[TG] [TG11] Miracast with the Axiom Pro

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello George,

I've been looking at this some more, and am more convinced now that Wifi bandwidth is the likely cause of what you're seeing, but that getting a representative measure of Wifi signal level isn't quite trivial.

I have measured my signal level using the graph function of the Wifi Analyzer app, looking at the signal level from the MFD's access point on the phone as a proxy for Miracast signal level, and looking at the average signal level over a period of several minutes, and with the Settings > Scan Interval at L0. I found that:

• Momentary losses of signal level can be frequent depending on receiver location
• very small changes in the location of the receiver (centimetres or less) can result in big changes in signal level (5...10dBm, or up to a 10-fold change in signal power)
• The MS-WDA's Wifi antenna appears to be in the USB-connected half of of the interface, not the HDMI end, so that's the bit that needs to have a good signal level
• It seems as if one of the TVs I was using for testing might be noisy in the 2.4GHz band at very close range, which led to degraded signal level and performance when connected to that TV
• It looks like the Axiom and Microsoft Wireless Display Adaptor need a constant signal level of around -60dBm or better in order to get a good picture of a 'busy', hard-to-compress screen image. Lower signal levels give pixellated images, pauses for buffering and the like.
  

I'd suggest checking the signal level as I have and seeing what you get, and seeing whether you can improve that signal level by moving the Wifi/USB end of the MS-WDA into a higher-signal location using a USB extension cable, remembering that even a few centimetres of movement can give a significant change in signal level. Signal levels aren't predictable either, I saw higher signal with my phone on top of the TV behind a partition wall than in clear air with direct line-of-sight to the MFD.

Finally - it does seem that there are some inconsistencies about the MS-WDA and PIN access on the MFD, where the WDA and MFD are requiring a PIN even though PIN is turned off in the WDA's setup, and I wonder if some of the re-connection issues are a stale PIN being retained by the MFD. I'll keep on looking into this. Perhaps the MS adaptor isn't the best one for Axiom.

Tom