What are all these scary terms, MHz, dBm, dBi etc.

When talking about Wireless you'll often hear expressions like "24 dBi" or
"2450 MHz". These are all units (like Miles, Kilometers, etc.) that we can use
mathematically to figure out how a wireless signal will perform.
Don't worry about the math part of it, but you should make note of these
terms:

Mega - Hertz, or one million hertz. This is the frequency a particular

radio works at. To put it in perspective, FM Radio operates between 88
MHz
MHz and 104 MHz, AM radio is down around 900 KHz, while 802.11b
is around 2450 MHz
dBi Decibels, this is used to express the amount of gain an antenna has
dBm

Also decibels, but this is used to express the amount of power a radio
has. dBm can be converted into Watts and Milliwatts

Approximately

dB is cool. Instead of saying "watts" (like, my stereo is 100 Watts of pure

Britney Spheres), we say "dBm" or "dBw" (decibles over a milliwatt, or
decibles over a watt). The reason why, is we can quickly tell how much signal
your node transmits and how far it can go.

dBm
dBm is an abbreviation for the power ratio in decibel (dB) of the measured power
referenced to one milliwatt (mW). It is used in radio, microwave and fiber optic work
as a convenient measure of absolute power because of its capability to express both
very large and very small values in a short form. dBm (or dBmW) and dBW are
independent of impedance (as opposed to dBV which is dependent, for example).
Since it is referenced to the watt, it is an absolute unit, used when measuring absolute
power. It should not be confused with dB, a dimensionless unit, which is used when
measuring the ratio between two values, such as signal-to-noise ratio.

Unit conversions
Zero dBm equals one milliwatt. A 3 dB increase represents roughly doubling the
power, which means that 3 dBm equals roughly 2 mW. For a 3 dB decrease, the power
is reduced by about one half, making 3 dBm equal to about 0.5 milliwatt. To express
an arbitrary power P as x dBm, or go in the other direction, the equations

and
,
respectively, should be used. Below is table summarizing useful cases:
dBm
Power
level
80 dBm
100000 W
60 dBm
1000 W
40 dBm
10 W
36 dBm
4W
30 dBm
1W
27 dBm
500 mW
26 dBm
400 mW
25 dBm
320 mW
24 dBm
250 mW
23 dBm
200 mW
22 dBm
160 mW
21 dBm
125 mW
20 dBm
100 mW
15 dBm
32 mW
10 dBm
10 mW
5 dBm
3.2 mW
4 dBm
2.5 mW
3 dBm
2.0 mW
2 dBm
1.6 mW
1 dBm
1.3 mW
0 dBm
1.0 mW
1 dBm
0.79 mW
5 dBm
0.32 mW
10 dBm
0.1 mW
20 dBm
0.01 mW
30 dBm
0.001 mW
40 dBm 0.0001 mW
50 dBm 0.00001 mW
60 dBm 0.000001 mW
0.0000001
70 dBm
mW

Notes
Typical transmission power of FM radio station
Typical RF power inside microwave oven

Typical RF leakage from microwave oven

Typical cellular phone transmission power

Bluetooth Class 1 radio, 100 m range

Bluetooth Class 2 radio, 10 m range

Bluetooth standard (Class 3) radio, 1 m range

Average range (60 to 80 dBm) of Wireless signal over a

network