Hello all,
We have 10 radios running routerOS 2.9.26 deployed in the field. Radios are mounted with omnidirectional antennas outdoors with line of sight to each other.
Originally all 10 radios were meshed up and passing traffic for about a week. Now only two or three of them seem able to properly mesh… we get decent signal from some of the other radios but they just won’t fully authenticate.
We had WPA2 security between the radios in AP Bridge mode originally, now we’ve turned that off in an effort to help them connect. Leave them running long enough and one radio will “see” several others, but they never seem to authenticate anymore. Tried switching frequencies a few times to improve the situation.
I realize this isn’t a ton of information to go on. Basically using default rstp configuration and bridging settings, most of these radios are only a few hundred feet apart and have line of sight. We’ll see signal levels of, say, -77db to a radio but it won’t mesh onto the network. ANY help or ideas, however crazy, are appreciated!
Looking through the log, most of the errors seem to be “disconnected, no beacons” or “disconnected, extensive data loss”
On the surface it’d seem like the radios aren’t close enough to get good signal… but this WAS working for a week or two! Then one day they all just slowed down and eventually stopped talking.
If you plug directly into one of the further radios, it can see several neighbors clearly and talk to them, but only in pockets.
Hypothetically:
These are Atheros CM9 cards. I believe they’re rated for 18dBm output.
IF somehow the radios had been set to tx-power=30, what would happen?
Bear in mind this is just hypothetical. 
Could just be some nasty interference too. Have you tried other channels?
And how!
This is in a rural area. There didn’t seem to be much interference on the channel two weeks ago… then it all got worse and worse for a couple of days and we lost most of the links.
Tried changing all the channels and it didn’t change the situation at all.
What is the client connection quality like on the radios? and what are the Tx and Rx signal levels, and SNR levels?
Also I don’t know what the climate is like in your area but have you gotten any rain lately? inproperly weather sealed connections will allow water to seap in causing links to drop.
Is the configuration basically the same for each access point? If so can you post a the configs of one of the units?
Whats the distance like between AP’s? What’s the gain on the Omni’s? Are you using amps?
Setting the Tx-Power to 30 I believe would just make the radio transmit at its highest capable power. I haven’t tried it, but that’s what I’d assume.. Leaving this to its default setting is usually the best.
Also are these all single radio units? and if so does that mean they are all running on the same channels? with the same SSID’s? I’m assuming you’re using WDS..
I’d really need to see the configs and some link quality data to make any kind of suggestion on what needs to be done…
pcooper, you may damage wireless card setting ‘tx-power=30’ and changing ‘tx-power-mode’ from default.