What is RB52?

cmit · April 29, 2005, 10:15pm

Anyone mind to share info? There is a new wireless package to support the “new RB52” - is this a new Atheros based interfaces? Any information from MikroTik?

kujtimhajredini · April 30, 2005, 11:41am

Yes it is a new wireless card Atheros AR5414 chipset that Mikrotik will sell soon.

patrik.backhuvud · May 1, 2005, 10:56pm

Will MT support the “Transmit Power Control” included in this chipset. And if so, how will it work?

normis · May 2, 2005, 6:44am

correctly it is called RouterBOARD R52 and is a wireless interface. more details later

GJS · May 2, 2005, 5:17pm

Is this based on the Ubiquiti SR5 mini-PCI card by any chance? MT is listed as a distributor/partner for this product.

kujtimhajredini · May 3, 2005, 10:19am

no it is a 65 mw card its not based on Ubiquiti

Eugene · May 3, 2005, 2:36pm

It’s not RB52 - it is RouterBOARD R52. Feel the difference

_ASM · May 3, 2005, 6:53pm

manufactured by Mikrotik ?

tully · May 5, 2005, 9:44am

Yes, but you can know that all of our hardware is ‘assembled’ by contract manufacturers as we don’t have board assembly plants. Same situatin for Cisco and most other companies and products now.

John

_ASM · May 5, 2005, 10:26am

I suposed so

phendry · May 9, 2005, 10:59pm

So what’s new and exciting in the Atheros AR5414 chips?

jonbrewer · May 16, 2005, 11:34am

Single chip (MAC and radio) a/b/g card, should be cheaper to manufacture and lower power draw. External PA/LNA possible if you’re designing your own card.

phendry · May 16, 2005, 1:00pm

So with regards performance there is no real advantage?

stephenpatrick · May 16, 2005, 2:47pm

Atheros don’t claim performance improvements that I’ve seen just from their website, I guess a developer has great access.

However, one of the Atheros features that should improve performance is in all their recent radios, “XR” (= eXtended Range).
That works by improving receiver sensitivity beyond the normal threshold limit.

I did campaign to have an XR (on:off) switch in MT, but it’s not there yet …

Regards

phendry · May 16, 2005, 10:25pm

XR has been available since AR5004 and works by reducing the throughput to give better receive sensitivity which doesn’t help large backhauls

stephenpatrick · May 17, 2005, 7:15am

Thanks for that tip -
But it would help a CPE a lot, right?
And possibly a base station in a low-throughput sector where coverage (range) is more important.
I know other users have requested this feature, I wonder how good it is in practice.

Regards

phendry · May 21, 2005, 2:06pm

So there isn’t really anything great about the new chipset then??

I agree that XR would be pretty handy for those customers who would like a low speed link but are just out of range. Does anyone know if there are plans to have it added in a future release?

stephenpatrick · May 21, 2005, 2:10pm

[bump] Just everybody keep asking politely for it …

rickard · May 21, 2005, 2:12pm

Hi all,

Try to lower down the TX power on the Wlan settings it works!
i have a 9 Km link and i get 8 dBi more signal when i put in 21 as a range on the Atheros 5212 card on one of the sides in the PtP link.
and the signals get equal. on the diffrent sides…

stephenpatrick · May 27, 2005, 6:35pm

Anyone want to compare Mikrotik’s Routerboard R52 with the Atheros ref design pictures :
Compare

http://www.atheros.com/pt/images/AR5006XS_minipciboard.gif
with
http://www.mikrotik.com/img/r52_l.jpg

and they look the same - except for the can lid being off - and as you’d expect, the MAC address on the MT one is their own OUI.
It’s a lower chip-count radio so hopefully power/heat dissipation is lower than CM9 etc.

A bit more information on AR5006 is at
http://www.atheros.com/pt/AR5006XS.htm

Will be very interesting testing out these new boards …

Regards