Fake beacon detection in relation to active vs passive modes

[ipcctv]

Hi. I'm after a pointer (or two) please.
I was trying to elicit a response to a Huawei P20 Lite by beaconing to it with your spammer on the NodeMCU using the SSID it was expecting to see when at home. However, I saw behaviour I dont understand.

At home and connected to WiFi, I see all the fake SSIDs. When I go out of range but with the spammer, I cant see any fake SSIDs. This is the same from two Huawei phone models. P20 and P30 Lite.

When I return in range and my phone connects to the real AP, I then sees all the fake ones. This seems crazy to me but I'm hoping you can explain. I tried this with wpa2 set to true and false.

My aim is, to wake up a phone where I know one or more of the SSIDs it has stored away. Samsung S4 and S8 phones seem to beacon out in the active fashion and so dont present the problem I'm wanting to solve. Many thanks in advance.

[ipcctv]

Hold that thought... The ESP8266 may not be switching on reliably? It seemed to not work and then work after a power reset of the device? Apologies for now.