hap ac2 and migrate to hap ax2 - problem with wifi 5GHz coverage

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Hi,
I moved from hap ac2 to hap ax2 - unfortunately, the wifi coverage dropped dramatically - where I had a signal strength of 60-65, I have 70-78… can someone explain to me what is happening and why?

 2 M BR default-name="wifi1" name="wifi1" l2mtu=1560 mac-address=[MAC] arp-timeout=auto radio-mac=[MAC]
        configuration.mode=ap .ssid="some ssid" .antenna-gain=0
        security.authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk .passphrase="XXXXXX" .connect-priority=0
        channel.frequency=5260 .band=5ghz-ax .width=20/40/80mhz .skip-dfs-channels=disabled

When I bought the ax2, I thought the coverage would be the same or greater.
Now in some parts of the apartment, e.g. phones do not connect to Wi-Fi at all. On AC2, the coverage was ok everywhere.

Thank you in advance - if you need any information, let me know

link to wifi analizer screenshot https://postimg.cc/gallery/HcLx3HL - of course, the location of the router was the same.

2

I think this might be the result of the change from separate antennas to antennas integrated into the main PCB. If you are in Europe, you can increase signal strength by moving to channel 100-128, e.g. 5500 MHz, this made it usable for me.

3

What was ROS version running on hAP ac2?

4

It’s a little better - signal 67-69 (on hap ac2 61-63) - tx power jump from 18 to 25

Is that all this device offers? How can it be “worse” than hap ac2?

5

7.13.1 - same version on both

6

All very spooky. I’ve been looking very closely at Wi-Fi attenuation around the house today to see what kind of difference floors, stone walls, plasterboard walls, floors etc. made. I started this off with a hAP ax2 with 7.13. I spotted that if I removed the “United Kingdom” language, I got about another 10db in one location test.

I then upgraded to v7.13.1 which has a note about making the default Wi-Fi country “Latvia”. Haven’t a clue what it was in v7.13. The net result was that even with no country specified, I got lower power settings than earlier in the day.

I assume this change has been made in v7.13.1 to ensure that where no country has been specified, the TX power is the lowest for all countries so not to accidentally exceed the local regulations? Latvia seems to be identical to United Kingdom.

But yes, picking 5500 does indeed allow a Tx power of 24. On 5180 frequency, it’s 18. Worth having!

I don’t know whether it’s possible to “overclock it” by picking a country with higher power limits. I thought USA was one of those countries but doesn’t seem to make any difference. This command shows the per-country limits:

/interface/wifi/radio/reg-info country=“United States” number=0

7

Do I understand correctly? 7.13 vs 7.13.1 resulted in reduced range/power? Do you have the option to downgrade to 7.13 and make a real comparison of the txpower shown by mt? For now I’m on 5500 and “somehow” it works. However, I’m waiting for some “magician” from mt who will tell me what else can be done (maybe it’s a bug - I would like the device to transmit 26 - that’s what it has in the specification as I remember - but how to achieve it? Setting txpower to 26 does not result in any change - the system provides 24 [the same as for the country/channel max]).

8

I think “.antenna-gain=0” is incorrect, did you set that yourself?
How did you do the migration, by hand?

9

Do I understand correctly? 7.13 vs 7.13.1 resulted in reduced range/power?

Effectively yes but only because I suspect that in v7.13, the power was getting set to an illegal high value for the UK as I didn’t have country defined. I created my own post on this subject: http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/tx-power-in-uk/172706/1

10

.antenna-gain=0 - if this is specified from the interface, it appears (but the option looks as if it was disabled - in the web interface). With subsequent changes, this setting is no longer visible during export. I don’t currently have this set up.

11

I would like the device to transmit 26 - that’s what it has in the specification as I remember - but how to achieve it? Setting txpower to 26 does not result in any change - the system provides 24 [the same as for the country/channel max]).

Whilst I can understand where you’re coming from here, if 24 is the maximum for the country of use, then Mikrotik aren’t at fault for limiting it to that and not allowing you to overclock it as that would be illegal, albeit not the worst crime in the world.

Or are you saying that Tx power 26 is legal for the country and you can’t set that power?

12

Poland
ranges: 2402-2482/20
5170-5250/23/indoor
5250-5330/23/indoor/dfs
5490-5730/30/dfs
5735-5875/14

I looked through all countries and there is no higher than 30dBm anywhere for 5500.
I wanted to test see how the device would behave at full power.

As I know, you can set the channels very high
Niue
5735-5835/36
but then the bandwidth is very bad (and not every device will support channels above 149)

13

Identical to UK:

5170-5250/23/indoor
5250-5330/23/indoor/dfs
5490-5730/30/dfs
5735-5875/14

Whilst not my specialist subject at all as I only really started digging into this over the last week but I’m sure I read somewhere that you have to take the antennae gain into account. So 30 is the legal maximum in that range but with a 5dBi gain antennae, Tx power is limited to 25?

I could be getting this completely wrong though!

14

Is it possible to make mesh/repeater hap ax2 → hap ac2 (2.4GHz as a network for communication mesh)

Any tutorial?

15

You can certainly configure the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi interface to act as a wireless bridge to another device. This isn’t exactly mesh but it works in a very similar way. I’ve got documentation on this that might help? I’ve got a backup configuration for my hAP ax2 which makes a wireless connection to my mobile phone hotspot for the very rare times my Virgin Media connection goes down.