It would be nice to have the ability to adjust an AP receiving signal.
Like in the old CB radio’s. They had a squelch adjustment that allowed you to set the receivers ability to receive different signal strength. That way if you have a weak signal it wont come in. Kind of like a remote AP with a signal of -86 would be rejected but anything
-80 or better would be accepted. This way having the ability to tune out background noise or distance AP/CPE interference.
If I understand what you’re asking for correctly, you can do this now using the access list.
Best regards,
Paul
No, I want the ability to set the receiving threshold (example -88 to -79) at which the radio will ignore signals levels below what I have set. It is basicly like setting the squelch on a 2-way radio so only the strong signals will come in and the weaker ones you dont hear.
and how is that different from what you can use in the access list?
The best thing I can say is go visit a Ham Radio operator and ask him to demonstrate how squelch works. Then maybe you will understand what Im trying to say.
Access list is fine if you want to "Accept or Deny " Access to your AP but it does nothing to adjust the noise level that is in the surrounding area. Squelch will adjust the threshold that a signal has to rise above before it will be heard by the AP.
Example: Our AP is transmitting on ch11 a competitor is 5 miles away transmitting on the same channel. When our AP scans the area it sees the other AP and shows the signal as -80db. Now it we use the “Squelch” control we set it so the radio in our ap does not respond or hear any signals below -79db . This way it effectively doesnt hear any “Noise” below that setting. Basicly I want to be able to adjust the lower end reception of our radio.
I know that there is other things to do such as move to a different freq but that is not always easy in 802.11b/g enviroment.
I have been a ham radio operator for a number of years and the ability to adjust the receivers threshold with “Squelch” control has made receiving communications a lot easer in noisy enviroments.
What you are asking is hardware requirement and I am pretty sure that there is no wifi interface that is able to do it.
Set access list rule that matches MAC 0.0.0.0 and limits lowest client signal level and that is software squelch.
I’m sorry, we don’t have Ham Radio in my part of the world 
But I think Pedja is right
Trango is able to do this with all of their radios (which are based on an 802.11 chipset). They call it a “receive threshold” and you set the RSSI level. Anything higher than your setting is totally ignored by the radio. This helps a great deal in noisy environments.
there is no difference between that and the access list feature. in any case the radio will have to look at the signal and then reject the client. the hardware will anyway have to see the signal before determining whether it’s good or not.
My understanding is the Trango is actually de-tuning the radio itself… thus eliminating all “noise” above the level, not just ignoring it. I could be wrong, but I know it works well.
Yes, that’s how it works with Trango, and it’s noticeably effective.
Alvarion has a similar feature in their outdated BA-II gear where you can set the noise floor. It reduces retransmissions and delays that are caused by weak noise.