Hi!
I’ve been struggling to understand how AP (in my case CAP AC) TX Power is influenced by different settings.
My setup is this:
- RB3011 with CAPSMAN, local forwarding enabled
- 2x CAP ACs managed by CAPSMAN
Everything works well, happy with the setup.
Issue:
CAP1 has:
- 18 dBm on 2.4Ghz
- 17 dBm on 5Ghz
CAP2 has: - 20 dBm on 2.4 Ghz
- 23 dBm on 5Ghz
These values I can see in WebFig, on each CAP, written in red, below “managed by capsman”
Now there are some differences between the 2 CAP settings made locally on the boxes:
CAP 1 has:
- Frequence mode - regulatory-domain
- country - romania
- installation - indoor
- antenna gain - 2 dbi for 2.4Ghz and 3dbi for 5Ghz
CAP 2 has:
- Frequence mode - manual tx power
- country - no country
- installation - any
- antenna gain - 0 dbi for 2.4Ghz and 0dbi for 5Ghz
Capsman settings:
/caps-man channel
add band=2ghz-g/n name=2GHZchannel
add band=5ghz-a/n/ac name=5GHZchannel
/caps-man datapath
add bridge=bridge client-to-client-forwarding=yes local-forwarding=yes name=\
datapath1
/caps-man rates
add basic=12Mbps name=rate1 supported=\
12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps
/caps-man security
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk encryption=aes-ccm name=security1
/caps-man configuration
add channel=5GHZchannel country=romania datapath=datapath1 installation=\
indoor mode=ap name=cfg1 rates=rate1 security=security1 ssid=***5G
add channel=2GHZchannel country=romania datapath=datapath1 installation=\
indoor mode=ap name=cfg2 security=security1 ssid=*****2G
/caps-man access-list
add action=accept allow-signal-out-of-range=10s client-to-client-forwarding=\
yes disabled=no interface=all signal-range=-79..120 ssid-regexp="" time=\
0s-1d,sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
add action=reject allow-signal-out-of-range=10s disabled=no interface=all \
signal-range=-120..-80 ssid-regexp="" time=\
0s-1d,sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
/caps-man manager
set ca-certificate=auto certificate=auto enabled=yes upgrade-policy=\
suggest-same-version
/caps-man manager interface
set [ find default=yes ] forbid=yes
add disabled=no interface=bridge
/caps-man provisioning
add action=create-dynamic-enabled hw-supported-modes=ac,an \
master-configuration=cfg1
add action=create-dynamic-enabled hw-supported-modes=gn master-configuration=\
cfg2
I was under the impression that capsman takes over all settings related to CAP’s radios meaning nothing I configured on the CAP should matter. This does not seem to be the case. Also, some settings are available only directly on the AP ( frequency mode, antenna gain) and some only on the capsman ( tx power?). on the other hand, keeping power related config on the AP allows capsman to use different types of APs, right?
Got some questions for the more experienced people:
- how exactly is the tx power selected? what is the formula? I know the country matters and i think I saw somewhere it’s txpower+antenna gain but it cannot be more than the country limit. What happens when no country is selected? Does it choose max chipset output? The CAP AC has multiple powers listed per rate/MCS.
- what’s the best practice on this for SOHO? leave everything factory default ( CAP2) or put the antenna gain and country (CAP 1)? for my setup CAP1 has 17dBm on 5Ghz and CAP2 has 23 dBm on 5Ghz. I feel the difference is a bit much.
Any input would be appreciated. My main concern is the 23dBm can damage the AP. Is that possible?