Short links, and no stability

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi.
I have small network with RB 433 AH as base (with Atheros AR5413) , and RB 411 (with Sparklan/Gemtec WMIA-166AG AR5414) to station. Link are short, about 1 km, but I have trouble with stability - link work perfect for 3 - 4 days, and suddenly most packets are lost. Sometimes restart mikrotik help, and sometimes not i didn’t see any relationship.

Base work as ap bridge, stations as station pseudobridge. I haven’t knowlege with mikrotik, so i set only basic settings, all routes, qos etc set on linux router. When I look at registration tables links look nice - tx/rx are about 18-36/6-24, but packages are lost. Traffic/packets values are small, about 5 - 6 mbps/2k.

Where I must look for solutions? I have some ideas:

  • trouble with electricity - all routers are connect from poe, ethernet cable are short. In place where base are I have ups, but sometimes i see some rupture.
  • polarization - all anntenas have vertical polarization. I try to save visibility in fresnel zone, but my routers work in hard area, and i cannot check visibility for 100%. Maybe i should change polarization?
  • wireless card - maybe Atheros AR5413 it’s bad choice to base?
  • I don’t use nstreme. Maybe I should?
  • maybe architecture (ap bridge → ap pseudobridge) aren’t proper? maybe I should use wds?

Thanks for any pointers, I didn’t see any slution in documentation :frowning:

2

Here few thing you have to provide..

  1. Is the AP and Station using Mikrotik?
  2. what type of the antenna you using for the AP and Client side?
  3. Frequency of use?

and try to post the snooper result to here, then we discuss with it.

3

yes

Ap use INTERLINE SECTOR HP 5Ghz/17dBi/SLIM, station have Interline panel 17 dbi.

5ghz

Here are screenshot: http://michal.linuxstuff.pl/snooper.png
All stations with “sloneczko” string, is my stations.

4

I fixed the problem with electicity, routers worked good for one day, and now they still loose packages :frowning:. Any ideas? :frowning:

5

It’ seem you place all the channel been use.
Try to apply wds for the link…
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Transparently_Bridge_two_Networks

After that, try to change the antenna from the vertical polarization to Horizontal (you may need buy the horizontal type sectorial.

And, if from the AP to the cpe distance is about <5KM, i would suggest you using 23dbi antenna for cpe.

6

Thx angboontiong for suggestions. I observe, link works better when I set dfs to none. I also set smaller data rates. Now they work almost good (almost creates big diffrences :wink:).

It will be next step. Maybe You know other AP’s (sparklan 7800) works with MT, when I set nstreme? I have fiew sparklan (work in wds), and I want set nstreme on, but I’m afraid, they will not work.

I hope it won’t be necessary :slight_smile:.

7

Now, I have wds with nstreme. Links are stable, but now I have also much higer ping, about 100 - 150 ms. Maybe better card help? Now on ap I use R52 miniPci AR5414, they have only 16 dbm with 48 mbps. I want to try R52H miniPCI High Power (350 mW 19 dbm@54mbps), I hope they help.

8

You are right, the higher tx power may can help you to get more better throughput.
But, if possible, try play around with the polarization.

And, try to set the country to the “Uzbekistan” to the AP and Station.
Beside this, to make use all the frequency in the frequency table, you have to manually key in “5180,5185,5190,5195,5200,5205,5210,5215,5220,5225,5230,5235,5240,5260,5265,5270,5275,5280,5285,5290,5295,5300,5305,5310,5315,5320,5500,5505,5510,5515,5520,5525,5530,5535,5540,5545,5550,5555,5560,5565,5570,5575,5580,5585,5590,5595,5600,5605,5610,5615,5620,5625,5630,5635,5640,5645,5650,5655,5660,5665,5670,5675,5680,5685,5690,5695,5700,5745,5750,5755,5760,5765,5770,5775,5780,5785,5790,5795,5800,5805,5810,5815,5820,5825” into you station scan list table.

This is because by default, the station only will follow the standard scan list to scan, if you copy and paste all the channel listed above (do not include “”) into you station, you will have 5Mhz step channel bandwidth to play around, which mean you will have more available channel.

9

Thank You for help angboontiong.
The point was low quality connectors beetwen routerboard and antena. When I use new high quality connectors, all problem was gone :slight_smile:.