Audience mesh - Setting up

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

To my existing Audience, which I’ve been using ok with all 3 wlan networks, I’ve decided to add another Audience (A2) that I plan to connect to the 1st one (A1) via Ethernet - I’m connecting it via Ethernet instead on the dedicated wlan3 because the area that I need it covered by A2 has some weird interference (most probably due to the apartment that is adjacent to ours) and only the 2.4ghz wlan has a decent signal.

I proceeded to setup A1 so that CAPSMAN would handle all 3 wlans and.. problem. I must be doing something wrong since wlan3 is up and running but has the wrong SSID (of the wlan2).

Not sure if it is a configuration problem or Audience simply doesn’t allow wlan3 to be part of CAPSMAN as a normal wlan (this would mean I have to return it).

I’m a noob in networking so config in Terminal is a bit hard - I started from a reset configuration of RouterOS and made the modifications via Winbox. The paradox is in the attached photo - what do I do wrong? What info more would help you for an advice?

Thanks
Alex
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2

I am using Audience as a CAP to my hap AC2 router.

Aside from the radio performance… this works. Not nearly as well as about a dozen other wireless vendors… but it works.

Have not tried using the radio uplinking.

The one Audience I have is set up with all interfaces in bridge. So I have 3 radios broadcasting my SSIDs and 2 ethernet ports.

3

I’ve managed to solve the issue and get them working; I had to set up manually all 3 interfaces (my nightmare..) so that Capsman would manage them correctly, because the initial configuration when resetting Audience was causing the SSID issue. I did my best in configuring them but.. i’m not happy with the wireless result:

  • as a single unit, I had managed to configure the Audience to reach ~300 Mbps download on wlan2 and ~400 Mbps on wlan3 (from my maximum 500 Mbps download speed). When paired with the other Audience, speeds are limited at about 250-270 Mbps at best.
  • setting the access list proved a time-consuming fine tuning with the transmission power (I still have devices that connect to the farthest Audience, although I lowered its tx power and I’ve increased the closer one’s tx power);

Clearly there are things that could be improved in my config but since I lack the necessary knowledge.. I’ve retired this setup; I really needed the speeds that a crappy TP-Link mesh offers right now :frowning: