Hi
I used an omni antenna with a certain ap and I decided that is time to use a PC with 2 sectorial antennas! The configuration is: p3@1000Mhz, 2R52, 2 sectors @ 17dBi! I made a bridge between ether1+wlan1+wlan2! The problem is that the ping is very high o alternates 2-8ms with time-outs! I replaced mikrotik with the older AP and everything was right! I don’t know what to do! I noticed that there are some CPE “connected” at -95dB that affects the stability, but in my experience r52 are better than I used before! Should I use powerfull miniPCI to improve the signal strength?
best regards!
With MikroTik, most CPE seem initially to connect at -95 because they are scanning all available frequencies to find what frequency the AP is operating on. Once the CPE finds the AP’s centre frequency the RX power value will usually improve.
If you have CPE connecting at -95 and staying at that level, changing your AP’s wireless card is unlikely to have any effect. The only caveat to that is I had a lot of trouble with Senao 8602 cards when used in a PC chassis, they work fine in RouterBoard hardware. If you have a mixture of chipsets in your CPE you may be hitting the AtherOS reassociate problem reported elsewhere when you have 15 or more CPE.
If your AP is set for 2.4GHz B/G mode, switching to B mode only may help. The problem may be your transmit power or antenna gain at the CPE end or the gain of your AP antennae. Putting in higher gain sector antennae at the AP might help, but don’t forget the higher the gain the smaller the area it will cover. Also putting in a higher gain antenna/wireless at the CPE might help. It really depends on whether you’ve reached the maximum EIRP for your region or you have spare capacity to increase the tx power/gain.