hAP ax3 wireless problem

Nullcaller · January 12, 2024, 6:35pm

So, with iPhones, there’s apparently an AirPort utility from Apple that allows you to do something like what WiFi Analyzer does, and on macOS there’s NetSpot. If you’re gonna be measuring with a mac, take care to rotate the AP instead of repositioning the device, otherwise it’ll probably be pretty much useless.

Disclaimer: I don’t know how well these utilities work, because I have never used them.

mkx · January 12, 2024, 6:40pm

As @Nullcaller already explained, values in registration tab are about signals received by AP. And it’s also important to understand what antenna gain property means: it doesn’t change actual antenna performance (because antenna gain is actual physical property of antenna), it only informs ROS about antenna properties. ROS then uses this value to calculate maximum Tx power it can use and still conform to country regulations regarding EIRP (which includes antenna gain). However, setting antenna gain property to different values doesn’t affect Rx signal stregth, signal strength is what’s received and that depends on actual antenna gain (but not the property setting).

bpwl · January 12, 2024, 7:22pm

Lots of wifi transmit/receive knowledge here. Enjoyed reading, but of course I have my own knowledge and experience in this. And so would like to share some details, just to maybe help understand those wireless tests.

Some of the things are just a repetition of what has been stated already, but they seem not to have been fully picked up by some people. My 2cents …

Receive power. Any RX higher than -30dBm usually gives receiver overload, and is problematic for some receptions/frequencies on that receiver. Don’t go too close to a strong AP. 30cm is closeby ! . Any station is also a transmitter for wifi (but sends no beacon).
Use MT “freq usage” test. Just using SCAN, Snooper, Sniff wifi tools and apps on PC/tablet/smartphone will not show ALL transmissions in the 2.4GHz or 5 GHz band. Those foreign transmissions will influence/disturb your results. e.g. Having interference by a semi-continous transmitter that is not 802.11 is quite common. In my home I cannot use channel 6 in 2.4GHz, the standard tools show nothing, Freq usage is sometimes absent, sometimes at 100% busy.
With the old WLAN driver one can check CCQ or directly the “Frames/HW frames ratio” to find the % dropped transmissions
AX3 and other rabbit ear style antenna are not spherical omnidirectional. The strength pattern is “donut shape” around the antenna. Signal is almost zero in the length direction of the antenna.
Built in inverted-F antenna are quite uniform omnidirectional , and are positioned perpendicular to each other on the printed circuit board
Non-spherical pattern and higher antenna gain go together. EIRP regulation will limit the power as measured in the strongest direction. The higher the antenna gain, the lower the radio power that will be allowed. e.g. An SXTsq with 16dBi antenna gain will perform very badly indoors.
Different channels have different allowed max TX power (this includes antenna gain) . Some lower 5GHz are at 23dBm, the higher at 30 dBm. Substantial difference of 7 dB !
8 Antenna gain parameter will act on the EIRP regulation, which limits “radio+antennagain power”, to a value specified per frequency.. As long as that EIRP level is not your limiting factor, fiddling with 0,1,4,6 antenna gain will do nothing.
Puttiing higher antenna gain antenna , without adjusting that limiting parameter is not only illegal. In practice it mostly brings the TX/RX strength out of balance, with bad wifi performance as a consequence. In 802.11 packets must be acked.
Physical high antenna gain is very valuable for increased RX sensitivity. The TX increase is usually trimmed back by EIRP rules when setting the proper antenna gain parameter value. Higher RX sensitivity will detect more transmitters, so more waits or interference.

un9edsda · January 12, 2024, 8:36pm

and

For Apple Iphone users there is the Apple program called AirPort Utility which with its Wi-Fi scanner function (that has to be enabled in the Settings / AirPort Utility) helps to job done although not that fancy as the above mentioned WiFi Analyzer program.

