[Battlemesh] [OpenWrt-Users] Tplink wr1043nd internal/external antenna configuration and detection
Gui Iribarren
gui at altermundi.net
Tue May 20 22:09:07 CEST 2014
On 20/05/14 16:44, cmsv wrote:
> 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
.....................^^^^^^
(assuming that's not a typo on your part)
"survey dump" doesn't list ssid's, but instead physical channel status data.
You are seeing 13 "chunks" of information, one for each 2.4ghz channel
(just another 2 cents)
>
> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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