Hardware Issue - PA Damage?

Hi,

I need some advice in how to debug exactly what’s going wrong with my board - it receives, in that I can scan for local networks, but it doesn’t appear to transmit, in that no other device (including another working mikrotik) can see it when it’s set up as an AP.

Background: I’ve had an RB912UAG-2HnD running as an AP bridge for a number of years now, set up with two dipoles directly attached. I needed a more directional antenna, however, so picked up a dual-pol panel antenna (an ITElite PAT2416DP) and hooked it up. At that point the board would show other networks in the scan, but its SSID would not be visible to any other device. Switching back to the dipoles has not helped.

I’ve tried the diagnostics from the wiki below. My old antennas are not DC shorted, but the new one is. The wiki states that DC shorted is the desired configuration, but that’s for an R52*, so is that also true of the RB912 built-in transmitter? I’ve also checked to see if the center pin is shorted to the shield, and it does appear to be. However, if this new antenna shorted out the PA, would that leave the receiver unaffected?

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Wireless_card_diagnostics

Can anyone suggest any other diagnostics I could run on this board, and/or on the antenna? I’m planning to pick up an R11e card to use with the dipoles, under the assumption that the internal wifi is shot, but I don’t want to burn that one out as well if there’s something wrong or it’s not compatible with these antennas.

Can you make an actual connection in mode=station to any one of the networks shown in the scan? If not, my suspicion is that the transmitter section is fried in the WiFi chip.

Huh. Gave that a shot after reseating the pigtails and letting the board sit overnight, and it connected. Switched it back to AP mode and it’s visible again. No idea why it worked, but thanks for the suggestion.

Does anyone know if routerboards generally are all compatible with DC grounded antennas? Still looking to use this panel antenna, if I can get it working.