Need direction w/ simple AP and Client over 900mhz

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi,

I have routerBoard 411AH with a Ubiquiti xr9 (900mhz) minipci card.
Also, have routerBoard 433 with the xr9 card and R52-350 (2.4ghz)

411 is going to be my AP (wlan1: mode=ap-bridge)
433 is going to be my client (wlan1: mode=station)

These cards are sitting on my desk 3 inches apart so I do not have antenna’s connected to either.
I upgraded routerOS to 3.3 thinking it might make a difference but it didn’t. Original OS was 3.23.

I’ve tried multiple permutations of the frequency (2442 etc) and the band (2.4ghz-b, 2.4ghz-b/g, 2ghz-5mhz, 2ghz-10mhz, etc) to see if either of the cards could ever see the other. This has been unsuccessful so far.

Any ideals would be appreciated. Under /interface wireless snooper snoop wlan1 (from either card), I see lots of stuff in my house via the MAC addresses (wii, laptop, i-pod, home wireless router) but never see the other 900mhz card. I have to be missing something.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Ultimately I would have a laptop on the client side communicating to the 433 card thru 2.4ghz. Then have the packets routed thru to the 900 mhz card thru the woods and picked up on the AP/server side and delivered to my desktop

Thanks,

Sc

2

You need an antenna on each card to propagate the signal. Antennas don’t just amplify the signal, they allow the wave form to propagate.

3

Thanks a ton. I got around today to getting all the antennas up and connected and the AP sees the 900 client and vice versa now.

Scott

4

2.4GHz and 5GHz can get enough signal to tinker about on a bench without an antenna, though it isn’t really recommended, certainly not on high powered cards.

900MHz can’t see diddley without an antenna.

5

you probably toasted those cards running them without antennas … 600mw without a load of some kind is not a good idea.

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&q=n+male+terminator

6

How would I know/verify if I toasted? I setup a small network and could ping from:

laptop->2.4 card->900 card (client side) through to 900 (AP side) → desktop.

on the 433 card i bridged the wlan1 & wlan2 interface.
on the 411 card i bridged the ether1 & wlan1 interface.

i then decided to put the client side in my truck and go mobile. this included a 900mhz antenna & 2.4 antenna.
also, i put the 6dbi 900mhz omni antenna outside my window for the AP side.
i could only get about 100 yards down the street in my subdivision before i lost connectivity and the pings didn’t get a reply.

Or is this another problem besides the cards being toasted?

7

900 almost always needs an antenna. I would invest in some little rubber ducky type antennas for testing. Either that or the mag mount style. You can get them in 900, 2.4 and 5.8.