As @Nullcaller has already mentioned the signal values are the ones which represent the APs point of view as it is described in the documentation’s WiFi parts Registration table section.

un9edsda · January 12, 2024, 8:47pm

It seems that I should have kept on reading just a bit more instead of click on reply as the information in it had been posted already.

bpwl · January 12, 2024, 10:23pm

If we measured the error for 3dBm correctly and if the device is outputting on 3dBm correctly (which would be more or less true even if the amplifier was dead, 0 dBm ≈ 3 dBm with the random error values observed),

Well this might be interesting, the Ron Touw presenation.
At the lower power settings of the radio (<2dBm), the radio is not following the settings anymore. It was highly non-linear in that range.

The full presentation … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmtB3LlwquA

Nullcaller · January 12, 2024, 10:52pm

First of all, your first reply is brilliant, and on each and every point, thank you for pointing it out, it was a pleasure to read. When I read about receivers being overwhelmed at -30 dBm, I think I let out an audible “oops”, thinking about the time I let my phone casually rest upon the Audience and measure a -18 dBm signal strength.

Secondly, thanks for this reply as well, it is indeed highly interesting. I suspected something like that would happen (Transistor-based electronics never fails gracefully, now, does it? It always has to go into clipping or do a weird thing near a certain point, or go into some wild new mode of operation…), but decided to force my suspicions to the back of my head in an effort not to overcomplicate things in this topic. It is fun to have a confirmation on this, though.

I will also definitely watch the full presentation. Thanks for the link.

bbs2web · January 14, 2024, 7:28am

We were fortunate to move to a larger property and house in July '23 and I took this as an opportunity to replace hAP ac (v1) units with hAP hAP ax3 devices with RB5009 acting as a central CAPsMAN and router. I use my home network as an extension of my office and do R&D for 802.1X testing so I have a relatively complex setup where each AP provides 3 SSIDs:

WPA2-PSK for family and IoT (DHCP pool range is blocked from internet breakout, to allow for manual onboarding (simply making dynamic assignments static, setting a comment as reference and then finally allocating an IP outside of the pool range, which ultimately allows internet access)
WPA3-EAP (RADIUS) for TLS authentication for access to the office network and immersive VPN (corporate devices, like my laptop)
WPA3-PSK (RADIUS) for a captive portal where guests can register themselves and have time/bandwidth limits (primarily so that I can track down abusers to cell phone numbers used during self-registration)

When we first moved in the house had a single ISP provided CPE that handled PPPoE and dual band 2/5 GHz WiFi which worked amazingly well, I managed to setup a DNAT on the ISP router to the RB5009 so that I had external access (configuration revisioning via Oxidized and monitoring via Zabbix) and expected 802.1ax to perform even better. Wow, was I wrong…

I believe the crux of the matter to be that South Africa, where I reside, to simply have been lazy and copy & pasted the European WiFi regulations. Apartment living in Europe would create a lot of interference, so the country regulation settings restrict transmit power to 100 mW (0.1 W). The property is 16,000 m2, so I subsequently pickuped neighbour’s WiFi SSIDs stronger than the hAP ax3 around our house. I could not pickup any trace of my SSIDs outside the house, let alone along the perimeter wall.

Changing the country to Taiwan, where regulations allow for 1000 mW (1 W) of transmit power, made a substantial difference though and transmit power (Status tab of the main AP, references as Tx Power) went up from 16 dBm to 27 dBm. Remember that dBm is logarithmic, so 16 → 27 is equivalent to a x10 increase. From what I’ve read in other forum posts the APs should automatically reduce Tx Power by the AP’s included antennea, but I do see an increase via Android WiFi Analyzer when I manually set the main SSIDs with antenna-gain=0.

