Capturing wifi management frames never sees frames with wlan.fc=0x0803

asked 2026-03-25 10:21:35 +0000

brianwyld gravatar image

Hi Capturing wifi traffc on windows PC using a netgear A6210. Putting this in 'monitor' mode with ofdm modulation allows me to get what looks like all traffic on a specific channel (all set using wlanhelper in npcap).

However, I cannot see any frames with the FC field with the toDA/fromDA fields set to values other than 0 specifically data frames with toDA=1, from DA=1. (ie filter wlan.fc==0x803)

I _know_ that there are such frames on the air because my embedded device that I am developing is sending them (nrf5340/nrf7002 combo). If the device sets fc=0800 (ie toDA/fromDA=0) then wireshark sees the frames. If it sets fc=0803 then no frames... A cisco AP is able to see these frames, as is wireshark on a MAC (sadly neither of these are in my office...)

What am I doing wrong that I can't see these specific frames?

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