HAPAX3 Low wifi signal strength & other issues

RouterOS General
1

I have a new hapax3. I am expecting good things but so far it has been a disappointment. I expect future ROS upgrades will make this better but currently my issues are:

  1. If I uninstall wifiwave2 package, wireless adaptor no longer shows up in wireless. I can’t remember the factory default behavior as I installed the wifiwave2 package immediately upon unboxing. Is this normal?

  2. The 5ghz wifi signal strength is very low, see image below. I have a CAPAC in the same spot and the HAPAX3 is much weaker. They are both at Default Tx Power and both at ROS 7.8. Is anyone else experiencing something similar?

fFj9awiPbW.jpg
3. There is no CAPSMAN unless I uninstall wifiwave2! If I uninstall wifiwave2, my wireless interfacces disappear!

2

1- this is normal. AX devices REQUIRE wifiwave2 package
2- depending on which ROS version your cap AC is running, this might be normal too. Latest ROS versions Mikrotik made sure to comply to all legal limits depending on the country setting. Setting the right country is your responsibility. 67dbm is still a pretty good signal.
3- But there is ! It’s only not anymore to be used as you know it from before wifiwave2.
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/WifiWave2
Parts of it available via Winbox, parts (for now) only via CLI. Work in Progress :laughing:

Caveat: legacy wifi caps and wifiwave2 caps can NOT be mixed on the same capsman controller. You’d need two then. But if the number of devices is limited, it might be easier (and more efficient) to setup the radios manually.

PS where is the disappointment ? I also have hAP AX3 at home and am pretty impressed with the speed but more so with the coverage. Just crazy how much further it goes then AC3 with still decent connection.

3

Some of signal strength difference comes also from the fact that cAP ac uses 20MHz channel while hAP ax3 uses 40MHz channel. The difference due to this reason should only be 3dB though.

4

Another limitation of the wifiwave2 package is as a CAP, you cannot choose which which radio is to be managed by the CAPSMAN. I assume this will be fixed in a future ROS.

5

There is already functionality that covers which radio will be managed, it works like this:

  1. enable service “/interface/wifiwave2/cap”
  2. change “configuration.manager” under physical interface on CAP to “manager=capsman”, or “manager=capsman-or-local”.
6

Hi,

same place do not mean same conditions.

HAP AX3 is using higher channel and even 80 Mhz.