Living in South Africa has another super annoying frustration, in that our government is completely incapable of governing anything and instead plunders state owned enterprises (SOE). You would think that population would subsequently vote them out but a lack of basic education and per-child low income grants keeps the mass populous committed to revoting for the dominant political party. The result is an ailing power utility (Eskom), which has both a monopoly but can’t reliably keep the lights on and we subsequently have scheduled load shedding multiple times a day where there simply isn’t power. The reason this is relevant, is that even with us having self sufficient off-grid solar, there are still instances where APs restart concurrently; primarily due to failures at electricity substations when components fail due to them heating (expanding) and then cooling down (shrinking) multiple times a day as a result of the load shedding (ie power often doesn’t return when it’s supposed to, resulting in batteries running down to a level where the inverter turns off when it’s a cloudy/rainy day).

The result is that APs concurrently initialise, selecting the same channel and then interfere with each other. I ultimately manually selected the 2.4 GHz channel for each AP, but there are only 3 non-overlapping channels to choose from in the 2.4 GHz band so I set those on opposite ends of the house, particularly upstairs/downstairs, to run on the same channel as the brick/concrete walls become metres thick when drawing a straight line between them.

After months of tinkering I have things working relatively well, I did however roll back from 7.13.1 to 7.13 as this was causing mobile devices (iPhones and Google Pixel 7) to often revert to LTE whilst over 150 IoT devices around the house also locked on APs that are further away than those relatively close (most probably the issue with beacons having a country of Latvia hard coded in 7.13.1 (known bug)). The following may help others in attaining a better experience, currently works better than Ubiquiti WiFi 6 APs and Aruba WiFi 6 APs.

Summary:

APs are all LAN wired with various VLANs (assigned via RADIUS (PacketFence)).
Fast Transition (fast roaming) with LAN hand over (ft-over-ds) ensures that clients can roam between APs when wireless communication between the APs is weak.
PMKID is disabled on all SSIDs.
Management protection is required for WPA3 networks and allowed for WPA2 (optional).
wireless to wireless isolation is in effect on the WPA3-PSK, but this doesn’t appear to limit wireless clients connecting to different APs.
2.4 GHz radios have their channels set manually, 5 GHz hardly extends outside a single room due to everything being concrete/brick and mortar.
WPA3-PSK has the password advertised as part of the SSID, the reason for this (as opposed to running an open network) is that there is still per connection encryption between each AP and the relevant client whereas an open network would result in packets in flight being unencrypted.
RADIUS controlled SSIDs have a bogus VLAN assigned (3999), to ensure that clients land in the VLAN sent along with the RADIUS accept response

NB Please use a WiFi analyzer to ensure that you do not cause interference with neighbours, let alone doppler radar (can lead to air craft disasters) when changing the country to essentially break the law by transmitting beyond what the laws attempt to regulate.

