AirHORN

AirHORN turns the Wireless Toolbox into a controllable Wi-Fi signal generator — an on-demand source of channel load. Pick a band, an output power and a pattern, and it fills the air with 802.11 traffic.

It is for stress-testing and troubleshooting. It answers the question: how bad does it get — and does my setup survive it?

AirHORN is a transmitter. It slows down other networks on the channel it uses. Run it only on networks you own or are authorized to test, and follow your local RF regulations.

Getting started

Open AirHORN from the menu. It opens paused — nothing is transmitted until you say so.
Choose the Band (2.4 GHz or 5 GHz), the Output power (2 to 18 dBm) and the Mode.
Press TRANSMIT. The button changes to STOP (transmitting); press it to stop.

The badge in the title bar reads PAUSED, or TRANSMITTING with the channel in use, so you can always see whether it is on the air.

Modes

Mode	What it does
Single	Transmits continuously on one channel you choose.
Traverse	Cycles through every channel in the band, staying on each for 5 seconds (Fast) or 30 seconds (Slow) before moving on.
Pulse	On one channel, transmits in bursts: on for the number of seconds you set, off for the number you set, repeating.

Non-DFS channels only: 1–11 on 2.4 GHz; 36–48 and 149–165 on 5 GHz.

What it does to the channel

The Wireless Toolbox's Wi-Fi adapter sends frames as fast as the channel allows, so nearby devices keep finding the channel busy and have to wait their turn. It still listens before it talks, like any Wi-Fi device, so it behaves like a very greedy neighbour rather than a jammer — a realistic worst-case load.

What it is for

Reproduce a “slow Wi-Fi” complaint so that you can measure it.
See how an access point and its clients cope when a channel is saturated.
Check whether devices roam, or fail over, under pressure.
Lay down a known, repeatable load while you observe the network under test.

The Wireless Toolbox runs one tool at a time, so it cannot generate load with AirHORN and measure with another of its own tools at the same moment.

Menu (⋮)

Save as PDF — see below.
About — version information.

The ☰ button (top-left) returns to the Wireless Toolbox menu. Leaving the tool stops the transmission.

Save as PDF

The ⋮ menu (top-right) has Save as PDF. It captures the tool exactly as shown and writes one file to your device’s Downloads folder, named with the tool and a timestamp, e.g. AirHORN 2026-08-13 14.32.05.pdf. Every save is timestamped, so nothing is overwritten.