[Battlemesh] [OpenWrt-Users] Tplink wr1043nd internal/external antenna configuration and detection

[Fernando Frediani]

Hi Csmv,
Thanks for the reply.

The behavior that you are describing is exactly what I get here. 
Sometimes I get one result at the setup time and sometimes while running 
(or at reboot) I get another wihtout any change on the configuration. 
Also same thing about the sensitiveness and output power which seems to 
vary.
I wouldn't think this is a hardware issue, but a software issue. For me 
it seems that it simply doesn't obey the commands, or it changes the 
antenna settings by itself for some unknown reason.

Answering your question "antenna 7" are all three antennas. The number 
you see in front of Available and Configured Antennas is the translation 
to a binary number. So for example 7 = 111 (all three antenas up) , 4 = 
100 (the first antenna in the left) , 1 = 001 (the third antenna), and 
so on.

Would someone be able to confirm they have similar results with their 
units and where to look for a possible fix ?

Thanks
Best regards,

Fernando

On 20/05/2014 04:38, cmsv wrote:
> Hello
>
>
> On 03/11/2014 08:54 PM, Fernando Frediani wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> Hopefully this is a easy one for you.
>>
>> I've got a TL-1043ND running Barrier Breaker (r39440). This router has 3
>> detachable antennas and I have removed all of them in order to be able
>> to use an external Sectorial antenna to reach a few other points in a
>> mid-range distance.
>> I have connected this Sectorial antenna to one of the RP-SMA connectors
>> and left the other two without.
>>
>> On the /etc/config/wireless I'm using the following relevant lines:
>>
>>          option diversity '0'
>>          option rxantenna '0x1'
>>          option txantenna '0x1'
>>
>> Which supposedly means it will only use that antenna port. Or if I want
>> to use the use the 3rd antenna port '0x4'.
> I have one one these routers and at some point i had a similar problem
> that i thought i had solved.
>
> system type		: Atheros AR9132 rev 2
> machine			: TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND
>
> For the longest time and with AA r39154 i was only able to get 4 or 5
> results when scanning for ssid's using a 15 dbi omni antenna.
>
> Since the router was and is in a very far remote location i was only
> able to play with the physical setup about 3 months ago.
>
> While playing with the configuration and having the router physically
> using the omni antenna with rp-sma connector number 2 (middle one) i did
> not get better results. I tried to change to connector 3 and also no
> better results until i moved it to connector 1 (counting from the left
> when you have the router front facing you).
>
> While setting it with connector number 1 and adjusting the configuration
> i was able to get 22 SSID's and so i though the problem was solved.
> About less than 2 months and without any other changes; the router went
> by itself to the previous bad performance and was detecting only about 4
> or 5 ssid's.
>
> At the time the setup was :
> Configured Antennas: TX 0x1 RX 0x1
>
> While:
> Available Antennas: TX 0x7 RX 0x7
>
>
> Strangely it did work quite well for a while even tho it showed that the
> available antenna was not the one configured.
>
> However it did not last long and i have been trying to figure out why it
> stopped being able to detect those 22 ssdi's and why i don't see it
> working as well as before when it gave me 22 ssid scan results.
>
> According to:
> ~# iw phy phy0 info | grep -i ant
> 	Available Antennas: TX 0x7 RX 0x7
> 	Configured Antennas: TX 0x7 RX 0x7
>
> 0x7 is the same as wireless.radio0.txantenna=7 which is not 1, 2 or 3.
> or am i wrong ? Where exactly is antenna 7 ?
>
> My first question is: which antenna is this one ? Any of the 3 rp-sma
> connectors ?
>
> Changing wireless.radio0.diversity on and off also does not seem to help
> or change anything.
>
> Recently i updated the firmware to r40757 and there was no improvement.
>
> I also find it very odd that a nearby access point is able to detect
> this AP with SNR of 40 dbm while from the 1043nd side i only detect the
> other access point with 5 ~ 9 dbm SNR.
>
> To me this tells me that TX and RX is not working well for the 1043nd
>
> Can someone shed some light into this from their own experience or are
> these builds broken ?
>
>
>> Is it the correct way of using external antennas on these types of
>> routers ? Does using it in this way make sure there is no loss of signal
>> via the other ports ?
>> Or must the other two ports have some type of antenna even if it's a
>> different type like the original Omnis ?
>> Anyone had a similar experience and can help clarifying it ?
>>
>> Thanks and best regards,
>> Fernando
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>>
>>
>>
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