[admin@core] > int wifi/export show-sensitive 
# 2024-01-14 08:52:41 by RouterOS 7.13
#
# model = RB5009UG+S+
/interface wifi channel
add band=2ghz-ax disabled=no frequency=2412,2437,2462 name=ch-2ghz skip-dfs-channels=all width=20mhz
add band=5ghz-ax disabled=no frequency=5180,5260,5500,5580,5660,5745 name=ch-5ghz skip-dfs-channels=10min-cac width=20/40/80mhz
/interface wifi security
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk disable-pmkid=yes disabled=no ft=yes ft-over-ds=yes management-protection=allowed name=Home passphrase=secret wps=disable
add authentication-types=wpa3-eap disable-pmkid=yes disabled=no eap-accounting=yes ft=yes ft-over-ds=yes management-protection=required name=radius-eap wps=disable
add authentication-types=wpa3-psk disable-pmkid=yes disabled=no ft=no ft-over-ds=no management-protection=required name=radius-mac passphrase=internet wps=disable
/interface wifi
add channel.frequency=2462 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Core Wireless1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:56:05:9E
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:9F master-interface="2G - Ash - Core Wireless1" name="2G - Ash - Core Wireless2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:A0 master-interface="2G - Ash - Core Wireless1" name="2G - Ash - Core Wireless3"
add channel.frequency=2412 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Cottage1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:07:5A:C8
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:07:5A:C9 master-interface="2G - Ash - Cottage1" name="2G - Ash - Cottage2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:07:5A:CA master-interface="2G - Ash - Cottage1" name="2G - Ash - Cottage3"
add channel.frequency=2437 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Game Room1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:56:05:C9
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:CA master-interface="2G - Ash - Game Room1" name="2G - Ash - Game Room2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:CB master-interface="2G - Ash - Game Room1" name="2G - Ash - Game Room3"
add channel.frequency=2437 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Living Room" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:82:8E
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:82:8F master-interface="2G - Ash - Living Room" name="2G - Ash - Living Room2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:82:90 master-interface="2G - Ash - Living Room" name="2G - Ash - Living Room3"
add channel.frequency=2412 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Main Gate" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:0D:DC:F0
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:0D:DC:F1 master-interface="2G - Ash - Main Gate" name="2G - Ash - Main Gate2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:0D:DC:F2 master-interface="2G - Ash - Main Gate" name="2G - Ash - Main Gate3"
add channel.frequency=2412 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Office1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:FB:83
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:FB:84 master-interface="2G - Ash - Office1" name="2G - Ash - Office2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:FB:85 master-interface="2G - Ash - Office1" name="2G - Ash - Office3"
add channel.frequency=2437 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Staff Village1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:85:AC
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:AD master-interface="2G - Ash - Staff Village1" name="2G - Ash - Staff Village2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:AE master-interface="2G - Ash - Staff Village1" name="2G - Ash - Staff Village3"
add channel.frequency=2462 configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="2G - Ash - Viv's Office 1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:85:A5
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:A6 master-interface="2G - Ash - Viv's Office 1" name="2G - Ash - Viv's Office 2"
add configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:A7 master-interface="2G - Ash - Viv's Office 1" name="2G - Ash - Viv's Office 3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Core Wireless1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:56:05:9D
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:9D master-interface="5G - Ash - Core Wireless1" name="5G - Ash - Core Wireless2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:9E master-interface="5G - Ash - Core Wireless1" name="5G - Ash - Core Wireless3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Cottage1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:07:5A:C7
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:07:5A:C7 master-interface="5G - Ash - Cottage1" name="5G - Ash - Cottage2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:07:5A:C8 master-interface="5G - Ash - Cottage1" name="5G - Ash - Cottage3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Game Room1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:56:05:C8
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:C8 master-interface="5G - Ash - Game Room1" name="5G - Ash - Game Room2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:56:05:C9 master-interface="5G - Ash - Game Room1" name="5G - Ash - Game Room3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Living Room" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:82:8D
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:82:8D master-interface="5G - Ash - Living Room" name="5G - Ash - Living Room2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:82:8E master-interface="5G - Ash - Living Room" name="5G - Ash - Living Room3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Main Gate" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:0D:DC:EF
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:0D:DC:EF master-interface="5G - Ash - Main Gate" name="5G - Ash - Main Gate2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:0D:DC:F0 master-interface="5G - Ash - Main Gate" name="5G - Ash - Main Gate3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Office1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:FB:82
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:FB:82 master-interface="5G - Ash - Office1" name="5G - Ash - Office2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:FB:83 master-interface="5G - Ash - Office1" name="5G - Ash - Office3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Staff Village1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:85:AB
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:AB master-interface="5G - Ash - Staff Village1" name="5G - Ash - Staff Village2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:AC master-interface="5G - Ash - Staff Village1" name="5G - Ash - Staff Village3"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" configuration.mode=ap disabled=no name="5G - Ash - Viv's Office 1" radio-mac=48:A9:8A:55:85:A4
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:A4 master-interface="5G - Ash - Viv's Office 1" name="5G - Ash - Viv's Office 2"
add configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" disabled=no mac-address=4A:A9:8A:55:85:A5 master-interface="5G - Ash - Viv's Office 1" name="5G - Ash - Viv's Office 3"
/interface wifi access-list
add action=query-radius disabled=no radius-accounting=yes ssid-regexp="Guest"
/interface wifi capsman
set ca-certificate=auto enabled=yes interfaces=vlan1 package-path="" require-peer-certificate=no upgrade-policy=suggest-same-version
/interface wifi configuration
add antenna-gain=0 channel=ch-5ghz country=Taiwan datapath="VLAN: Home - Full" disabled=no mode=ap name="wifi1 - 5 GHz" security=Home ssid=Home
add antenna-gain=0 channel=ch-2ghz country=Taiwan datapath="VLAN: Guest - Full" disabled=no mode=ap name="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" security=Home ssid=Home
add datapath="VLAN: Invalid - Isolated" disabled=no mode=ap name="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest" security=radius-mac ssid="Guest (pw: internet)"
add datapath="VLAN: Invalid - Full" disabled=no mode=ap name="wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" security=radius-eap ssid="Office"
add datapath="VLAN: Invalid - Isolated" disabled=no mode=ap name="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest" security=radius-mac ssid="Guest (pw: internet)"
add datapath="VLAN: Invalid - Full" disabled=no mode=ap name="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" security=radius-eap ssid="Office"
/interface wifi datapath
add bridge=bridge disabled=no name="VLAN: Invalid - Full" vlan-id=3999
add bridge=bridge client-isolation=yes disabled=no name="VLAN: Invalid - Isolated" vlan-id=3999
add bridge=bridge client-isolation=no disabled=no name="VLAN: Guest - Full" vlan-id=53
/interface wifi provisioning
add action=create-enabled disabled=no master-configuration="wifi1 - 5 GHz" name-format="5G - %I" slave-configurations=\
    "wifi1 - 5 GHz - Guest,wifi1 - 5 GHz - Office" supported-bands=5ghz-ax
add action=create-enabled disabled=no master-configuration="wifi2 - 2.4 GHz" name-format="2G - %I" slave-configurations=\
    "wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Guest,wifi2 - 2.4 GHz - Office" supported-bands=2ghz-ax

