Setup: WISP -to- WiFi (Cross-Band Router)

RouterOS General
1

I have a unique setup that requires a WiFi-to-WiFi cross-band routing (routing from the 2.4 Ghz to the 5 Ghz, not bridging)

For example, imagine a board that has two radios, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. On the 2.4 Ghz you have a WISP/WAN (Wireless ISP, dynamic IP). On the 5Ghz side you have your LAN.

In short, routing between WiFi radios, rather than Wifi-to-Ethernet Interfaces.

If this is possible, does anyone have any suggestions for a low-power / inexpensive MikroTik board that includes two radios with one (or more) discrete antennas for each radio? It’s very impotant the antennas are discrete to each radio (a separate 2.4Ghz vs 5Ghz antenna) because the LAN 5Ghz antenna will be positioned inside while the WAN/WISP 2.4Ghz antenna will be mounted at the exterior.

Thank you in advance for any insight!

2

Router OS doesn’t care what type which interface is when does routing. So it is perfectly and easily doable. You just need whatever device with two radios and license level 4 at least. There are many options to choose so check the product webpage and select the one that will from all other perspectives fit the best.

3

@jarda, this is extremely helpful, thank you!

I did search through MikroTik’s products, but wasn’t able to find dual-radio / antenna boxes with 2.4-Ghz (at least one radio, or both, must be 2.4-Ghz).

It appears the only external antenna options with a 2.4-Ghz radio, are the 2011 UiAS-2HnD (higher-end unit) and Base Box 2.

Unfortunately, neither of these offers a 5-Ghz radio or dual 2.4-Ghz radios attached to separate antennas.

Just to clarify, my goal is to have one antenna mounted exterior, dedicated to one separate radio (and therefore, one named interface on the router). This will route (not bridge) through to an antenna mounted interior on a separate radio / router-interface.

Whether it’s two separate 2.4 Ghz radios each connected to their own antenna (or) one 2.4 and one 5-Ghz radio/antenna, either option would work fine.

Could it be that my only option might be to use two boxes (one bridged and connected by Ethernet to the second)?

Thanks again for the great info. I’ve historically been a Ubiquiti guy but am amped to learn more about RouterOS which is everything I’ve ever wanted in an edge device, from the looks of it so far!

4

Look again at netmetal 5, basebox, RB912, Rb433, RB922, RB953, RB435, Rb493, RB800. These all allow what you need. But. I would suggest to use lhg as a client on your roof and whatever indoor device as router / in house ap. It will be cheaper and easier to build and manage for you.

5

The only problem is that the models you’ve listed don’t offer the 2.4-Ghz band. Remember that is the key requirement: Two radios (or more) each with a separate antenna, one of them has to be on the 2.4 Ghz band.

The two I mentioned (including the Base Box which you mentioned) offer 2.4-Ghz band, but only a single radio.

The external antenna requires connecting to a WISP we do not control and we’re required to use 802.11g on 2.4, meaning that I can’t make use of the IHG either.

After reviewing everything you’ve sent, it looks like MikroTik doesn’t offer a box that will work for me, with:

  • Two (or more) radios
  • At least one of them being 2.4-Ghz
  • External Antenna Ports (allowing one connection routed to the exterior antenna)

…OR… Can RouterOS do routing between VLAN’s or separate SSID’s? If so, perhaps I do not need a second radio. I could use a single radio, one antenna indoors, one outdoors, and create two SSID’s – one for the WISP and one for the internal network, as long as RouterOS would support routing between VLAN/SSID’s rather than physical Interfaces?

…IF… Routing between SSID’s is not possible and I’m not missing anything, it sounds like my only option would be two devices to accomplish this, for example:

  • SXT G-2HnD CPE – Exterior Antenna (bridged WISP-to-Ethernet)
  • Some inexpensive device, hAP possibly?
6

They do. Or they have free slots where you can put the required WiFi card so they all fulfil your needs. If you connect out over 2.4g, use Sxt lite 2 as client.
Ros can route between vlans. Don’t use single radio for multiple purposes.

7

@jarda, this is super helpful.
But trust me, I went through every single smallish device (RouterBoard OR integrated device) and not one of them matches the criteria I’ve mentioned, not even if I were to add a second radio with MiniPCI. The reason appears that the MiniPCI expansions are not an RouterBoards with a radio already built-in. The ones without MiniPCI’s don’t meet the criteria I mentioned above (2+ radios, 1+ of them on 2.4Ghz, External Antennas).

So I’m out of luck on any MikroTik device that can do this in a single device, unless it may be that some of the models that don’t offer external antennas actually have ports internally that I could pop-open the case to use, in that case I’d be fine. But I can’t find any info on whether those devices (eg hAP) might have hidden antenna ports.

Either way …
It sounds like you’re agreeing, it’s a bad idea to setup multiple VAP’s on a single radio and route between them. I didn’t want to do this for several reasons; one, the RF side is not as good being that the radio is pulling competing signals. More importantly, using a single radio would theoretically halve the bandwidth a bit like a one-radio bridge/repeater.

Therefore, it sounds like I have two options (1) find a MikroTik router that offers two bands (2.4 and 5Ghz) and open the box to find a way to connect, or solder on, external antennas …or… (2) use a 2-part system, the external antenna would have a built-in RouterBoard, although I’d simply use run it bridged. The internal AP would handle routing and the 5-Ghz AP away from the 2.4-Ghz CPE/WISP device.

The SXT you mentioned is the “Lite” which is a 10 dBi and 500mw transmit. The one I had mentioned, the SXT G-2HnD uses the same 10 dBi with a 1,600mw version (that I’m theoretically limited to 1,000mw). Do you feel there are benefits to the “lite” version or that the 1,600mw version is overkill because the transmit outweighs the RX sensitivity of this unit?

