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

cmsv cmsv at wirelesspt.net
Thu Dec 3 18:21:30 CET 2015


Any development in regards to this issue and either barrier breaker or
chaos calmer ?


On 05/20/2014 06:29 AM, Fernando Frediani wrote:
> Hi Csmv,
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> The behaviour 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 without 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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> openwrt-users mailing list
>>> openwrt-users at lists.openwrt.org
>>> https://lists.openwrt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-users

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