PS: I prefer for APs to stop transmitting a given SSIDs when they loose contact with CAPsMAN. This however results in provisioned wifi interfaces incrementing from wifi1,wifi2,wifi3,wifi4,wifi5,wifi6 to wifi1,wifi2,wifi7,wifi8,wifi9,wifi10. This causes a problem with the VLAN bridge configurations on each CAP so I have a simply script which runs every minute and restarts the device when uptime is > 10 minutes and wifi3 doesn’t exist. I can gladly share full sanitised CAP configs should anyone request them.

bpwl · January 14, 2024, 1:29pm

From what I’ve read in other forum posts the APs should automatically reduce Tx Power by the AP’s included antennea, but I do see an increase via Android WiFi Analyzer when I manually set the main SSIDs with antenna-gain=0.

Perpetual confusion with Mikrotik. However the case is very simple. And is not as MT says from time to time on this forum.

Antenna have a certain gain (physical characteristic). The regulator limits the max transmitted power in the antenna strongest direction. No parameter can change the antenna gain in RouterOS. It is physical to the antenna construction.

The “Antenna Gain” parameter in RouterOS is the value used by the EIRP calculation for that max power. It has no influence on the antenna gain itself whatsoever.
For correct and legal TX power, the calculater used Antenna gain (the RouterOS parameter) must be equal or greater than the physical antenna gain.
For devices with builit-in antenna, the minimum value for the antenna gain parameter in RouterOS is fixed in the device. RouterOS does not allow to have a smaller value set.

MT removed that parameter from WinBox en Webfig GUI for the WLAN driver. It is still in the CLI (fortunately).
This only causes trouble. Users don’t see that Antenna gain parameter anymore in the GUI’s, and changing country/region may fail without giving a reason if not acceptable value is set. (Unacceptable is smaller than the physical gain as known by RouterOS via the device model number.)

