the device under test, and all this is plotted on a small display. Simple, and [DuWayne] is getting some very good readings with a lowpass filter and crystal filter made on a small solderless breadboard.

[Steven Merrifield] built his own Scalar Network Analyzer and it’s a beauty! [Steve]’s SNA has a digital pinout matching a Raspberry Pi, but any GPIO could be used to operate the device and retrieve the data from the ADC. The design is based around a few tried and true chips from Analog Devices. He’s taken some care to design it to be nice and accurate which is why he’s limited it to 1kHz to 30Mhz. We think it’s quite a fetching board once the shielding is in place.

We’ve covered network analyzers and their usefulness before. If you want to know how, for example, a mystery capacitor from your junk bin will respond to certain frequencies, a network analyzer could tell you. We’ve even taken a stab at hacking together our own.

There is more documentation on his website as well as some additional example curves. The board is easily ordered from OSHpark and the source code is available for review.

Windows 10 offers an inbuilt Network Sniffer Tool — PktMon.exe — to monitor internal packet propagation and packet drop reports. This tool can help you snoop around. The network and help you resolve the cause of network latency, identify impacted applications, and, when used with an additional set of tools, can provide insight into top metrics. In this post, we will show how you can use the new Network Sniffer Tool (PktMon.exe) in Windows 10.

PktMon.exe or Packet Monitor is the new network sniffer or network diagnostic and packet monitoring tool. It is located in the Systems folder, which means you can invoke it from the Run or Command Prompt or PowerShell.

If the program reminds you about Netsh Trace Command, then you are right. Netsh Trace command helps you to enable and configure network tracing to assist you when troubleshooting network connectivity problems.

What can PktMon can do?

If you run PktMon.exe Help on the command prompt. Here is what you get:

• filter: Manage packet filters.
• comp: Manage registered components.
• reset: Reset counters to zero.
• start: Start packet monitoring.
• stop: Stop monitoring.
• format: Convert log file to text.
• unload: Unload PktMon driver.

And if you want further help on a specific command, then you can run help against that command. Here is how it looks like:

pktmon filter help

pktmon filter { list | add | remove } [OPTIONS | help]

Commands
list Display active packet filters.
add Add a filter to control which packets are reported.
remove Removes all filters.

PktMon.exe also comes with real-time monitoring and support for the PCAPNG file format.

Read: How to enable and test DNS over HTTPS in Windows 10.

How to use PktMon to monitor network traffic

Here is an example of how to use it with a simple example.

1. Create a Filter to monitor a port
2. Start Monitoring
3. Export Log into a readable format

This example is assuming that you want to monitor a port number on the computer, which might be having issues often.

1. Create a Filter

The primary option which allows you to monitor traffic is —filter. Using this option, you can create a filter to control which packets are reported based on Ethernet Frame, IP header, TCP header, and Encapsulation. If you run the below-mentioned program, you will get full details on what you can do with the filter.

pktmon filter add help

So coming back to our topic, let’s assume that we are going to monitor TCP port no 1088. It can be a port used by your custom application, which is crashing, and PktMon can help you figure out if the network is the problem.

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell with admin privileges

Create a packet filter using the command: “pktmon filter add -p [port]”

pktmon filter add -p 1088

You can then run the command “pktmon filter list” to see a list of added filters.

To remove all the filters run the command “pktmon filter remove”

2. Start Monitoring

Since this is not an automated program running in the background but works on-demand, you need to start monitoring manually. Run the following command to start monitoring packets

pktmon start --etw - p 0

It will start the monitoring and created a log file at the mentioned location. You will have to manually stop using the “stop” argument to stop the logging, or it will end when the computer shuts down. If you run the command with “-p 0” then it will only capture 128 bytes of a packet.

Log filename: C:\Windows\system32\PktMon.etl
Logging mode: Circular
Maximum file size: 512 MB

3. Export Log into a readable format

The log file is saved into PktMon.ETL file which can be converted into a human-readable format using the following command

pktmon format PktMon.etl -o port-monitor-1088.txt

Having done that, while you open the file in notepad, and read it, to make sense, you will have to use the Microsoft Network Monitor. It can directly read the ETL file.

That said, Microsoft is expected to start rolling out support for real-time monitoring, which was expected in Windows 10 2004 – but I do not see that that option yet.

Related read: Free Packet Sniffing Tools for Windows 10.

The Amazon Basics Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker is part of the Wireless & Bluetooth Speakers test program at Consumer Reports. In our lab tests, Wireless & Bluetooth Speakers models like the Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker are rated on multiple criteria, such as those listed below.

Sound quality Sound quality represents the speaker systems tonal accuracy and ability to reproduce fine sonic detail. Sound quality judgments are made with the system optimized using its own tone controls and/or pre-set tone settings (if any) adjusted for the most balanced sound.

Ease of use Ease of use indicates how easy it is to set up the system and use controls on the speaker and/or it's remote control.

Versatility Versatility score is based on the presence or absence of useful features.

Kevin Maloney, vice president of worldwide sales at Check Point, left the Redwood City, Calif.-based security vendor last Friday and took a new role as executive vice president of worldwide sales at Network General on July 11.

The departure marks the second executive defection for Check Point in about a month. Chief Marketing Officer Ken Fitzpatrick left the company at the beginning of June, a few months after he joined. A Check Point spokesperson said the company is seeking candidates for both positions.

Greg Hanchin, a principal at DirSec, a Denver-based security integrator and Check Point partner, said he's unfazed by the executive departures. Over the last five years, Check Point's training, sales and channel have been consistent at the local field level, regardless of the senior managment in place, he said.

In his first press interview since joining Network General, Maloney told CRN Thursday that the combination of the vendor's strong Sniffer brand, hefty research and development investments, loyal customer base and strong executive team created an opportunity that was too good to pass up.

"Check Point was good to me but this opportunity with an established brand, growth and a strong management team, I'm pretty excited about it," Maloney said.

Maloney joined Check Point in 2004, where he led the vendor's channel and distribution strategy. He previously spent 28 years with IBM "in and out of the channel" in sales positions within Big Blue's PC and data management businesses.

At Network General, Maloney replaces Jim Flatley, who previously headed sales for the company. The position has been open for several months, a spokeswoman said.

Maloney said he hopes to use his channel experience to help grow the percentage of Network General's U.S. business that goes through the channel. The San Jose, Calif.-based application and network performance analysis vendor gains about half of its U.S. revenue through the channel, with 100 percent of overseas sales going indirect, he said..

"The power of the channel is that if you give a good value proposition, which I believe we do, you can leverage the channel sales team," Maloney said.

Over the next few weeks, Maloney plans to meet with Network General's partners to get a better handle on the positives and negatives of its channel strategy and determine his goals for program.

The sales executive change comes a few months ahead of a planned product launch. Network General is preparing to launch new technology in September, he said.

Network General was formed in 2004 after McAfee sold its Sniffer network management business.

KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN contributed to this story.

Need help remembering all your passwords? There are many 3rd party software programs designed to help you store and manage your passwords and login IDs, therefore making it easier to setup unique and strong passwords for each individual account. However, if you choose to use one, be aware of the following security warnings:

• A password manager is only as secure as the strength of the master password.
• Use a different password for your password manager than the ones you use to login to BC services.

Recommended Products & Support

Although these products are not officially supported by BC, ITS Security has reviewed and approved the following products for personal and work use. If you choose to use one of these services, please note that all support should be from the vendor or online community, and not ITS Support. Please note: ITS Security does not recommend the use of Password Manager “browser add-ons.”

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