I have a router board 112 running 2.9.42 with a Senao 8602+ 400mW card. I have the n-type pigtails plugged into a 9dB omni antenna.
When I change the TX power setting from 17dBm to 26dBm, I’m not much of a change at all. I have tried it on all the different settings (Card Rates, All rates fixed) and It does not seem to make much difference. I even dropped it to 0 dBm and it dropped my output power on my iStumbler from 58% to 37%.
When I put a 100mW card in the unit, my output power obviously dropped. But it also did not seem to make a difference when changed the TX power rating. I behaved exactly the same as the 400mW card.
Am I missing something? Do I need a driver for these cards? Maybe the generic Atheros driver does not control these cards properly.
if you don’t want to burn the card, use default. the tx-power setting is there only to decrease power, as default will aldeady be running it on maximum (i guess we need to change the name from default to max, to make this clear)
if you have means to check the actual power, and you have found that your card is transmitting at less than 400mW, it just means you have encountered a simple marketing trick (tip: many 400mW cards are not actually 400mW)
P.S.: for this tx power setting to take effect (decrease power!), you have to use the frequency mode “manual txpower”
Now for the $64,000 question:
Will the generic driver that Mikrotik uses for the wlan cards properly see the card? How do I know that the mikrotik is seeing a 400mW card?
You mentioned marketing ploy.. What is the deal with the actual power versis advertised. Is this one of those situations that the card will do 400mW at 30% duty cycle, but will 200mW all day long?