On top of the SXT, I suppose I’d run something like the

8

I was writing from mobile over tapatalk, so therefore it was so short, just trying point you to the right direction. I will try to explain it more in details now.

First, what I uderstood. You have connection to your ISP over 2.4 G wifi and you want to route with nat into at least two internal networks - one for your personal usage and one for the guests. There were no performance requirements so I will not care about the speed of individual devices under different configurations. You mentioned that 5G as ap could be helpful too.

So, general advice: Use two devices, one as client to your ISP (ideally in bridging mode to transparently transfer “public” or “outer” ip to the port of your internal router) and one as internal router.

The selection of the client depends on the distance you need to reach and on the shape and alignment of the opposite side (AP of the ISP). This is nothing I can presume, how it looks and where it is. But, if it is within let say 2km and with free fresnel zone, the SXT lite2 should be really enough. If not, think about RB411 together with 2,4G wifi card in some outdoor box and with parabolic antenna attached to it. Then you can reach tens of kilometers… Comparing SXT2 with SXTLite2 reuslts only in the TX power difference. You need to calculate with the opposite side whether it differs, but note that you still have 10dbi antenna, while when using a dish you can have 24dbi, it mens not only 5dbm difference when transmitting, but 14db differnece both when transmitting and receiving. But still think that simplicity matters and check some web wifi calculator or consult your ISP what client will be good for you according to your local conditions.

The selection of the inhouse router depends on other things and “outer” antennas are really not so much important. Actually, you do not need them at all, because integrated antennas together with quite selective wifi chips have enough good transmit and receiving parameters to “cover” a house or a flat. So you should think about other things - will you utilize two radios to attach newer devices over 5g ac wifi while the older over 2.4G n wifi? If yes, hAP ac should be your choice. Will you need many cable ports instead? select such device. and so on.

Thinking about personal and guest wifi is not matter of many radios, but is matter of virtual APs, each to be part of different vlan/bridge. Actually, you do not need any vlans, you can use bridges as long as you stay with only one ap/router. Vlan will be needed when you decide to add secondary AP to cover some gray places in your house or around, where the signal does not pass through many walls.

Do not insist on external antennas, believe me, you do not need them. Better two access points over your flat connected by wire in between with internal antennas than one device in the middle with huge sticks catching mostly noise from all around. Especially when you do not have any performance requirements, try the hap lite as the first router to see how it works and how it behaves and when you see it is underpowered for you, move it on the side as secondary AP and buy faster or mor powerful router/ap as your main. You will learn a lot and will not spend a dollar uselessly.

If you stay on external antennas, look at those boards like RB433. You can put them in a box, add wifi cards you want, put pigtail with sma connector on the side of the box and mount external antenna to it as you wish. Everything with mikrotik standard things, no need any modding, welding, nothing strange with uncertain result or side effects.

9

@jarda,
Thank you again for the excellent info.

I think somewhere there was a miscommunication, I’m not stuck on using exterior antennas and I don’t need three networks (or a public+guest network).

I’ve always been a Ubiquiti guy and I’ve used ER-8’s anywhere I need an edge router (for 2m pps, it’s tough to beat that price, lol). This application is different; I don’t need performance any only need long range + simplicity. This is the reason I was trying to do this with a single box. We have a couple dozen remote workers who will be pointing a directional 2.4 Ghz antenna to a WISP from a long distance in the evening.

In short, the requirements are much simpler:
A lightweight router/CPU is fine; however, high-gain, high-sensitivity radios -and- ability to route (not bridge) the Long-Range-WISP to the Low-Power-Nearby-WiFi, are the only requirements. There is no requirement of external antennas --BUT-- the idea was that if they only have --ONE-- single WiFi-box with a couple antennas, it’s much more portable and easy to setup or maintain.

In short, I need two radios. The WISP requires long range 2.4 Ghz. The interior can be anything, 40mw and no antenna gain would be fine, we’re talking about 10 ft (3 meters) coverage.

I like your idea of the RB433, but it’s probably more efficient to solder-in antennas on a dual-band hAP w/L4, which is already perfect for our needs (except that it’s missing the external antennas).

That’s the point I’ve reached after learning so much from you. However, I don’t know whether that’s possible. Whether it may be that there is no efficient way to solder-in antenna ports, I’m not sure?

If antenna ports can’t be soldered to the hAP board, the SXT + hAP is the next best option.

Thank you again, very much, for walking me through this in such great depth, I’m learning a ton about MikroTik and the product line, thanks entirely to you.

EDIT:
I was able to find a photo of the circuit board for the dual-band hAP AC. This appears to have two antenna pigtails I can easily solder to, plus four internal antennas.

If I were to use an RF ELEMENTS StationBox XL ( detials: https://www.rfelements.com/assets/Uploads/Datasheet-StationBox-XL.pdf )

I could get something similar to an SXT however, unlike the SXT, I’d have the second 5-Ghz antenna port that I could use for the interior AP, while the 2.4Ghz radio is dedicated to the StationBox XL.

The only issue is that I’d have to be sure RouterOS allows me to disable antennas selectively, allowing me to disable the four extra internal antennas which would otherwise worsen the SNR.

Any thought on this idea?

10

Ros allows you to disable each individual chain separately and you can even select one chain for tx only and second for rx only if you wish. There are boxes with integrated antennas like this one for example http://en.jirous.com/antenna-2,4ghz/ja-215mimo that you can use to house Rb433 and put there also a 5g small antenna for local ap. Everything in one box as you need…
Maybe 433 can be a bit long, 411ar will do the job as well.