This last week I needed to bridge a cpe on 900mhz. I decided to give RC2 a try and use the pseudobridge function a try and found some interesting things.
My ap is bridged using 2.9.46 so I set up a test in my office using a 532a configured like my ap. An rb150 functioned as a router for the bridged AP.
I then setup a rb133c as my cpe. Setting the cpe as a normal cpe with nat I checked that it would associate and talk to the tower router on 900mhz. That worked though signal level report was horrible. That didn’t bother me too much since all I had were pigtails attached to the radio’s, no antennas. Ping times through the link were not good.
The rb133c was then upgraded to RC2 and set to pseudo bridge and bridging set up. The cpe and ap would not associate and the cpe ran extremely slow as I tried to work with it in Winbox or termnial. Winbox kept disconnecting, usually when I tried to move from one window to another. So I set the cpe back to just a router, no nat or dhcp and could access the unit though still slower than normal.
However the cpe would not associate to the AP. Running a scan on the cpe showed nothing. Running a scan on the AP ( .46) to my surprise that 900mhz ap listed my office 2.4 router. Since mikrotik put a patch in 2.9.x to make 900mhz work, I assume it is a software issue but I still wouldn’t have thought a 900mhz radio would have seen a 2.4. I then upgraded the AP to RC2 and left it set a ap-bridge mode with ether and wan bridged.
With both the cpe and AP on RC2, the cpe then associated and I could pass traffic through it. The cpe was then configured for pseudobridge and that worked. Scanning on the cpe now showed the AP. Scanning on the AP no longer showed my 2.4 router. Signal level was now very good and ping times were very good.
Trying to add NAT and dhcp back into the cpe was impossible as access to the cpe became slower and slower. Memory and cpu use on the cpe were reasonable.
The only firewall rules I had setup in both were a few input rules, nothing else. I downgraded both the AP and the cpe back to 2.9.46 and everything worked well except pseudobridge of course which doesn’t exist in that version.
So this tells me a few things and leaves me with questions about 900mhz.
First of all the difference in what the ap saw on .46 and RC2 leaves me to wonder if it ever operated correctly in .46.
The difference in signal levels between the two versions would seem to indicate either they were reported incorrectly or the SR9 was not being driven correctly.
With performance increase and signal levels apparently better in RC2, that would tell me all of my previous field tests of 900mhz on 9.x are now invalid.
The issue of not being able to set up the cpe with nat and dhcp in either station or pseudomode on RC2 makes me wonder if there is a problem with the software or if the 133c is just not going to be able to handle version 3 software.
Anyone have any thoughts or comments?
tk