Issue Regarding Omnitik's Dual Antennas

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi,

I’m currently trying to set up a mesh network with 2 Omnitik U-5hnd, each receiving data from 3-4 SXTs.
Now I haven’t had any issues setting up the single Omni with the SXTs but when it comes to meshing the two Omni together I seem to be getting stuck at adding the second wlan interface.
Under the wireless interface tab in Winbox there is only one wlan accessible on default, and under the (+) button I can only see adding a VirtualAP, Nstreme Dual, or WDS.
There seems to be no access to the second hardware antenna to be able to set up the mesh.
Would anyone know why this is?
Do you need any additional data from me?

I’ve been following this guide on how to mesh:
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Testwiki/Advanced_MikroTik_Wireless_networks

and the line I’m having issues with is:
[admin@A] /interface mesh port> add interface=wlan2 mesh=mesh1

Now I did add a Virtual AP as wlan2 to see if that could some how work out, but as it’s only using the 1 antenna, I can either connect to the other Omni and lose my connection to the SXTs. Or go back to my original setup and regain the SXTs yet lose the Omni mesh.

Any help would be much appreciated,
Thank you.

2

the omnitik have only one wlan interface, but whit two antennas using two 2 chains.

3

So then how would I go about meshing the two omnitiks? I’m quite new at this and I think I must be overlooking something.

I would like to be able to accept connections from a group of SXTs and have that data shared to another omnitik in order to connect both networks.

4

You don’t need a second radio for mesh; use WDS, which allows you to use one radio for both clients and backhaul. (The OmniTik has no wlan2; it has one dual-chain radio, with each antenna connected to one of the chains. The antennae are not configured independently.)

As usual, the WDS section of the manual doesn’t tell you how to configure WDS for any particular purpose, only the syntax of the related commands. Suffice it to say, you will:

  • create a mesh interface on each OmniTik
  • add wlan1 as a port on that bridge/mesh interface
  • set the wds-mode of each wlan1 to dynamic (bridge) or dynamic-mesh (mesh)
  • set the wds-default-bridge to the bridge/mesh that you created

At this point, the radios should establish a WDS interface with each other, yet still allow the SXTs to connect.

5

Thank you Hotz1, that really clarified the process, I’ll be implementing this tomorrow and I’ll reply back with details on how it turns out so that if anyone else runs into a similiar situation they’ll have a little more knowledge on what to do.