The calculator used Antenna GAin parameter in RouterOS is also back in the wifiwave2 driver GUI (even with the minimum limit as info now)

Replaceable antenna (like for the hAP ac3/ax3) have unkbown gain for RouterOS. So RouterOS allows even a value of 0, for some countries set at least.
Using that parameter with a value lower than the physical gain of the antenna is just possible in this case, and gives an illegal high TX power.

jaclaz · January 14, 2024, 2:52pm

@bpwl

Semi random thought, but could it be that at least a part of the lamented issues (ax3 covering less than ax2) could be related to the ax3 (external) antennas being more directional when compared to the ax2 omnidirectional (internal) ones?

mkx · January 14, 2024, 3:16pm

This is not supposed to be the reason. MT published specs for both devices and antenna gain number for ax3 is for included external antennae (are they actually detachable?). And even so, if EIRP calculation is correct, then signal strength in direction of highest gain should be the same. The directionality of antenna only vones into pkay if one manages to turn (both) antennae so that they point directly at wireless station (or directly away from it), dipole antenna (stick-shaped, like those on ax3) radiates very little in these two directions (more about it in wikipedia article, includes nice charts).

The stated value is also set as minimum parameter value. Even if antennae are detachable, I don’t see a reason to replace those with lower-gain antennae. The only (sensible?) way of reaching point where apparent antenna gain would be lower than factory antennae is if one connects low-gain antennae using longer antenna cables (cable loss reduces EIRP, one could attribute the effect to lower antenna gain if the EIRP formula doesn’t include cable loss, hence “apparent antenna gain”). But there are many devices more fit for such use case than ax3 is.

jaclaz · January 14, 2024, 3:32pm

Yes, but the problem seems to be in general/generic terms:

I had an Ax2 in point A
I had good reception at point B
I replaced the Ax2 with an Ax3, still placed in the same point A and with the same configuration of the old Ax2 imported
The reception at point B is worse than it was

If both the old Ax2 and the new Ax3 are conformant to regulations and the combined effect of transmission level + antenna gain results in the same capped 100 mW, the configuration is the same, the difference could be due to the “shape” of the emitted radio waves.

The other possible explanations would be that he old Ax2 was transmitting more than 100mW or that the “big ears” of the Ax3 receive more interferences, but some poosts were about people living in isolated places, so this latter is less probable.

Yes, the Ax3 “big ears” are detachable, they are called “HGO indoor antenna kit”:
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ax3

bpwl · January 14, 2024, 4:31pm

“HGO indoor antenna kit”

Always surprised me, as they resemble the “outdoor HGO antenna” https://mikrotik.com/product/hgo_antenna_out
Same or not? (huh well the indoor have a 90° hinge)

The 20dBm (100mW) is in ETSI region only set for the 2.4GHz and the indoor/non-DFS/lower 5GHz range.
Old WLAN driver loses 3dBm on allowed EIRP level as they (have to) follow the non-TPC limits.
Anyway 5180MHz and 5500MHz are quite different in allowed power for Europe.
If channel is left on “auto” you don’t know which one you will get.
My short experience so far with hAP ax2, is that “default/out of the box” it takes 5860MHz, unknown so far what TXpower that gives. (My client devices don’t receive it)

The hAPax3 devices I manage run without antenna attached, and with wifiwave2 driver removed, just as edge router in a metal cabinet.

jaclaz · January 14, 2024, 4:44pm

The outdoor seem “straight”, the indoor has the 90°/movable joint on the connector, in the Ax3 manual in the FCC section, they are described as:

APPROVED 2.4 GHz ANTENNA:

3.36 dBi Omni-directional (HGO-antenna-IN)

APPROVED 5 GHz ANTENNA:

