Insane HT signal strengths running Station Bridge - ROS 5.6

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

I have a 1km link consisting of RB411AH/R52nM with 24dBi Jirous Dual pols on each side.
One is set to Bridge and the other to Station bridge.
wlan1 and ether1 is bridged on both RBs, this way I have a bridged network all the way through.
Radios are set to 5GHz n-only, 2x2MIMO, power is set to fixed 3 dBm, signal is -60ish.
Strange thing is the link is unable to speed up beyond regular a rates, and I can se crazy signal strengths for the HT rates, see attached image.
I get 48 or 54Mbps link speed, estimated theroughput is approx 25-30Mbps and practiacl speed is limited to some 20 mbps TCP.

However, when I set the “far side” to regular station mode (which in not practically possible due to broken L2 transparency), the link immediately jumps up to 130/130Mbps and stays there, with estimated throughput of some 95-100Mbps.
Moving back to station bridge, the link is stuck at old a rates.
I have tried a lot of channels, but in vain.
HT strength bars fluctuate between -90 and +100 for different rates, but n is never employed.

So where do i move?
Tunneling using EOIP/MPLS?
Change to routed instead of bridged?

I just can’t believe that selecting one wireless mode over another should affect the signal levels and association rate.
Anyone to explain?
AP_rates.jpg

2

try using UDP test.
Also try increasing the tx-power to approx 5 or 10db as the card as it might not work so well at very low tx-power.
Try using Nv2 protocol as the station-bridge mode has the same problem as the station-wds mode (you can’t get the max speed with WDS using 802.11n protocol). To get max speed switch to nstreme or Nv2.
Also try to use rate-selection=advanced, might help you to get better rates.

3

This morning I did like you suggested Uldis - changed to nv2 - and smack! :slight_smile:
Signal strengths went normal, rates jumped to 130/130 and BTest immediately gave 60-70Mbps TCP in one direction, some 40-50Mbps TCP duplex, without doing any further tuning. Actually, the RBs providing the test data (RB433AHs sitting behind the link 411AH RBs) maxed out at 100%CPU.
Also latency appears to have improved.

Maybe old news to some of you guys, but as I’ve been sitting on 802 'till now, this is my success story of today. :slight_smile:

Increased pwr to 5dBm, as can be seen I’m now 55ish in signal.

Thanks a lot Uldis!
AP_rates_NV2.jpg