From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7)
Gecko/20040706 Firefox/0.9.1

Description of problem:
While connected to a very weak WAP signal from another building, the
wireless applet nevertheless indicates signal strength near 100%. 
WinXP reports the same signal as "very weak" and wavemon reports s/n
ratios in the single digits.

Disabling the interface leaves the last measured percentage instead of
switching to "N/A".

What is actually being displayed, anyway?  Signal strength as a
percentage of what?

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gnome-applets-2.6.2.1-1

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install and enable wireless applet
2. Connect to a WAP at long distance and watch the signal strength meter.
3. Toggle the wireless interface between up and down.
    

Actual Results:  Signal strength meter indicates "very strong" signal
(90-100%).

When the link is disabled, a percentage still shows in the signal
strength field and "WiFi" still shows in the status box, but is not
updated.

Expected Results:  Signal strength meter should indicate "very weak
signal" (not quite sure what's appropriate).  Disabling the interface
should change the status to indicated that I'm not connected.

Additional info:

On my home netowork, where I'm within about 30 feet of my WAP, signal
strength is in the 70-90% range.