6.01 dBi Omni-directional (HGO-antenna-IN)

Very similar to the description of the outdoor ones:

Provides 3.3 dBi gain for the 2.4 GHz band and 5.5-7.1 dBi gain for the 5 GHz band.

they could actually be the same with just a different connector.

bpwl · January 14, 2024, 5:07pm

hAP ax2, change wifi1 from 5260MHz to 5680MHz …
What the client on the other floor sees as power (change)

WLAN drivers used to show the allowed EIRP level differences for different frequencies
wifiwave2 driver … did not find any details per frequency … except region power limit = 30dBm

/interface wifiwave2 / radio/ print  
  detail
  terse
  value-list

Nullcaller · January 14, 2024, 9:18pm

I found it!

/interface/wifi/radio/reg-info country="United States"

works as of 7.13.1, results (for hAP ac2):

  ranges: 2402-2472/30
          5490-5730/24/dfs
          5735-5835/30
          5250-5330/24/dfs
          5170-5250/30
          5835-5895/30/indoor

Wait, really? 30 dBm on 2.4 GHz? Well, I guess it’s convenient, you’ll be able to connect to your home WiFi at work, but… Really?

Nullcaller · January 14, 2024, 9:38pm

Hear me out. You stick an ax3 up on the wall, almost high enough to touch the ceiling, because you feel like an AP should be high up in the air, and then turn the antennae in such a way that they point away from the wall, because you have no room for them to point upwards. If you now stand directly in front of ax3, looking at it, and raise your mobile device in the air, as if trying to “catch” the signal, you will have effectively no reception. Moreover, the reception in the building will probably be abysmal in certain places. Ones that are not directly to the side of ax3.

Even looking at the radiation pattern of a theoretical dipole antenna (you should also imagine it in 3d, it’s more like a torus thingie), you can see that it the signal strength can rapidly drop when you move towards the poles. And God only knows what MikroTik’s antennae are tuned for. They might have more of an elliptical situation going on, rather than circular. If that’s the case, well, the dropoff at the poles is even more rapid. And also, even if you orient the antennae correctly, you might have bad reception on the floors adjacent to the one ax3 is actually on.

Not to mention that, as @bpwl stated,

IMO, this fact kind of makes directional antennae pointless for WiFi, unless you can spatial MU-MIMIO thingamajiggary your way out of the fact that you’re literally just reducing TX power in some directions compared to an omnidirectional antenna.

Nullcaller · January 14, 2024, 9:47pm

And this seems to mean that MikroTik agrees and ax3’s antennae are indeed omni-directional. These are numbers that are different from the specs of ax3, though, for some reason. In the specs, antenna gains are said to be 3.3 and 5.5 dBi. Oh well, maybe there’s some weird frequency dependency going on, and FCC lists the maximum value, and MikroTik the minimum value.

(So the ears are purely decorative, huh?)

Nullcaller · January 14, 2024, 9:51pm

So, scratch everything about directionality, did anybody measure the signal strength to see if the amplifier’s working? I’m still waiting for that sweet, sweet data.

bpwl · January 14, 2024, 10:19pm

I found it!

Yes yes, many thanks for this … the combination of words reg-info and country … would have been a while before I tried this.

The outcome is what I was afraid off … the default out-of-the-box “auto” used frequency in Europe (5865 MHz) is ONLY 14 dBm in the max power direction !!!
No wonder my devices do not pick up that frequency. Much too weak on different floor.
Measured difference between 5260 and 5680 MHz (-78 to -59) was also bigger than the 7 dB in the table. What is this. !?
Have to do much more tests. May catch that 5865 MHz when closeby, or just not at all.

  [admin@MikroTik] /interface/wifiwave2/radio> reg-info country=Belgium
number: 0
  ranges: 2402-2482/20
          5170-5250/23/indoor
          5250-5330/23/indoor/dfs
          5490-5730/30/dfs
          5735-5875/14