[Battlemesh] [OpenWrt-Users] Tplink wr1043nd internal/external antenna configuration and detection
cmsv
cmsv at wirelesspt.net
Tue May 20 21:44:19 CEST 2014
Hello.
On 05/20/2014 06:29 AM, Fernando Frediani wrote:
> 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.
In this matter for example i get the driver stuck in certain settings:
# iwinfo adhoc0 txpowerlist
0 dBm ( 1 mW)
1 dBm ( 1 mW)
2 dBm ( 1 mW)
3 dBm ( 1 mW)
4 dBm ( 2 mW)
5 dBm ( 3 mW)
6 dBm ( 3 mW)
7 dBm ( 5 mW)
8 dBm ( 6 mW)
9 dBm ( 7 mW)
10 dBm ( 10 mW)
11 dBm ( 12 mW)
12 dBm ( 15 mW)
13 dBm ( 19 mW)
14 dBm ( 25 mW)
15 dBm ( 31 mW)
16 dBm ( 39 mW)
17 dBm ( 50 mW)
* 18 dBm ( 63 mW)
19 dBm ( 79 mW)
20 dBm ( 100 mW)
I cannot go above 18 unless i move to a higher channel like for example;
13. However is i start playing with txpower values and reboot several
times while still on channel 13; the txpower goes down to 19 and will
not go to 20. Sometimes only with re-flashing.
i am stuck at 18dbm for channel 9 and other channels also seem to
condition the txpower value.
wireless.radio0.channel=9
wireless.radio0.diversity=0
wireless.radio0.txpower=20
wireless.radio0.country=PT
# iwinfo adhoc0 freqlist
2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
2.417 GHz (Channel 2)
2.422 GHz (Channel 3)
2.427 GHz (Channel 4)
2.432 GHz (Channel 5)
2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
2.442 GHz (Channel 7)
2.447 GHz (Channel 8)
* 2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
2.457 GHz (Channel 10)
2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
2.467 GHz (Channel 12)
2.472 GHz (Channel 13)
> 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.
I agree. For about almost 2 months i was able to get the antenna working
properly and had 19 mbit links @ 2.4ghz, 500m away from 15dbi @ 19 dbm
to 24dbi @ 15 dbm directional antennas. However after a few reboots the
setup never worked again.
Now i cannot even get more than 4 to 5 SSID's in the same or even better
conditions.
For example; while changing txpower i was able to do changes from 5dbm
to 24dbm for testing; yet, nothing changed for the scan results. The
same 4 or 5 scan results that showed up at 5 dbm; were exactly the same
at 24 dbm with the exact same values.
This tells me that the router is either ignoring the antenna or the
software is broken somewhere.
> 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.
I did some testing changing the antennas and their values and the best
i got was using the first antenna or having diversity active.
I was able to get 7 ssid's but not for long. I would say that about a
minute later scan results went back to 4 to 5 ssid's.
I have another router which is also a tplink. wr 841nd (Atheros AR7240
rev 2) that may suffer for similar issues as i found quite a few results
very similar to the 1043nd
Here is another curious thing.
with iwinfo adhoc0 scan i get 4 ssid's
with iwlist adhoc0 scanning also 4 ssid's
with wavemon 6 to 8 ssid'
with horst 4 ssid's
and with iw adhoc0 survey dump 13 ssid's
Cannot be the hardware and i am open to suggestions and or
recommendations to solve this.
DISTRIB_REVISION="r40757"
> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> openwrt-users mailing list
>>> openwrt-users at lists.openwrt.org
>>> https://lists.openwrt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-users
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> openwrt-users mailing list
>>> openwrt-users at lists.openwrt.org
>>> https://lists.openwrt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-users
>
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