I recently acquired a NetMetal AX device with firmware version 7.14.2. As we usually do, we wanted to create a link of at least 40 km. For this, we used to configure all the parameters of the wireless interface from the Wireless menu in Winbox and the corresponding wireless interface wlan1. However, with this new device, the Wireless menu does not appear; we only have the wifi interface, which does not provide the protocols we used, such as NV2 and Nstreme. The interface is also labeled as wifi.
The issue is that we tried to link two NetMetal devices with the same version, entering their corresponding SSID, the same password, and the country frequency, but we are unable to establish a link at that distance of 40 km. We attempted to enable the Wireless menu, but no wireless interface appears—only wifi1 and wifi2 show up. Could you provide guidance on how to resolve this or at least help us understand what might be causing this issue? We would greatly appreciate it.
I am considering doing almost the same thing at the same 40km distance.
For me , I found that with greater than 30km links that only nv2 was stable and that 802.11 would not reliably connect at that distance( using the Wireless config - not WiFi ).
If/when you get your 40km link working using the newer ax WiFi configuration , please post your settings and stability/throughput.
New ax devices require running wifi-qcom driver. While this driver brings better support for ac standard and introduces support for ax standard (not provided by older wireless drivers), it also cones with some drawbacks (or setbacks): it doesn’t support nv2 (and neither nstreme) … and the “bridge” modes are not compatible with devices running the other kind of wifi driver.
question for you ( re the new WiFi configuration ).
I hope this is an easy one for you.
How do you setup a WDS link using the new WiFi configuration so that all MAC address and vlans pass ?
With Wireless WDS , this is/was easy - but I have not tried it on WiFi yet.
This is a hard question for me … because I never used WDS for anything (neither with legacy wireless nor with new wifi). I always used bridge if I needed link between islands of devices (was lucky to always have had MT on both sides).
I read some rumours that even WDS isn’t really universally compatible between different implementations … which made me less willing to try it out.
Well, when setting the correct “distance” in the “wireless” configuration, our 53km link worked OK, but after replacing the hardware with Netbox 5 ax it no longer works because that has a hard limit of 30km it turns out…. bummer!
because that has a hard limit of 30km it turns out…
What!? They should put a giant f*kin’ warning on the box if that’s the case! Seems like MikroTik’s new outdoor wireless products are becoming worse every minute.
According to NetMetal 5 ax product page “It’s important to note that while longer links are feasible, their reliability may vary. Additionally, the distance achievable greatly depends on the antenna selected for use.”. If it’s a hard limit, longer links are not feasible and this is blatant lie.
Well, buried in the descriptive text is says “Two RP-SMA female connectors allow adding an antenna of your choice for distances up to 30 kilometers.”.
This is in the text for all AX devices but it never is a line in the formal specifications, only in the descriptive text. And it is not very obvious because in older products there were statements about realistic distance limits but they were always “soft”, in that longer distances were possible when you wanted to deal with lower speeds or less reliability.
No longer for the AX line! There is a hard limit. It may not be 30.0 km, maybe it is 50 km, but for sure there is a hard limit.