We have a 5 node mesh running with each node acting as a local AP to serve a number of Ubiquiti picostations. All fees back to a single mesh gateway node. The problem is that various mesh nodes stop routing traffic. I cannot get to them from the gateway IP but can telnet into them from an adjacent node. I reboot the node in question and perhaps one or two neighbors and everything runs fine again for anything from minutes to days.
All nodes are running 4.10 with default mesh settings.
This is causing me a lot of customer dissatisfaction.
Yes, these 5 units all run R52N cards and there are about 30 picostations within range that connect to the node closest. What I am finding is that the units seem to drop out of the mesh FDB table or revert to the larval stage. I am also seeing the mesh nodes themselves lose routing information. It may have to do with the fact that when the mesh units are forwarding traffic, the ccq drops to very low percentages. Not sure how a -50 to -65 signal cant move more than a few hundred kbit of data without dropping to 5% ccq however.
Find me a routerboard based unit that is the size of a pack of cigarettes, has real nice status lights, 1 watt output to burn through trees and costs less than $70 us, and I will take a look at it.
The Picostations are not having issues, the mesh fdb is getting out of sync.
I am using the picostations for the clients.
3 to 5 db omnis.
The mesh nodes themselves are RB411 units inside a mini-box unit with 8db diversity omnis
Signals are strong. Probably too strong. We have been able to improve ccq from the customer picos by turning down the power. I am thinking that this overall problem may be that the links between the mikrotik mesh boards are too hot. I am having trouble turning them down far enough tho. The driver seems to get real unstable when I play with the power levels. I often have to reboot the radio to get clients to reconnect after adjusting the power.
So you mesh MT Apoint power is i assume 25 db + 8 db antenna = 33 db total output level.
The maximum output level is 36 db alowed in US and Canada. I have deliberant dual with 9 DB omni. Asus SOHO Access point has beter signal level that the Deliberant AP, ( weak signal ) And they say it is COMERCIAL access point. Yea, but for Base station not for anything else.
You run hotspot or subscriber servcie ? ( with CPE for customers )
Post you Network Diagram so people can see how your network is structure, so unnecessary questions can be omitted.
By the way, how you mesh AP looks like? Do you use 2 Antennas on that Mini PCI radio card on
RB411? RB411 Has only 1 enterface for miniPCI, i wounder how is all connected to each other.
What protocal do you use? For mesh?
I am using a single antenna for the local clients, since the on board radio only has 1 antenna connection. We use dual antennas for the mesh. There are 5 mesh nodes scattered around the neighborhood and each one has 5 to 10 Picostations connected to it. Channels are set as far apart as possible. The environment is heavily treed. I am thinking that the R52N radio just cannot stand up to all of the other 2.4 traffic that the main tower is seeing, which is sad as I may have to go back to Motorola canopy
Our biggest issue at this point is that with signals in the mid 50’s the ccq percentages run less than 10%
We have turned the r2n cards down in power to 12db but we are finding that as we mess with the power levels the card driver dies requiring a reboot to bring them back.